Chicago on the Potomac; Update: Daley announcement imminent
1/5 update As anticipated, a WH announcement on Daley’s chief-of-staff appointment is imminent, according to wire reports breaking this morning. On Fox & Friends, I discussed my column on Daley — and reacted to Karl Rove’s assertion that Daley is a “centrist” here.
Update II: White House just announced that they’ll formally unveil Daley Machine Takeover at 2:30pm Eastern.
Update III: As expected, Daley’s friends at the US Chamber of Commerce are “hailing” his pick. See more on Daley/US Chamber below.
Photoshop credit: No Sheeples Here
Chicago on the Potomac
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
No matter how you rearrange President Obama’s inner circle, it still looks, smells and tastes like a rotten Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Ready for the latest topping on this moldy old pie? It’s a possible chief of staff slot for Wall Street banker/lawyer/wheeler-dealer William Daley, brother of outgoing Chicago mayor/machine politics mastermind Richard M. Daley (also the former boss of White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and first lady Michelle Obama), whose retirement paved the way for former Obama chief of staff and Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel. Phew.
The White House is reportedly looking to manufacture a “pro-business” aura with Bill Daley, who holds a “corporate responsibility” executive office at J.P. Morgan and once headed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (clarification: Daley is a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce)– the latter, a left-wing hate object and Obama punching bag leading up to the midterms.
But the Beltway-based Chamber of Commerce is too often a fair-weather statist lobbying organization. It supported the TARP all-purpose bailout, the auto bailout and the bottomless, pork-filled stimulus package, all of which have forcibly redistributed money from taxpayers and small businesses to politically connected special interests (including Daley’s J.P. Morgan, which was most recently swept up in a massive pay-to-play bond scheme in Alabama).
Daley has about as much real experience creating jobs as Da Boss now sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave — which is to say, less than a thimble full. (It’s a New Year. I’m being generous.) In 2009, the head of Chicago’s sanitation department implicated Daley in a hiring corruption scheme tied to his brother’s mayoral administration. The official was convicted; Daley shrugged off the federal probe. “Even if it happened — and I’m not saying it did — things were different. There was nothing illegal about that stuff.”
Instead of distancing himself from the favor-trading Wall Street fat cats who have earned the ire of both anti-bailout tea party activists and anti-corporate liberals, Obama remains wedded, embedded and indebted to the worst kind.
Daley has served on the board of government-sponsored financial behemoth Fannie Mae since 1993. Like the Richard Daley machine in Chicago, Fannie Mae in Washington has served as an industrial-sized patronage factory — sharing profits with political allies, spreading taxpayer funds to ethnic groups, and doling out jobs to left-wing academics, Washington has-beens and back-scratching buddies. Like Daley. And close Obama adviser Jim Johnson, the Fannie Mae exec who got sweetheart loans from shady subprime lender Countrywide.
While they raked in six-figure salaries, Fannie Mae and government-sponsored sibling Freddie Mac engaged in Enron-style accounting, plunged into debt and helped usher in the subprime housing meltdown through reckless lending practices.
Bill Clinton, the man who appointed Daley to the Fannie Mae board, also appointed Emanuel to the Freddie Mac board of directors at a time when its oversight manager called the quasi-governmental agency “so pliant” that it enabled rampant book-cooking. Freddie Mac’s stock skyrocketed; its CEOs helped themselves to massive bonuses. Emanuel’s hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, exposed how Emanuel’s “profitable stint” during this corruption-plagued period entailed almost no work:
“The board met no more than six times a year. Unlike most fellow directors, Emanuel was not assigned to any of the board’s working committees, according to company proxy statements. Immediately upon joining the board, Emanuel and other new directors qualified for $380,000 in stock and options plus a $20,000 annual fee, records indicate.”
On Emanuel’s watch, executives told the board of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass.
And now the torch may be passed in an endless Windy City circle, from Daley to Emanuel, from Emanuel to Daley, with Obama supplying the lighter.
And ’round and ’round it goes in Chicago on the Potomac. Remember: When Crony State corruptocrats brag about “job creation,” the only jobs they’ve ever created are each other’s.
***
Like I always say: You can take Obama out of Chicago. But you can’t take the Chicago out of Obama.
The Chicago Tribune’s indefatigable chronicler of corruption John Kass is having a field day with the William Daley trial balloon:
The Emanuel appointment was the first honest indicator that the Obama White House had a new Washington address:
1600 Chicago Way.
And a Daley appointment will punctuate that. For all the blah-blah-blah about Billy Daley bringing Obama to the center, there’s one thing the analysts forget.
To the Daleys, the political center is Chicago, their ancestral land.
So Billy goes out to Washington to run Barack’s government, and Rahm — the guy Billy’s been supporting for mayor — slides in to run Chicago for Billy’s brother, Mayor Richard Daley.
I asked a Chicago alderman about this when I bumped into him on Tuesday.
“I was talking to my wife about it, and we were saying, is this some kind of plan?” said the alderman. “Rahm runs the city. Billy runs the White House. I mean, really.”
Don’t get upset about it. And stop with the cynicism. The last thing we need is another trip to Negativity Land. Instead, let’s just trim some more tender Hopium leaves from that Happy Obama Chia head green-fro and light up.
Tamp down that bowl. A Daley from Chicago fixing “the broken politics of the past” in the reform Obama White House?
Awesome, dude.
“Bill is a friend of mine,” Emanuel told reporters at City Hall on Tuesday. “We worked together when I was in President Clinton’s White House. … He remains a good friend of mine, and he’s quite capable.”
Clearly. And if it was fitting to have Daley machine guys running Obama’s Chicago Way White House, isn’t it even more fitting to have a real, honest-to-goodness Daley in there running things?
Still, we shouldn’t stop with just one Daley. Rich will need a job, too. He can’t spend all his time on corporate boards or at Grand Beach on the phone with Rahm, telling him what to do.
How about Richard Daley, attorney general?
***
Daley machine flashback: The Chicago way: “Why are we having a fire sale on everything in the city?”
Chicago crony flashback: The resurrection of Rod Blagojevich
Chicago crony flashback: No shady banking buddy left behind
Chicago crony flashback: Corporate shills for hope and change
Chicago crony flashback: Michelle Obama: “Private” citizen with piles of public perks
Chicago crony flashback: The shady Shorebank bailout
Chicago crony flashback: Chicago shuffle in the East Wing: Meet Mrs. O’s high-powered, Soros-friendly bundler-turned-chief of staff
Chicago crony flashback: No peace in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens: What Obama and Jarrett left behind
Daley machine flashback: How do you spell wealth redistribution? Tax-increment financing
Chicago crony flashback: Gibbs on Chicago Olympics Crony bid: “Tangible economic benefits;” Jarrett seeking federal HUD funds
Chicago crony flashback: An illustrated guide: All the president’s Olympic cronies
Chicago crony flashback: Olympic-sized boondoggle: What Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama are up to
Chicago crony flashback: What the NYT’s 8,100-word Valerie Jarrett profile didn’t tell you
Chicago crony flashback: Axelrod’s profits: Uh, who’s on the take from the drug lobby again?!?!
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Welcome back to the Front, Michelle. You hit the ground running after your few days off. And there’s a lot of work to be done.
***
Comrade Obama’s Regime is like an overflowing toilet bowl–every time they stir it another piece of corrupt incompetent C**P floats up to the top and runs out on the floor–and into our government.
***
Maybe they can dig up Al Capone to be their enforcer. More Daley family members fit right in.
***
John Bibb
***
I didn’t see Bo, the First Dog deboarding Air Force One with the rest of the family. Did he jet ahead in his own private ride?
Mr. President, I hope you had a wonderful, pineapple-filled vacation. Now, of course, it is time to get back to the endless condemnation of everyone who doesn’t agree with you, combined with those famous sarcastic chuckles and the ever-present “I’m surrounded by idiots” attitude that continues to inspire us all at the polls.
Borrowing from Winston Churchill, an empty limousine pulled up in front of the White House and then Obama got out.
Excellent column Michelle.
prendad … unless things have changed drastically since my military years in the islands all pets are quarantined upon entering Hawaii … I would say there was a good chance that the pets did not make the trip …
Michelle … great piece … where is our Eliot Ness? … Al Capone had nothing on the corruptocrats that still run Chicago and are now running the White House …
We can use Lake Michigan to flush Chicago down the drain.
Many of his appointments aren’t even qualified to be washroom attendants.
Chicago/DC: corruption on steroids. It’s a DNC thing I suppose.
#6 Said
That would cause one massive fish kill.
But on the other hand, better to kill some fish than our Country. Who wants to be in line to pull the chain on the flapper?
Chicago is the center of communist infiltration in this country, we’d be better off without it.
So many corrupt, criminal America-destroyers.
So few jail cells….
They can’t come by it naturally so they only can play “Make believe”. They all need to die! Die! Die! With festering volcanic pustules die! Other than that I have no strong feelings.
How libs can continue to deny (with a straight face no less) all the corruption within the Obama regime is beyond me.
Frank Marshall Davis left Chicago when it was still uncool to be a communist. In Hawaii he became young Barry’s mentor in Marxism.
If Mohammad can’t come to the mountain bring the mountain to Mohammad.
I actually flipped over to MSNBC last night and heard Keith Olbermann ranting about the unsavory Wall Street connections of the Obama administration…incredible. Obama disiple “Go Tell It On The Mountain”
O/T just a little bit has anyone noticed since Issa is front and center in the news the Obots have returned?
They have on this thread, smearing Issa, and spelling his name wrong – his name is Darrell not Daryl.
Michelle, thanks…I can see what I will be doing today (reading this column).
The Obama’s just spent over 1.5 million dollars of our taxpayer money to fly to Hawaii for “shaved ice,” formerly known as snow cones (crushed ice with food-colored sugar syrup: a staple for Michelle Obama’s health diet plans for the nation). We all know Obammy needed lots of rest to recover from destroying the nation’s economy.
Keith Olbermann mentioned the Obama administration’s connection to JPMorgan Chase by name last night. Does that mean even MSNBC isn’t going to play pretend anymore?
I see that Gibbs is stepping down next month. It makes me wonder what Chicago Crony he is making room for?
My husband said they need someone more glib who can put the fight to the Tea Party Congresspeople. In other words, Gibbs is a talking moron and everyone knows it. They will get some slick willie in there who can spin a story like no one else. They are gearing up for the big fight and they aren’t about to give in on anything! This is where everything hits the fan. Are we ready for it?
Truesoldier said:
I have heard that Rosie O’Donnell is in the running.
Harry S. Truman could not be the Presidential nominee of today’s
Democrat[ic Socialist Communist] Party.
A mere 55 years after Truman spoke those words, his party is actively looking to destroy the moral and spiritual foundation of this country, attempting to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” into a country with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state.
And helping lead the way is the ACLU, a Communist originization from its founding…
The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage
Communist American citizens are sleezeballs. There is no question of that. Yet, thanks to our CONSITITUTION, they have the right to freedom of speech and freedom to gather. That is quite a paradox. So, the communists would gladly trash our Constitution…yet that would also trash their freedom to speak and gather together. Hmmmmm….what is wrong with this picture? For those morons who don’t think the Constitution is important, or that it is outdated, let them live without it. Tell them what they can and can’t say. Tell them where they can gather with their groups. Arrest them and hold them without reason. Enter their homes without a warrent. Yeah, that doggone old Constitution needs to be thrown in the trash. Who needs it?
/sarc.off
I thought that Gibbs was here alter ego….
Truesoldier said:
I looked at some Gibbs/Rosie pics side by side and holy hell, there is an eerie resemblance – I hope I do not go blind now.
It should be like shooting fish in a barrel to get these turds in jail. But I’m not holding my breath.
On January 5th, 2011 at 10:15 am, Laree said:
In my opinion, it appears that both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are run by very evil people.
I believe Treasury Secretary Paulson was a Goldman Sachs Trojan Horse in the Bush Administration.
Remember how Paulson helped put Bear Sterns out of business and gave the spoils to JPMorgan Chase at a firesale price?
(HotAir post here, my comments on it begin here)
Why were Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers made to close their doors, while the Government “bailed out”, and gave spoils to, their favored competitors?
Ever since the Democrat[ic Socialist Communist]s took control of the Senate (and its power to confirm nominees) in 2006, there has been a huge power transformation going on… Treasury Secretary Snow was forced out, and was replaced with the Trojan Horse Paulson.
Paulson gave more power to the Federal Reserve, picked winners and losers in the financial markets, and told the “chicken little” story that led to the TRAP that is known as TARP.
By the way, Bush got all the blame for TARP, but Obama got half the money, and deserves half the blame.
That depends on whether or not you had “impure thoughts” of either one….
***
Beltway Bob needs a suitable replacement. Fortunately a lot of good choices exist. Chrissy Matthews or Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow would fit right in.
***
Or–the Comrade Obama regime could go for the gold and put in Baghdad Bob. I loved his press releases on how well Saddam’s military was doing in the early days of the war. Then a whining sound followed by a loud nearby explosion. With all ducking and plaster dust sifting down as the chandeliers swung wildly.
***
Incoming, Comrade!
***
John Bibb
***
People need to understand the Daley family. They are the Chicago version of the Kennedys. Da Mayor grew up as the leader of the Irish Athletic Club in Bridgeport on the south side of Chicago. He realized that politics offered protection for gang activities and through extortion and violence eventually took over the city as mayor. He brought his two gang cohorts with him as Chief of Police and Fire Chief.
They brought their extortion rackets with them. They took over the unions and extorted business forcing them to hire their unions. They created patronage jobs, and rather than work the jobs, the patronage workers were instead required to get their quota of votes in precincts. Usually the minimum was 60 percent. Kennedy was elected in 1960 because of the Daley “machine”. They were the prototype for ACORN.
It costs police “recruits” and fire “recruits” 10 grand to get selected to the police and fire departments. The Chicago police force is the most corrupt police force in the nation. Living on the south side I knew high school kids who stole cars for the Bridgeport police. The police then stripped the cars and called the owners telling them they found their cars all stripped. Remember the 1968 Democratic convention? It was these Bridgeport police who were told by Daley to walk through Grant Park at 6 AM, bashing the heads of all war protestors their LEGALLY. Don’t want a police state. Don’t support Daley. The Viet Nam war was started by Kennedy by the way. And the protest was embarrassing Daley.
The population of Chicago has fallen by 1 million people over the past 40 years. But little has changed in Chicago. The corruption remains, the unions, the gangs, and the Daleys. Obama learned from the Daleys, joining the Daley gang who merged with black gangs and the Chicago mafia in the ’60s. He is a made man, and was tasked with spreading the gang mentality to DC since they have heisted everything they could find in Chicago.
A Daley coming to Chicago is the gang checking up on Obama. No doubt he has been slipping up and they need to set him straight. Watch a strengthening of unions, increased violence and a coordination of the gangs nationwide. and even worldwide The real revolution is about to begin.
The democrat party of Harry Truman and John F Kennedy is so over you can’t even see it in the rearview mirror. John F Kennedy was a true war hero who also recognized that government wasn’t the end all, be all of the country. John F Kerry is what we have now, a fraud warrior who made his career on lying about our military. Harry S Truman wouldn’t be allowed in todays democrat party. He integrated the military at a time when the Democrat party was occupied by Klan members and segregationist.
The best way I can describe D.C. under the Chicago mob comes from the movie The Untouchables:
This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.
How about Alec Baldwin? He is an ultra partisan wacko actor that could spin a good story and lie on cue. He wants to get into politics, this could be his entry.
However, it might be a problem when he froths at the mouth channeling Olberdork with outrageous narcissistic opinions about made up fairy tales. Baldwin could then scheme to make a power play for Biden’s half of the ticket in 2012…….
Nah, Harry Reid assured us that odor is from the tourists.
Chicago is the indian name for place that smells bad. Too bad there wasn’t a stronger descriptive word for it.
Sewerville
Stenchville
Do Michaele and Tareq Salahi get named to the inner circle this time? Did they write a large enough check?
Groundhog Day 2011
This coming year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day.
Its an ironic juxtaposition of events;
One event involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of limited intelligence for prognostication…while the other event involves a groundhog.
___‹^›__‹(•¿•)›__‹^›___
Gangster Daley will fit in perfectly with the other maoists, communists, socialists, marxists, and fascists who are part of the current regime. This media-assisted coup ends in Nov 2012.
To be honest, Bill Daley is one very smart fellow; why Obama didn’t have him at the start is a mystery. I suspect Daley didn’t like the arrogant kid; it’s simply not his style.
Now the kid needs help and I suspect Daley is a good guy to call in. He’s one of the few guys who can say, “You don’t impress me; if you want help, shut-up and sit down”.
Daley is possibly the smartest guy in this administration (that includes Obama).
How Chicago earned its nickname “The Windy City”. Hint: it has nothing to do with the weather.
How Chicago earned its nickname “The Windy City”. Hint: it has nothing to do with the weather. Some things never change.
I have no idea how that happened.
Yes. Daley is a centrist in the same way Kruschchev was a centrist when compared to Stalin.
When corrupt Bush RINOs like Rove use words like “centrist”, they mean it in the same spirit that they use “moderate” which as we know means “left-wing liberal”. The further you move to the left of the political spectrum, the more “moderate” you are. The ultimate “moderate” was Chairman Mao.
You never cease to amaze me at the range of facts and names and associations you have at the tip of your tongue when doing an interview…
I knew where I saw that photo before. He’s the spitting image of the little doorman at the Baldheaded Bistro in Cleveland, Tennessee. Hey Arnold!
As I said before — Chicago politics: the complexity of quantum mechanics and the attractiveness of raw sewage.
Really. They are consistent though. If you take a standard fixed scale and overlay it with a stretchable transparency film, then stretch it only from the center line radically left, you would illustrate how RINOS view the world. Their world appears to stay consistent but ours is the one that has seemingly careened to the right.
We maintain our fixed moral/Constitutional position, while unmoored, they drift with the Left. To the impartial observer:
…………L……C……R now becomes
(L)…..(C)…..C……R with the Left and RINOs moving more left. With Constitutionalists as their only frame of reference, we appear to move away from them, not the reverse – thus their horror at the rise of the Tea Party and its allies.
But the standard is whatever they say it is of course.
Maybe Rahm can rent Daley’s house.
FoxNews calling Daley an “outsider”. What a joke.
And as to the noise about Daley’s intelligence. He flunked a real estate exam 3 times and also flunked an insurance broker exam. That did not stop his Father from funneling Chicago real estate deals his way.
Hmmmph….
Crony Obama buddy
Wall Street Crony
Chicago Crony
Fannie / Freddie LOBBYIST
Wants to FORCE electric car purchases
AND, his name is Daley
….
What could go wrong?
The behaviour of politicians reminds me of real-life scenarios of the past where a house of frat boys trick a couple of beautiful women to attend a party, during which a frenzy ensues and each frat member takes turns having their way with the two ladies.
Overwhelmed by their predicament, the ladies unwilling endure the gang rape because they feel overwhelmed and just hope if they coopearte, they will be able to make it out alive and be able to recover sometime soon down the road.
Of course Karl Rove thinks Daley is a centrist, he thinks he’s a conservative…..
More news on centrist Obama, Daley, and all that. This is what the National Review, and so much of beltway conservatism, has become. It may be impossible to parody. This is what we call a fool.