Chicago Tribune editorial misses the point on Obama's machine ties

Although the Chicago Tribune hasn't endorsed a Democrat for president since 1872--and the lucky man, Horace Greeley was so overcome with excitement that he died after Election Day--but before members of the Electoral College cast its ballots, I have a feeling it will endorse Barark Obama for president. When the Tribune Company purchased the Los Angeles Times eight years ago, the hope was that the liberal Times would move to at least to the center. Not only did that not happen, but the Trib has moved to the Left.

This morning the McCain-Palin campaign released a television ad highlighting Barack Obama's ties to Chicago's corrupt political culture. It's a good ad, and one that the campaign promises will run nationally. But the Tribune, in an editorial, dismissed that ad as a "lame attempt at guilt by association."

I don't think the ad went far enough. Where in the ad is Alexi Giannoulias? He's the "boy banker" who Obama plucked from obscurity and through his endorsement, essentially placed the man who, while chief loan officer of his family owned bank approved $15 million in loans to convicted mobster Michael "Jaws" Giorango. Oh, Giannoulias is an alleged "Granny Grifter."

And two autumns ago, Obama led a big push to get machine hack Todd "Corruption Tax" Stroger elected so he could succeed his father as Cook County Board President. Because of the incompetent "leadership" of "The Toddler," Chicagoans pay a sales tax of 10.25 percent, the highest in any big city in America.

Perhaps the McCain-Palin campaign is keeping its powder dry for the next onslaught.

Here's an excerpt from the Chicago "free registration required" Tribune editorial:

Obama deserved the heat for dealing with (Tony) Rezko, a friend and fund-raiser who was convicted of money laundering, aiding and abetting bribery and mail and wire fraud. Obama has acknowledged that the relationship was fraught with potential conflicts of interest, and that lapse in judgment has dogged his campaign.

But the suggestion that Obama is a politician in the classic Chicago mold is way off base. He wasn't a machine candidate in his bid for the Illinois Senate in 1996, and he won the 2004 nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in a heavily contested primary without Daley’s support. Though he now enjoys the support of establishment Democrats, Obama is a man governed by his conscience, not by his associations.

Obama wasn’t "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine," and that makes his rise all the more remarkable. But the McCain camp is betting voters know less about Obama than they think they know about Chicago, which can usually be summed up in three words: Dead people vote.

Chicago, regrettably, deserves that rap. Obama does not.

Sorry, Trib, he does.

Earlier this year Obama dismissed Rezko, his first political sponsor as just as someone he barely knew.

In March, three Chicago reporters tried to get the Great Orator to answer specific questions about Rezko at a press conference. Obama didn't. He announced to the media present, "Guys, I mean come on. I just answered like eight questions." He left the stage as the questions continued.

Is this leadership?

Here's what the Tribune missed. Obama is running, as he's told us thousands of times, as a "new kind of politician." He's presenting a message of "hope" and "change." Since Obama has no US Senate record to run on, and even his once vaunted state Senate record turns out largely to have been the creation of machine pol and state Senate President Emil Jones Jr., his machine ties deserve close scrutiny.

Obama did the right thing in pressuring his mentor Jones to call the state Senate back into session to approve a much needed ethics bill, but Obama remains silent about Jones' egregious insults to the taxpayers of Illinois. Since the Trib didn't go into detail about Jones, I will.

For instance, is it a "new kind of politics" to do what Jones has done, by engineering his son's replacement of himself on the ballot this fall--without facing voters? Is it a new kind of politics to see his stepson "mysteriously" win government contracts? Is it a new kind of politics for Jones' wife, who works for the state, to get a big raise?

Obama, the agent of change and hope, has nothing to say about the actions of his machine mentor--and a whole lot of other corruption in Illinois.

He may not have been a machine candidate when he first ran for public office, but sheesh, Chicago Tribune, Obama was running in a super-liberal Hyde Park district where machine politics are an anethema.

But when Obama arrived in Springfield in 1997, leading his party was Emil Jones, Jr.

Technorati tags: politics Illinois Election Democrats Chicago Obama Barack Obama Emil Jones cronyism Rezko McCain John McCain Alexi Giannoulias nepotism Stroger