What's the stupidest thing Daley has ever said?

Chicago Tribune ^ | 22 may 10 | John Kass

[rellimpank]

One of the great debates in American politics can be summed up with this question:

What's the stupidest thing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has ever said?

One of my all-time favorites is when he threatened to take his pants off to prove his political loyalty to a Democrat he betrayed. But that's just my opinion. You've got your opinion. So why not put it to a vote?

The other day, Chicago Reader reporter Mick Dumke dared ask the mayor why Daley felt the city's handgun ban was effective, what with so many shootings and murders in Chicago. Daley picked up a rifle, and said:

"If I put this up your butt, you'll find out how effective it is. Let me put a round up your, you know."

We've put together a sampling of Stupid Daleyisms over his 20-year career as mayor, controlling the city with his wrought-iron fist.

[rellimpank]

--Hizzoner the Mayor---

[pepsionice]

Actually...I think he was doped up. Look at the clips of the event...and he has this funny look on his face. It’s either legal or illegal stuff...but I think he was fairly doped up.

[verga]

How the HE** does the land of Lincoln elect the likes of the Daley DyNASTY and Obozo. Did they put something in the water?

[scottinoc]

He must be a republican. Republicans are inherently dumb, while Democrats are inherently smart. I know this, I read the New York Times every day (/mindnumbedliberal)

[Slehn]

Urban dwellers. They’re idiots. The median urban dweller would rather listen to gangsta rap than a meaningful discussion of issues. The American electorate is well and truly dumbed down.

[ETL]

Mayor Daley defends Obama, vouching for William Ayers
By Lynn Sweet on April 18, 2008

"STATEMENT OF MAYOR RICHARD M. DALEY REGARDING SENATOR BARACK OBAMA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH BILL AYERS:

There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Senator Obama’s opponents are playing guilt-by-association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers.

I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally-recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.

I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles."

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/04/mayor_daley_defends_obama_vouc.html
______________________________________________

From Investor's Business Daily (IBD), August 27, 2008:

"Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called 'Improving Learning Environments' says prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.'..."

Article: Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304729375940845
______________________________________________

REVOLUTION: Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [Maoist]
[Revolution] Interview with Bill Ayers, Revolution #63, October 1, 2006:
"On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times"
http://rwor.org/a/063/ayers-en.html

'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/

"So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? 'I don’t want to discount the possibility',he said."
New York Times, September 11, 2001:
"No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[mlizzy]

Good article! (ty) Kass is one of our favorites ...

[Eepsy]

“Airport? What airport? There was an airport here?”
/s

[chainsaw]

Daley is a closet racist. Chicago has a large black population, and his object is to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding black citizens. He would rather see then killed then allow all the citizens of Chicago the means to defend themselves.

[DrC]

“Good article! (ty) Kass is one of our favorites ...”

Kass is a national treasure: I’ve learned so much about the Chicago Way from him (and our president’s years of marination in this filth). So I’m astonished that Daley’s support of Obama didn’t get included in his Top 20 Stupidest Remarks list.

When Obama gets dumped in 2012, I can’t wait to hear the historical revisionism among his former supporters about how they knew the guy was a slimeball from the get-go etc.

[maine yankee]

His dad had the best line ever;

“VOTE EARLY. VOTE OFTEN.”

[johnandrhonda]

His wife is dying from Cancer. If not medicated, he is certainly stressed out.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Here's the kind of stupid stuff you get, when you vote in a stupid Dem mayor, for life, Richard Daley of Al Capone Land ---- oh, I mean Chicago:

From the Chicago Tribune:

"We set up an online poll so you can cast your ballot for the stupidest thing the mayor has ever said. The full list would easily take up four volumes. But we've trimmed it down. Voting began at noon Friday and will last until Monday at 1 p.m.

Some of the all-time hits were cut for space, like the time Daley told public housing residents to take only one shower a day to save on water bills.

But we did leave in my favorite: the time he threatened to remove his undershorts. I know. It's scary. At a news conference last week, Chicago Reader reporter Mick Dumke dared ask the mayor why Daley felt the city's handgun ban was effective, what with so many shootings and murders in Chicago. Daley picked up a rifle and said:

"If I put this up your butt, you'll find out how effective it is. Let me put a round up your, you know."

Whoa, Nellie!

When reporters on Friday reminded him that the rifle was equipped with a bayonet, and that it's not proper to stick bayonets into the cabooses of reporters, Daley said:

"Well, you stick it anyplace. It's a bayonet, so let's not make trivia about this."

Say what?

Sadly, the bayonet remarks were uttered after the Tribune poll went online. Still, we have plenty of other Stupid Daleyisms for your perusal.

Perhaps the City Council will issue a flowery resolution for the winner, such as, "Whereas the comment by Mayor Richard Daley about having his shorts scrootened by the media is indeed the stupidest thing he's ever said …"

Since it's an Internet vote based in Chicago, vote early and often, even if you're dead."

Which is your favorite?

Mayor Richard Daley has said some pretty outrageous things. Which quote stands out most to you?

◦ On the gun ban: "If I put this up your butt, you'll find out how effective it is. Let me put a round up your, you know."

◦ On health crackdown: "If a rat is on your sandwich, you hope to know it before. If a mouse is on your salad, it's common sense."

◦ On the casual look: "If somebody takes their tie off, I'm not going to take my tie off. If somebody takes their pants off, I'm not going to take my pants off."

◦ On Hartigan losing gubernatorial nominee: "I supported him. I raised money for him. What else do you want me to do? Take my pants off?"

◦ On his brother dropping a bid for governor: "Scrutiny? What else do you want? Do you want to take my shorts? Give me a break...Go scrutinize yourself! I get scrootened every day, don't worry, from each and every one of you. It doesn't bother me."

◦ On friends winning contracts: "Wha! Wha Wha! Wha! Wha! Wha!"

◦ On state funding, but misspelling a key word: "The state of Illinois funds those centers. We did not cut. They have cut state mental health facilities all over the state. That is state money. Underline that. S-A-T-E money. It's called state money ..."

◦ On Disney World having a no-fly zone: "Now, think of that; Mickey and Minnie have it. I mean, I can't believe that. They get it first before we get it?"

◦ On civil libertarians complaining about police harassment: "It's just a group of people, yuppies and yippies and hoppies or whatever they call them, I don't know. Who are they? Are they worried about the moon coming out or something? The sun is changing and I don't know. This is unbelievable

◦ On railroad safety: "They have a responsibility, they can't get away with it. I mean, they stole the land from the Indians. They took all that land. They got it free from us."

◦ On capital punishment: "I'm pro death! I'm a death-penalty opponent!"

◦ On sexy music videos: "Sometimes the music jumps down from the television and sits right next to you at the bar."

◦ On a City Hall crime package's defeat: "Well, you just pick up your face, and you keep on walking."

◦ On Alderman Patrick Huels' resignation: "It's a wake-up call, I said to me."

◦ On the airport toilet seat cover contract: "Toilet seats are good."

[mlizzy]

Kass is a national treasure: I’ve learned so much about the Chicago Way from him (and our president’s years of marination in this filth). So I’m astonished that Daley’s support of Obama didn’t get included in his Top 20 Stupidest Remarks list.

Did you happen to read Kass' article he posted right after the inauguration of Obama? Kass was in attendance, and the piece he wrote was among the most sugary slop out there. I was stunned! Later on down the road, Kass apologized for it, but I've been unable to find the original article.

[DrC]

“the piece he wrote was among the most sugary slop out there.”

I forget when Kass first emerged on my radar: I’m pretty sure it was before election day and it was chock full of eye-opening stuff about how Chicago politics really worked, Obama’s role in stacking the health facilities board, his relationship with Rezko etc. So if he later wrote a puff piece, I sure missed it, and it sounds wholely out of character. Are you sure it really was by him? Seems odd you can’t now locate it etc.

[mlizzy]

So if he later wrote a puff piece, I sure missed it, and it sounds wholely out of character. Are you sure it really was by him? Seems odd you can’t now locate it etc. President Barack Obama faced straight into a hard sun, raised his right hand, took the oath of office just a few feet from where I was sitting, and then he turned and began to deliver his amazing, beautiful inaugural address.

I found it through our library's archives!

Obama spoke with words worthy of our nation
Chicago Tribune [IL] - Wednesday, January 21, 2009

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics," our new president said. "We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to put aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history."

That's when I felt that tingle in my leg.

Actually, it was my right foot tingling, not my left, and not throbbing from liberal giddiness, but because my foot was frozen. It was so cold Tuesday that my toes curled in my black oxfords like boxed shrimp in your grocer's freezer.

Yet as I listened to him, my foot got warmer, and so help me, so did the rest of me. So go ahead, accuse me of being a Hopium Eater, but it was one heck of a speech. It was clear, a thoughtful man talking, a man hoping to unite his country even as he could feel the weight of the Earth settling upon his shoulders.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent," said the president, "know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

For a second I thought he was talking about the Daley machine in Chicago, but he wasn't, and my foot started tingling again like mad.

The phrase that may be the most widely quoted is the one about the Republican-engineered security state.

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. ... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience' sake."

He is a natural speech giver. The media will give him a longer-than-usual honeymoon. And already he's taking care of the guys who count, his nominee for transportation secretary goes before a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday promising to spend $800 billion on concrete and asphalt.

What many of his apostles in the media refuse to understand about Obama as they heap virtues upon him before he's even governed one day, is that he rose up in Chicago politics not by challenging power but by accommodating it, and now other nations will measure his character by prodding and testing him.

Yet his speech was a success because it tapped into that identical nerve running through moderates, liberals, conservatives and libertarians: love of country. His speech clearly told us that Obama loves this nation as an immigrant's son, a kid who grew up with a funny name, a young man who accepted the American offer to reinvent himself.

There were surprises. He reached out to Muslims, something not promised so publicly by predecessors. He didn't talk only of heroes carved in marble, but of anonymous African-Americans who labored in the fields under the lash of the whip. He reminded us that years ago, his own father would have been refused service in a Washington restaurant because of the color of his skin.

I thought of all the parents watching with their children, and grandparents who worked the fields, telling the young ones to look at the president and know there are no limits to what can be achieved.

From where I was sitting, less than 100 feet from him, I turned around and looked out into the National Mall, where more than a million of our countrymen stood, compelled to witness, and I felt guilty that I was so close and they so far, in that rippling sea of believers.

Yet for all the nobility in the speech, there was some crafty politics in the bones.

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," Obama said. "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or small, but whether it works."

Clearly, those who disagree with our president about the size and reach of the federal government risk being branded as cynics. So he can mistakenly call me a cynic. But I admire the man, and his inaugural address delivered on a cold day under a clear sky, for what was at the heart of his words, his love for America and her promise.

----------

jskass@tribune.com

[mlizzy]

Whoops, the first paragraph from Kass is tailing off your comment ...

President Barack Obama faced straight into a hard sun, raised his right hand, took the oath of office just a few feet from where I was sitting, and then he turned and began to deliver his amazing, beautiful inaugural address.

[DrC]

Thanks! “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent,” said the president, “know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

If that doesn’t describe the first 16 months of the Obama administration, I don’t what does.

I would LOVE to know whether Kass has any retrospective regrets about his glowing commentary. I do believe that day he perhaps HAD eaten too much Hopium. I concur with Kass Obama had some very fine-sounding words that day, but the reason for his plummeting popularity is because his deeds never measured up to those many paragraphs of idealistic utterances.

[mlizzy]

You're welcome. Because I couldn't remember the exact title of this piece, I could not track it down online, but a helpful librarian who has all this stuff on record, was able to do so with just the date, paper, and author ...

Kass did apologize in a later article, but I'd have to really search on that one, because the apology was only one sentence, maybe two (and I can't remember to which article [subject] it was attached) ... but my husband and I thought it was interesting [in the original piece]; that in "his" presence, even Kass buckled ...

[DrC]

“I’d have to really search on that one,”

Don’t do so on my account. As I said earlier, I think Kass is a real treasure and have been amazed at his audacity in showing the world the swamp that is Illinois politics. The NYT recently ran an extended piece on how journalists in Russia had systematically gotten beaten up for having exposed inconvenient truths about those in power. I sometimes wonder/worry how Kass escapes the same fate.

I’m eagerly looking forward to the imminent opening of the Blago trial and the inevitable tidbits of truth that I imagine will make Obama uncomfortable. Although as we’ve seen with the Sestak allegations, this crew is shameless about stonewalling or flat-out lies when the occasion calls for it.