President Obama’s approach to politics is often referred to as the “Chicago Way.” What is the “Chicago Way” you ask? Well, to quote Sean Connery from the Untouchables:
Here’s how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way!
In short, the “Chicago way” is bribing, bullying or threatening anyone and everyone necessary so that you get your way.
In today’s Washington Post, William M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, a well known user of the “Chicago way,” gives some advice to President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Billy, if I may be so bold, is concerned that the Marxist triumvirate is setting up trouble for the rest of the Democrats. Billy points to recent polls, the November election results and finally, the recent party affiliation change of Representative Griffith as evidence that the Marxist trio has taken the party too far to the left. Billy is concerned that the result of this “student body left” tilt will be that Democrats may have a problem getting or being re elected next year.
Past his warnings, Billy gives the Democrats hope. “Stop ye whilst there is still yet time,” cries Billy!
Despite this raft of bad news, Democrats are not doomed to return to the wilderness. The question is whether the party is prepared to listen carefully to what the American public is saying. Voters are not re-embracing conservative ideology, nor are they falling back in love with the Republican brand. If anything, the Democrats’ salvation may lie in the fact that Republicans seem even more hell-bent on allowing their radical wing to drag the party away from the center.
“See,” says Billy, “I know it’s not that people want to be more conservative, it’s just those damn Republicans keep making us look bad!” In fact, Billy believes that the country really does like Marxism, it’s just that they don’t know it yet!
For liberals to accept that inescapable reality is not to concede permanent defeat. Rather, let them take it as a sign that they must continue the hard work of slowly and steadily persuading their fellow citizens to embrace their perspective.
It never crosses Daley’s mind that the American people are revolting against the Democrats because they don’t like the policies. It never crosses Daley’s mind that America is still a country whose people have a desire for personal freedoms. It never crosses Daley’s mind that perhaps the Marxist triumvirate has over reached and in doing so, awakened a spirit that has been slumbering since the 1940s.
No, Daley, a member of the family who if not created, perfected the “Chicago way,” is complaining because Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have taken the “Chicago way” and applied it to national politics. Daley thinks that could create a problem. Daley is concerned not for America but for himself and his “suck everybody dry as long as it gets me power” party!
I could have titled this post “Pot meet Kettle,” but I’ve used that too many times this year. Besides, what it really seems to me that Billy is complaining about is not the tactics being used but rather, that if the Marxist triumvirate are successful in driving the country to bankruptcy, it might give the “Chicago way” a bad name! I didn’t know the “Chicago way” had a good name!
