Now that the International Olympic Committee has saved us from ourselves and Mayor Daley’s Olympic dreams have been dashed (one more time: thank you, thank you, IOC!), let’s have a little chat, Chicagoans. Just amongst ourselves.
Now that it’s over, the slant in the media, even the New York Times, is that our city’s in mourning. Mourning? Are you kidding me? If the past polls are any indication, most Chicagoans are relieved, if not jubilant.
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As I mentioned last week, according to a September Chicago Tribune poll, 84 percent of the population didn’t want to pay for the games. Ten to twelve thousand people showed up for Friday’s planned victory celebration in the Loop, and hardly anyone bothered to come out for the gala in Washington Park. Compare that with the tens of thousands who attended the official celebrations when the White Sox and Bulls won their championships, or when Barack Obama was elected president last November.
I don’t just mean the so-called regular citizens who keep voting for the same old clowns year after year after year. I’m talking about the civic, corporate, and political titans—aldermen, editorial board members, state legislators, congressman, big-money lawyers, CEOs, and so forth—who cheered while the emperor paraded about naked.
So it’s been bizarre, to say the least, to see right-wing Republicans like Michelle Malkin using my columns to attack President Obama for his support of the Olympic bid and his ties to Mayor Daley’s machine. Some of them have even started to criticize Chicago’s tax increment financing program, which, as regular readers know, is supposed to use rising property taxes to spur development but has turned into a mayoral slush fund.
Perhaps the Bush/Daley alliance was rooted in some sort of psychological connection that only the sons of powerful politicians can truly understand. Maybe it stemmed from the appreciation Bush felt for William Daley, the mayor’s brother and Al Gore’s presidential campaign manager, who counseled Gore to throw in the towel early in the 2000 Florida recount. Or perhaps President Bush came to like Mayor Daley after he locked up all those protesters (and dozens of others unlucky enough to walk past them) who took to the city’s streets when the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.
