There's a difference, of course.
Irish bars, replete with florid lawyers of Irish-American extraction, knuckleheads in turned-around baseball caps, generally bad food and endless midnight choruses of "The Wild Rover," can be outgrown. Irish pubs - increasingly hard to find in American cities or in Ireland, for that matter - provide a different sort of experience, and a more enduring one.
Except on St. Patrick's Day, of course, when they all are equally to be avoided.
The practical matter is that, inevitably, Irish bars and Irish pubs in this country exist in the same space. The quiet late-afternoon-to-early-evening comfort of a shadowy hideaway for a drink, some conversation and maybe a few laughs is often transformed by night into a raucous, bibulous, banjo-rattling gymnasium.
This is probably a minority opinion. Proof that the appeal of the Irish bar extends beyond matters of Celtic heritage is that it is the one species of saloon that keeps growing. Certainly that's the case around Washington D.C., where they are now as common as congressional earmarks.
(In Ireland, pubs are closing at the rate of about one a day, falling victim to recession, smoking bans, drunk driving laws and changes in the Irish lifesyle. Still, no trip to Ireland is complete without a pint in McDaid's, a proper pub off Grafton Street in Dublin, or in a real country pub in Cork or Donegal or the county of your choosing).
In my youth - a phase my wife Jane refers to as "young and stupid" - I worked for a time as bartender in a pair of popular Irish bars in Washington; the Dubliner and Kelly's Irish Times, respectively. That was more than 30 years ago and the fact that both haunts are still pouring whiskey and keeping folks up late at night is testimony enough to their charms.
I worked the very first St. Patrick's Day at the Dubliner on Capitol Hill in 1974 and lived to tell the tale. Danny Coleman, the Dubliner's owner then and now, used to refer to this annual event as the ultimate in "planned hilarity." An honest bartender will tell you that early in a career working March 17 is highly prized, largely for the chance to earn what is generally called "serious money."
A couple of years of puddled green beer, puking coeds and deranged conversation will cure the sensible bartender of that itch.
It's a net plus to see the Irish get some attention, I suppose, but I don't have much good to say about St. Patrick's Day. In my barroom days, after flirting with the St. Paddy's Day tip cup, my idea of a good time was dinner with some friends at a long-gone Indian restaurant in Georgetown called Apana. Then, straight home.
In a decade as a single man living in Chicago, my loyalty to Butch McGuire's saloon on Division St. earned me access to the VIP back door in the alley on March 17, though I don't believe I ever afforded myself the opportunity.
At its best, the lure of the Irish saloon 364 days a year is all about pursuit of what is known in Ireland as "the craic."
The concept is both simple and often debated. And the pronunciation is "crack." It is time spent away from the stressful and the unpleasant, from the rigors of real life and work and money and sometimes family and often responsibility.
"The craic" can be quiet or noisy, played out in a small group or a large one, fueled by grand doses of adult beverage, or not so much.
Fun, for want of a more literary term.
"The craic was mighty," you could hear a fellow say in Ireland. If you were there, you know exactly what he means.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Eric Massa and the old home town
Posted on Huffington Post, March 10, 2010
By Steve Daley
My father was the town Democrat. At least it felt that way growing up in Corning, N.Y.
Before my father, my maternal grandfather pretty much held the title in the small, scenic company town (Corning Inc.) in the Republican stronghold of southwestern New York State.
Joe Daley and Paul V. Lovette Sr. were Democratic aldermen in a place where Democrats won elected office about as often the local temperature hit 100 degrees on Thanksgiving morning.
For decades, Congressional representation in that part of the state was the private reserve of dull Chamber of Commerce Republican businessmen.
When the Sisters of Mercy had control of me in grade school, the local congressman was W. Sterling Cole, a stolid GOP lawyer from Painted Post, N.Y. who held the seat for more than 20 years.
When popular Jamestown mayor Stan Lundine somehow won the seat after the retirement of the GOP member in 1976, he became the first Democrat in the 20th century to represent the district in the House of Representatives.
A few years later, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, showing his legendary political savvy, sent Lundine into permanent public obscurity by picking him as his lieutenant governor.
Republican Amory Houghton Jr., former Chairman and CEO of Corning Inc., won the seat, which, it must be said, he ably held for nearly two decades.
My father was resigned to Houghton’s tenure in Washington, believing it only fair that a man who owned the district might as well represent it in Congress.
The truth is, Houghton was an independent sort who voted against the Iraq war and was possessed of a political spine as alien to Eric Massa and Democrats such as Ben Nelson, Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln as webbed feet.
Houghton’s retirement and the election of garden-variety GOP Rep. Randy Kuhl in 2006 seemed to signal more of the same for the district.
So the 2008 election of Democratic Rep. Eric Massa to the House from the 29th district looked like a pretty big deal, at least to a Steuben County native son and political junkie who had been away a long time.
There was some evidence that the local politics was shifting. In 2008 President Barack Obama won nearly 49 percent of the vote in the district (John McCain drew 50.5%).
In 2006, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran strong for re-election in the “Southern Tier,” in part because she wasn’t afraid to show up in places such as Corning, Hornell and Jamestown.
So having set aside my official journalist’s cap some time ago, I sent Massa a modest $50 campaign contribution, which earned me a handwritten thank you note (not sure who the hand belonged to).
It did not take Massa long to bring me to my senses.
Having once voiced support for a single-payer health care system, he quickly signed on with 38 other House Democrats to vote against his own party’s health care reform bill. Which is something Randy Kuhl could have done, and would have done.
Through modern electronic channels, never having met the man, I told Massa to take me off his money list. I was a trifle let down, but what’s the worst that can happen?
Well, it turns out there’s resignation and disgrace and whining and conflicting rationales and the overwhelming likelihood the district will again have a Republican serving in the House.
If it was a Democratic renaissance, it was a short one.
Last week, Eric Massa of Corning followed New York Gov. David Paterson and Rep. Charles Rangel into political ignominy in the Empire State.
On a Wednesday Massa announced he would not be seeking a second term in the House, citing a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
On Friday, after published reports that he had been accused of sexual harassment by a male employee and was the subject of an inquiry by the House ethics committee, Massa resigned effective this week and booked a date on the Glenn Beck program.
Joe Daley and Paul Lovette are gone, and so it appears are the Democrats in my old hometown and its environs. Local savants say the mayor of Hornell would make the best Democratic candidate to replace Massa.
My guess is they’ll elect a Democrat to Congress sometime before the next Ice Age.
By Steve Daley
My father was the town Democrat. At least it felt that way growing up in Corning, N.Y.
Before my father, my maternal grandfather pretty much held the title in the small, scenic company town (Corning Inc.) in the Republican stronghold of southwestern New York State.
Joe Daley and Paul V. Lovette Sr. were Democratic aldermen in a place where Democrats won elected office about as often the local temperature hit 100 degrees on Thanksgiving morning.
For decades, Congressional representation in that part of the state was the private reserve of dull Chamber of Commerce Republican businessmen.
When the Sisters of Mercy had control of me in grade school, the local congressman was W. Sterling Cole, a stolid GOP lawyer from Painted Post, N.Y. who held the seat for more than 20 years.
When popular Jamestown mayor Stan Lundine somehow won the seat after the retirement of the GOP member in 1976, he became the first Democrat in the 20th century to represent the district in the House of Representatives.
A few years later, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, showing his legendary political savvy, sent Lundine into permanent public obscurity by picking him as his lieutenant governor.
Republican Amory Houghton Jr., former Chairman and CEO of Corning Inc., won the seat, which, it must be said, he ably held for nearly two decades.
My father was resigned to Houghton’s tenure in Washington, believing it only fair that a man who owned the district might as well represent it in Congress.
The truth is, Houghton was an independent sort who voted against the Iraq war and was possessed of a political spine as alien to Eric Massa and Democrats such as Ben Nelson, Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln as webbed feet.
Houghton’s retirement and the election of garden-variety GOP Rep. Randy Kuhl in 2006 seemed to signal more of the same for the district.
So the 2008 election of Democratic Rep. Eric Massa to the House from the 29th district looked like a pretty big deal, at least to a Steuben County native son and political junkie who had been away a long time.
There was some evidence that the local politics was shifting. In 2008 President Barack Obama won nearly 49 percent of the vote in the district (John McCain drew 50.5%).
In 2006, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran strong for re-election in the “Southern Tier,” in part because she wasn’t afraid to show up in places such as Corning, Hornell and Jamestown.
So having set aside my official journalist’s cap some time ago, I sent Massa a modest $50 campaign contribution, which earned me a handwritten thank you note (not sure who the hand belonged to).
It did not take Massa long to bring me to my senses.
Having once voiced support for a single-payer health care system, he quickly signed on with 38 other House Democrats to vote against his own party’s health care reform bill. Which is something Randy Kuhl could have done, and would have done.
Through modern electronic channels, never having met the man, I told Massa to take me off his money list. I was a trifle let down, but what’s the worst that can happen?
Well, it turns out there’s resignation and disgrace and whining and conflicting rationales and the overwhelming likelihood the district will again have a Republican serving in the House.
If it was a Democratic renaissance, it was a short one.
Last week, Eric Massa of Corning followed New York Gov. David Paterson and Rep. Charles Rangel into political ignominy in the Empire State.
On a Wednesday Massa announced he would not be seeking a second term in the House, citing a recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
On Friday, after published reports that he had been accused of sexual harassment by a male employee and was the subject of an inquiry by the House ethics committee, Massa resigned effective this week and booked a date on the Glenn Beck program.
Joe Daley and Paul Lovette are gone, and so it appears are the Democrats in my old hometown and its environs. Local savants say the mayor of Hornell would make the best Democratic candidate to replace Massa.
My guess is they’ll elect a Democrat to Congress sometime before the next Ice Age.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Tiger By the Tail
Time spent away from asking questions changes a man, or so it would seem.
As a former sports columnist and journalista, there was a time when I would have gladly joined the chorus of irate reporters and columnists who decried the stylized nature of Tiger Woods' apologetic pronunciamento Friday, particularly the part where no questions from the press corps were allowed.
As a general rule, that's a bad thing. But as I watched Woods' staged, scripted and sullen performance, I kept wondering what the Q&A would have given us:
A litany of bimbo eruptions? Quotes from the mother and mother-in-law who were in Woods' Florida manse the night the marital bill came due? A five-part inquiry from some male ESPN yakker that has more to do with ESPN than the First Amendment and the public's right to know.
All the sporting press - and the sponsors and the TV networks - really want to know is when the man is going to start playing golf again. If they can get him to talk about the sneaky doing of the reprehensible, even better.
Just this weekend, two fine sportswriters at the Washington Post, Sally Jenkins and John Feinstein, joined the whinging chorus of scribes and pundits protesting the absence of a true press conference format in Ponte Vedra.
Feinstein, who has made a career writing fond profiles and mostly adoring books about mostly odious college coaches, offered this howler: "Woods ... is still above answering questions from those who are paid to represent a public that has helped make him a billionaire."
That's what those guys do? It's like social work?
Please. I've covered a few golf tournaments and I can tell you that representing the public is pretty far down the scale from getting a parking pass and making sure the leader after the third round gets into the interview room in a timely manner.
In the end, there's this: Tiger Woods didn't have to do this at all.
New York Yankee infielder Alex Rodriguez has lately been redeemed from the yoke of performance-enhancing drugs and a lifestyle that included Madonna while married. How? Not by answering press conference questions but by a bravura showing in the 2009 American League Championship Series and the World Series.
Woods is a golfer. He has all the money a small country will ever need. He may or may not be sincere about trying to put his family back together. He offered up riffs on Buddhism and his foundation work that were truly cringe-worthy.
But I've heard worse apologies - or none at all - from the likes of John Edwards and Newt Gingrich and Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign and, yes, President Bill Clinton and too many others, for cheating on the spouse.
It was a script, but it was a script that included a discussion of his belief that "normal rules did not apply to him" and that money and fame made him believe "I was entitled." When he noted that his wife, Elin, had told him that she would judge him on his actions rather than his words, I thought, well, I've never heard one of these philandering public figures say that before. And I've never heard the motivation question - what were you thinking? - asked at a press conference, either.
We need to get used to the idea that athletes are what they do. Tiger Woods knows that, and so does the professional golf tour and the network TV suits and the Senior Vice Presidents for Marketing from Gillette and Nike. And so does the press.
As a former sports columnist and journalista, there was a time when I would have gladly joined the chorus of irate reporters and columnists who decried the stylized nature of Tiger Woods' apologetic pronunciamento Friday, particularly the part where no questions from the press corps were allowed.
As a general rule, that's a bad thing. But as I watched Woods' staged, scripted and sullen performance, I kept wondering what the Q&A would have given us:
A litany of bimbo eruptions? Quotes from the mother and mother-in-law who were in Woods' Florida manse the night the marital bill came due? A five-part inquiry from some male ESPN yakker that has more to do with ESPN than the First Amendment and the public's right to know.
All the sporting press - and the sponsors and the TV networks - really want to know is when the man is going to start playing golf again. If they can get him to talk about the sneaky doing of the reprehensible, even better.
Just this weekend, two fine sportswriters at the Washington Post, Sally Jenkins and John Feinstein, joined the whinging chorus of scribes and pundits protesting the absence of a true press conference format in Ponte Vedra.
Feinstein, who has made a career writing fond profiles and mostly adoring books about mostly odious college coaches, offered this howler: "Woods ... is still above answering questions from those who are paid to represent a public that has helped make him a billionaire."
That's what those guys do? It's like social work?
Please. I've covered a few golf tournaments and I can tell you that representing the public is pretty far down the scale from getting a parking pass and making sure the leader after the third round gets into the interview room in a timely manner.
In the end, there's this: Tiger Woods didn't have to do this at all.
New York Yankee infielder Alex Rodriguez has lately been redeemed from the yoke of performance-enhancing drugs and a lifestyle that included Madonna while married. How? Not by answering press conference questions but by a bravura showing in the 2009 American League Championship Series and the World Series.
Woods is a golfer. He has all the money a small country will ever need. He may or may not be sincere about trying to put his family back together. He offered up riffs on Buddhism and his foundation work that were truly cringe-worthy.
But I've heard worse apologies - or none at all - from the likes of John Edwards and Newt Gingrich and Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign and, yes, President Bill Clinton and too many others, for cheating on the spouse.
It was a script, but it was a script that included a discussion of his belief that "normal rules did not apply to him" and that money and fame made him believe "I was entitled." When he noted that his wife, Elin, had told him that she would judge him on his actions rather than his words, I thought, well, I've never heard one of these philandering public figures say that before. And I've never heard the motivation question - what were you thinking? - asked at a press conference, either.
We need to get used to the idea that athletes are what they do. Tiger Woods knows that, and so does the professional golf tour and the network TV suits and the Senior Vice Presidents for Marketing from Gillette and Nike. And so does the press.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Obama's GOP Problem - The Myth of Rough & Tumble Chicago Politics
Political fights in Chicago are for the most part intramural affairs. They are famously raucous, play out at high volume and are sometimes genuinely ugly. But it’s Democrat on Democrat, and it always has been.
Perhaps that is part of the reason President Obama and his Chicago-based inner circle have had so much difficulty dealing with intractable Republican opposition and ideological warfare on the national stage.
Political fights in Chicago are about money, jobs, turf, access, contracts and bragging rights.
Ideological battles are left to the reform types – the “goo-goos,” in the local parlance - along with the Washington crowd and the news media. And what the Republicans are up to has never been of much interest to the Democratic power elite in Chicago.
That elite is the political world that shaped Barack Obama and his closest advisors, including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Senior Advisor David Axelrod and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett.
Axelrod and Emanuel have logged plenty of time on the national political stage but, like Jarrett, their roots are in the last campaign of the late Mayor Harold Washington and in service to current Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has held that job since 1989.
Richie Daley’s Chicago is an insular world, a tribal network of loyalties, delivery of constituent services, off- and on-the-book enterprises and mutual self-interests where Republicans are largely viewed as potential business partners.
Still, the “city of the big shoulders” bravado has its rhetorical uses.
Coming to Washington after a historic and impressive trouncing of the McCain-Palin ticket - and of Hillary Rodham Clinton – the Obama team made it known that their approach would be an artful mix of the President’s charm and intelligence and a healthy dose of the brawling Chicago style.
In April 2008, Emanuel burnished the tough-guy legend, telling U.S. News & World Report, “Politics in Chicago is an all-season sport, and it’s not for the faint-hearted.”
“Ours is a blunt, brawling way,” Axelrod said in the same story, noting the “people are up front about their self interests.”
Early on, Republicans and assorted editorial writers voiced dismay at the tough-talking presence of Emanuel in the Oval Office, presumably playing the enforcer with Democrats and Republicans alike.
But one year later, after the misadventures of health care reform and the Massachusetts Senate debacle, it’s clear that no one in Washington in either party is afraid of these people.
To many, the Obama team seemed paralyzed by the braying chorus of GOP opposition. His attempts to garner GOP support for his economic stimulus bill, for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, for health care reform and other initiatives were meet with implacable opposition and, often, mockery.
Silence mixed with quiet assurances of behind-the-scenes negotiations by the Administration played out as conservative “teabaggers” ruled the summer of ’09, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) discussed “breaking the presidency,” and a GOP House member felt comfortable yelling “you lie” at Obama on national television.
How could this have happened?
It is possible that for all his talents Obama has been unable to throw a political punch at his national GOP opponents because he has never had to, and doesn’t know how.
For generations Chicago has dined out on a tough, partisan Democratic image. But all of the fights were internecine and most of the wounds were self-inflicted.
The late Mayor Richard J. Daley was the embodiment the hard-nosed big-city mayor, taking care of his friends and allies, brooking no back talk from Republicans nor, more importantly, from those in his own party.
Over 21 years, the “real” Mayor Daley’s fights were usually with pesky reform Democrats – they’d be called “progressives” today – and with African-Americans Democrats, who correctly felt taken for granted by the Democratic establishment in every year that didn’t have an election.
The core of Mayor Daley’s image as a brawler, of course, starts with the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the civil war that helped elect Richard M. Nixon to the presidency.
One measure of the toxicity of that summer is found in the fact that national Democrats avoided Chicago for nearly 30 years, until 1996, when Daley’s son, Richard M., lured the party convention back to town.
The other relevant narrative involves the remarkable election of an African-American mayor in the city in 1983.
Democrat Harold Washington served only four years before his death but all his epic political battles were with fellow Democrats, some of whom did masquerade as Republicans when the spirit moved them.
Democrats on the City Council lined up against Washington and precipitated “Council Wars, an all-Democratic border war built along a racially-charged split in the Council.
In short order, Americans were looking at a “Newsweek” cover that labeled Chicago “Beirut on the Lake.” The fights were below the belt but again, it was strictly Democrat on Democrat.
Ald. Edward Vrdolyak, then the Cook County Democratic Party chairman, led the “Council Wars” with vocal assistance from Ald. Edward Burke and Parks Commissioner Edmund Kelly.
No Republicans in sight.
“Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak did become a Republican in 1987 and earned a Rose Garden ceremony from President George H.W. Bush. But he never won an election outside his 10th ward and in the absence of race cards to play, his political career dissolved into legal wrangles and obscurity.
And when Harold Washington successfully ran for re-election in 1987, besting former Democratic mayor Jane Byrne in a bitter primary, his GOP opponent got four percent of the vote.
Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett played important, reputation-building roles in that election and in the subsequent rise of Richie Daley.
Jarrett became Deputy Corporation Counsel under Washington and Deputy Chief of Staff to Daley after his 1989 victory. Emanuel was senior adviser and fundraiser in that same 1989 win, a three-way race in which the GOP candidate – Vrdolyak – got four percent of the vote.
Even in Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate victory in Illinois, signaling his rise to national prominence, Republicans played a marginal role.
The enigmatic GOP incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald, did not seek re-election to a second term. The winner of the GOP primary stepped down in the wake of a sex scandal and Marylander Alan Keyes was handed the nomination, collecting just 27% of the vote.
Since the Massachusetts Senate defeat President Obama is said to be adopting a more combative, partisan attitude, prepared to start slugging out his agenda with Republican rivals.
History suggests that posture, while timely, may not prove a comfortable fit.
Perhaps that is part of the reason President Obama and his Chicago-based inner circle have had so much difficulty dealing with intractable Republican opposition and ideological warfare on the national stage.
Political fights in Chicago are about money, jobs, turf, access, contracts and bragging rights.
Ideological battles are left to the reform types – the “goo-goos,” in the local parlance - along with the Washington crowd and the news media. And what the Republicans are up to has never been of much interest to the Democratic power elite in Chicago.
That elite is the political world that shaped Barack Obama and his closest advisors, including White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Senior Advisor David Axelrod and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett.
Axelrod and Emanuel have logged plenty of time on the national political stage but, like Jarrett, their roots are in the last campaign of the late Mayor Harold Washington and in service to current Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has held that job since 1989.
Richie Daley’s Chicago is an insular world, a tribal network of loyalties, delivery of constituent services, off- and on-the-book enterprises and mutual self-interests where Republicans are largely viewed as potential business partners.
Still, the “city of the big shoulders” bravado has its rhetorical uses.
Coming to Washington after a historic and impressive trouncing of the McCain-Palin ticket - and of Hillary Rodham Clinton – the Obama team made it known that their approach would be an artful mix of the President’s charm and intelligence and a healthy dose of the brawling Chicago style.
In April 2008, Emanuel burnished the tough-guy legend, telling U.S. News & World Report, “Politics in Chicago is an all-season sport, and it’s not for the faint-hearted.”
“Ours is a blunt, brawling way,” Axelrod said in the same story, noting the “people are up front about their self interests.”
Early on, Republicans and assorted editorial writers voiced dismay at the tough-talking presence of Emanuel in the Oval Office, presumably playing the enforcer with Democrats and Republicans alike.
But one year later, after the misadventures of health care reform and the Massachusetts Senate debacle, it’s clear that no one in Washington in either party is afraid of these people.
To many, the Obama team seemed paralyzed by the braying chorus of GOP opposition. His attempts to garner GOP support for his economic stimulus bill, for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, for health care reform and other initiatives were meet with implacable opposition and, often, mockery.
Silence mixed with quiet assurances of behind-the-scenes negotiations by the Administration played out as conservative “teabaggers” ruled the summer of ’09, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) discussed “breaking the presidency,” and a GOP House member felt comfortable yelling “you lie” at Obama on national television.
How could this have happened?
It is possible that for all his talents Obama has been unable to throw a political punch at his national GOP opponents because he has never had to, and doesn’t know how.
For generations Chicago has dined out on a tough, partisan Democratic image. But all of the fights were internecine and most of the wounds were self-inflicted.
The late Mayor Richard J. Daley was the embodiment the hard-nosed big-city mayor, taking care of his friends and allies, brooking no back talk from Republicans nor, more importantly, from those in his own party.
Over 21 years, the “real” Mayor Daley’s fights were usually with pesky reform Democrats – they’d be called “progressives” today – and with African-Americans Democrats, who correctly felt taken for granted by the Democratic establishment in every year that didn’t have an election.
The core of Mayor Daley’s image as a brawler, of course, starts with the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the civil war that helped elect Richard M. Nixon to the presidency.
One measure of the toxicity of that summer is found in the fact that national Democrats avoided Chicago for nearly 30 years, until 1996, when Daley’s son, Richard M., lured the party convention back to town.
The other relevant narrative involves the remarkable election of an African-American mayor in the city in 1983.
Democrat Harold Washington served only four years before his death but all his epic political battles were with fellow Democrats, some of whom did masquerade as Republicans when the spirit moved them.
Democrats on the City Council lined up against Washington and precipitated “Council Wars, an all-Democratic border war built along a racially-charged split in the Council.
In short order, Americans were looking at a “Newsweek” cover that labeled Chicago “Beirut on the Lake.” The fights were below the belt but again, it was strictly Democrat on Democrat.
Ald. Edward Vrdolyak, then the Cook County Democratic Party chairman, led the “Council Wars” with vocal assistance from Ald. Edward Burke and Parks Commissioner Edmund Kelly.
No Republicans in sight.
“Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak did become a Republican in 1987 and earned a Rose Garden ceremony from President George H.W. Bush. But he never won an election outside his 10th ward and in the absence of race cards to play, his political career dissolved into legal wrangles and obscurity.
And when Harold Washington successfully ran for re-election in 1987, besting former Democratic mayor Jane Byrne in a bitter primary, his GOP opponent got four percent of the vote.
Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett played important, reputation-building roles in that election and in the subsequent rise of Richie Daley.
Jarrett became Deputy Corporation Counsel under Washington and Deputy Chief of Staff to Daley after his 1989 victory. Emanuel was senior adviser and fundraiser in that same 1989 win, a three-way race in which the GOP candidate – Vrdolyak – got four percent of the vote.
Even in Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate victory in Illinois, signaling his rise to national prominence, Republicans played a marginal role.
The enigmatic GOP incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald, did not seek re-election to a second term. The winner of the GOP primary stepped down in the wake of a sex scandal and Marylander Alan Keyes was handed the nomination, collecting just 27% of the vote.
Since the Massachusetts Senate defeat President Obama is said to be adopting a more combative, partisan attitude, prepared to start slugging out his agenda with Republican rivals.
History suggests that posture, while timely, may not prove a comfortable fit.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A "Merry Little Christmas" Song
I remember sitting in the TV lounge in the dormitory in those pre-cable television days, watching "Meet Me In St. Louis" with a gaggle of college mates. The film is the 1944 romantic musical set in 1904 St. Louis, just before the World's Fair. The four Smith sisters learn their father must take a job in New York City and they will have to leave their home town.
On Christmas Eve, Judy Garland's character, Esther, comforts her distraught younger sister, Tootie, (played by Margaret O'Brien) by singing her a Christmas ballad.
I had never seen the movie or heard the song and what I heard then was a melancholy, glass-half-empty air, a Christmas song somehow grounded in reality, (OK, Hollywood reality), reflecting a nation at war and a family facing crisis, a song both hopeful and sad.
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas/
"Let your heart be light/
"Next year all our troubles/
"Will be out of sight."
It's been said that singers of ballads and sad songs should sing them as if they do not know how the song will end. The brilliant Garland, then just 22 years old, makes that happen.
"Someday soon we all will be together/
"If the fates allow/
"Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
"So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."
The back story to the song is that from the beginnning the MGM folks and director Vincente Minnelli worried that "Merry Little Christmas" was, well, not merry enough. Upbeat changes were made, though "muddling though" somehow survived.
And in 1957, Frank Sinatra, who should have known better, lobbied for a lyric change as a condition of putting the song on a Christmas album. So "until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" was transformed into "hang a shining star upon the highest bough..." And there you have it.
By now, of course, I'm sick of the song. It's been covered by everyone from Jim Nabors to Celtic Women, from Tony Bennett to Gloria Estefan. It drones underneath holiday sitcoms and TV melodramas and crowds the radio. You cannot miss it if you try. But there was a moment.
So Merry Christmas, Judy, and thanks. And to Hugh Martin as well, who wrote the first "dark" version of the song and the one that made it into the movie.
NOTE: Hugh Martin died March 11, 2011
On Christmas Eve, Judy Garland's character, Esther, comforts her distraught younger sister, Tootie, (played by Margaret O'Brien) by singing her a Christmas ballad.
I had never seen the movie or heard the song and what I heard then was a melancholy, glass-half-empty air, a Christmas song somehow grounded in reality, (OK, Hollywood reality), reflecting a nation at war and a family facing crisis, a song both hopeful and sad.
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas/
"Let your heart be light/
"Next year all our troubles/
"Will be out of sight."
It's been said that singers of ballads and sad songs should sing them as if they do not know how the song will end. The brilliant Garland, then just 22 years old, makes that happen.
"Someday soon we all will be together/
"If the fates allow/
"Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
"So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."
The back story to the song is that from the beginnning the MGM folks and director Vincente Minnelli worried that "Merry Little Christmas" was, well, not merry enough. Upbeat changes were made, though "muddling though" somehow survived.
And in 1957, Frank Sinatra, who should have known better, lobbied for a lyric change as a condition of putting the song on a Christmas album. So "until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" was transformed into "hang a shining star upon the highest bough..." And there you have it.
By now, of course, I'm sick of the song. It's been covered by everyone from Jim Nabors to Celtic Women, from Tony Bennett to Gloria Estefan. It drones underneath holiday sitcoms and TV melodramas and crowds the radio. You cannot miss it if you try. But there was a moment.
So Merry Christmas, Judy, and thanks. And to Hugh Martin as well, who wrote the first "dark" version of the song and the one that made it into the movie.
NOTE: Hugh Martin died March 11, 2011
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Sweet Home Chicago
Published in CJR Online - 12/4/09
www.cjr.org
By Steve Daley
It’s December and real Chicagoans are making ready for the onset of a Lake Michigan winter and for the arctic wind – the storied Hawk – that will howl across town for the foreseeable future.
Right on time, those Chicagoans who have made their way to Washington with President Barack Obama should be feeling a chill.
The first one who needs to seek shelter and a warm coat is White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.
Born in New Orleans, Rogers became a fixture in Chicago’s business community, political culture and party-going circuit, in part as protege of Obama best friend and current White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Until last week, the Washington press corps seemed to agree that not only was Ms. Rogers cuter than a speckled pup in a little red wagon, she was playing a serious game as well.
This from an adoring profile in the April 30, 2009 Wall Street Journal:
“With her direct access to the first couple and unparalled connections to White House staff, as well as DC and Chicago power brokers, Rogers is considered by many to be the key to Brand Obama. She stands at the center of the careful marketing of the first family and administration-wide effort to make the White House appear a hip and accessible abode.“
She may have taken that assignment a bit too seriously. On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about the gate-crashing Virginia grifters who waltzed into a White House state dinner last month. But Dowd soon turned her attention to Ms. Rogers, who is clearly - and suddenly - viewed as having gotten too big for her designer britches. (According to Dowd, Rogers had been “cruising for a bruising” ever since the Journal article appeared.)
The same day, the Washington Post’s Style section had let its readers know that while the Secret Service may have been a trifle inattentive with Presidential security, Ms. Rogers was guilty of the high crime of preening and drawing attention to herself.
Until last Wednesday the Post had been giddy over the stylish Harvard-educated executive-socialite, the first African-American to assume the social secretary’s role.
Now, at least two sections of the paper keep wondering why Rogers wasn’t staking out the Southeast Gate in the rain on the night in question, wearing cargo pants and running shoes.
And begins the ceremonial shellacking of the interlopers, driven, as ever, by declining job-approval numbers for the president. Any president.
The history of Washington insiders making hash of interlopers stretches back – at least – to the Carter years and top Georgian aides Jody Powell and Hamilton Jordan. It’s a Washington ritual, like figuring out where the big-time lobbyists eat lunch and who is sitting in the owner’s box at Washington Redskin games.
One of the best ways to move forward with the regional shellacking is the blind quote (Washington Post, 12/2):
“’All this talk about Desiree being lifetime friends with the Obamas is bunk. She is there because of Valerie,’ says someone who has known Rogers for years but didn’t want to be identified so as not to upset her.”
The working principal is one best articulated by college football coaches who must deal with cranky alumni: We’re with you, win or tie.
In March there was this full gush, complete with requisite slideshow, from the Huffington Post: “She’s only been in Washington a little over two months but Chicago transplant Desiree Rogers has already been crowned the District’s best-dressed woman by Huffington Post readers.”
This week, the Huffingtons had moved on to sterner stuff, the Dec. 2 headline reading, “The Twilight Saga: Does Desiree Rogers Have a Future?”
Declining poll numbers are chum in the water for presidential aides and advisors, and it’s hard to see how even a well-articulated escalation of the war in Afghanistan is going to help Obama’s numbers.
Which means what? Time to assign a little blame, or maybe a lot. Who’s next?
For the moment Rahm Emanauel retains his tough-guy status despite compelling evidence that he hasn’t scared anyone but a few reporters since he became Obama’s Chief of Staff.
Congressional Democrats ignore him when it comes time to vote and Republicans make mewling noises about his crusty lack of bipartisanship even as they ceaselessly demonize and insult his boss.
Most everyone seems to like White House senior advisor David Axelrod, the longtime Chicago political consultant who so effectively ran the Obama campaign. But then everyone seemed to like Mack McLarty when he came to town from Little Rock to help Bill Clinton.
Being liked in Washington is a sometime thing.
And there is Valerie Jarrett, who brought Ms. Rogers to town. Who hired Michelle Robinson when she worked for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Who carries a wispy title and wonky job description but is reportedly in on every significant call the President makes. Who has not heard a discouraging word from the press-and-pundit class since she moved into the West Wing.
Bundle up, Valerie. There’s been a change in the weather.
www.cjr.org
By Steve Daley
It’s December and real Chicagoans are making ready for the onset of a Lake Michigan winter and for the arctic wind – the storied Hawk – that will howl across town for the foreseeable future.
Right on time, those Chicagoans who have made their way to Washington with President Barack Obama should be feeling a chill.
The first one who needs to seek shelter and a warm coat is White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.
Born in New Orleans, Rogers became a fixture in Chicago’s business community, political culture and party-going circuit, in part as protege of Obama best friend and current White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Until last week, the Washington press corps seemed to agree that not only was Ms. Rogers cuter than a speckled pup in a little red wagon, she was playing a serious game as well.
This from an adoring profile in the April 30, 2009 Wall Street Journal:
“With her direct access to the first couple and unparalled connections to White House staff, as well as DC and Chicago power brokers, Rogers is considered by many to be the key to Brand Obama. She stands at the center of the careful marketing of the first family and administration-wide effort to make the White House appear a hip and accessible abode.“
She may have taken that assignment a bit too seriously. On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about the gate-crashing Virginia grifters who waltzed into a White House state dinner last month. But Dowd soon turned her attention to Ms. Rogers, who is clearly - and suddenly - viewed as having gotten too big for her designer britches. (According to Dowd, Rogers had been “cruising for a bruising” ever since the Journal article appeared.)
The same day, the Washington Post’s Style section had let its readers know that while the Secret Service may have been a trifle inattentive with Presidential security, Ms. Rogers was guilty of the high crime of preening and drawing attention to herself.
Until last Wednesday the Post had been giddy over the stylish Harvard-educated executive-socialite, the first African-American to assume the social secretary’s role.
Now, at least two sections of the paper keep wondering why Rogers wasn’t staking out the Southeast Gate in the rain on the night in question, wearing cargo pants and running shoes.
And begins the ceremonial shellacking of the interlopers, driven, as ever, by declining job-approval numbers for the president. Any president.
The history of Washington insiders making hash of interlopers stretches back – at least – to the Carter years and top Georgian aides Jody Powell and Hamilton Jordan. It’s a Washington ritual, like figuring out where the big-time lobbyists eat lunch and who is sitting in the owner’s box at Washington Redskin games.
One of the best ways to move forward with the regional shellacking is the blind quote (Washington Post, 12/2):
“’All this talk about Desiree being lifetime friends with the Obamas is bunk. She is there because of Valerie,’ says someone who has known Rogers for years but didn’t want to be identified so as not to upset her.”
The working principal is one best articulated by college football coaches who must deal with cranky alumni: We’re with you, win or tie.
In March there was this full gush, complete with requisite slideshow, from the Huffington Post: “She’s only been in Washington a little over two months but Chicago transplant Desiree Rogers has already been crowned the District’s best-dressed woman by Huffington Post readers.”
This week, the Huffingtons had moved on to sterner stuff, the Dec. 2 headline reading, “The Twilight Saga: Does Desiree Rogers Have a Future?”
Declining poll numbers are chum in the water for presidential aides and advisors, and it’s hard to see how even a well-articulated escalation of the war in Afghanistan is going to help Obama’s numbers.
Which means what? Time to assign a little blame, or maybe a lot. Who’s next?
For the moment Rahm Emanauel retains his tough-guy status despite compelling evidence that he hasn’t scared anyone but a few reporters since he became Obama’s Chief of Staff.
Congressional Democrats ignore him when it comes time to vote and Republicans make mewling noises about his crusty lack of bipartisanship even as they ceaselessly demonize and insult his boss.
Most everyone seems to like White House senior advisor David Axelrod, the longtime Chicago political consultant who so effectively ran the Obama campaign. But then everyone seemed to like Mack McLarty when he came to town from Little Rock to help Bill Clinton.
Being liked in Washington is a sometime thing.
And there is Valerie Jarrett, who brought Ms. Rogers to town. Who hired Michelle Robinson when she worked for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Who carries a wispy title and wonky job description but is reportedly in on every significant call the President makes. Who has not heard a discouraging word from the press-and-pundit class since she moved into the West Wing.
Bundle up, Valerie. There’s been a change in the weather.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Find the Feature
Published in CJR Online - www.cjr.org - 11/11/09
By Steve Daley
To: All Hands
From: The Executive Editor
RE: The Redesign
The continuing controversy over the (size of the weather map; the shuttering of the Book section; the fight in the newsroom) should not diminish our excitement over the ongoing redesign of the newspaper.
We are moving ahead with a sweeping redesign that (comes at a critical juncture and decision point for the health and survival of our paper; finds new ways to highlight our differentiated content while creating new efficiencies; spells an end to Times New Roman as a font).
There is much to report on the progress of the redesign, but first a couple of housekeeping matters:
After protracted internal discussions, we have determined that those filling the “Comment” sections in our online edition (must be brought to justice; must limit their use of body-part references; must stop calling our reporters and columnists “douche bags”).
Unless the blogosphere gets really upset, those commenting on our online content will now be required to (identify themselves by something other than a screen name; seek psychological counseling; learn to spell).
A last word about the weather map. It’s true we have reversed our decision to (reduce the size of the map to something resembling a baseball card; tell our readers to get their damn pollen counts online; give readers less and tell them it’s more).
As you know, we originally trimmed the weather map (to make space for a house ad; to enhance the reader’s navigation experience; to expand our “Twitter Roundup” feature).
Out of respect for our readers, who are always (aging and cranky; our editorial true north; consistently unwilling to embrace our strategic vision), we (brought the old map back, better than ever; totally caved; responded in a way that provides our readers with new products that serve them well).
For the seventh time in 20 years, we have moved “Doonesbury” (from the comics page to the editorial page; from the editorial page to the comics page; from the editorial page to the feature section, right below the gossip column).
The comics page has been revamped and the comics in 2009 are now (microscopic; about as funny as Timothy Geithner; basically knockoffs from “The Far Side,” “Shoe” and “Calvin & Hobbes”).
Finally, the issue of copy editors.
It is true that as the right sizing has gone forward over the last two years or so, a number of veteran copy editors were (reassigned to work on the publisher’s lakeside estate; exiled to strip-mall bureaus out where the buses don’t run; given MapQuest information for finding the community college).
We miss them and we honor their years of service.
Yes, we were upset when (First Lady Michelle Obama was misidentified as talk show host Tyra Banks; we reported that the Administration is considering sending 40,00 combat troops to Albania; our Daylight Savings Time, spring forward, fall back clock thing was off by seven months).
But to make the sacrifices that are necessary as shift our focus to a digital platform, we must (lower our expectations; move forward toward a bright and economically healthy future; get with the program or get the hell out). Your job is your perk, people.
Sure, it’s a work in progress, but I think you’ll agree that the redesign has (enhanced the product in ways that will improve both usage and commerce; solved all the problems created by last year’s redesign; bought a lot more yellow boxes and exclamation points into the editorial mix).
Later this afternoon we hope everyone will join us for coffee and ice cream (by the elevators; near the former ombudsman’s office; in the area where the movie critic, the art critic and the TV critic used to sit).
We’ll be (discussing the end of the ESOP plan; chatting with Jayson Blair on newsroom ethics; reporting on progress being made with taking whole the thing nonprofit, just like NPR).
Hope to see you all there.
By Steve Daley
To: All Hands
From: The Executive Editor
RE: The Redesign
The continuing controversy over the (size of the weather map; the shuttering of the Book section; the fight in the newsroom) should not diminish our excitement over the ongoing redesign of the newspaper.
We are moving ahead with a sweeping redesign that (comes at a critical juncture and decision point for the health and survival of our paper; finds new ways to highlight our differentiated content while creating new efficiencies; spells an end to Times New Roman as a font).
There is much to report on the progress of the redesign, but first a couple of housekeeping matters:
After protracted internal discussions, we have determined that those filling the “Comment” sections in our online edition (must be brought to justice; must limit their use of body-part references; must stop calling our reporters and columnists “douche bags”).
Unless the blogosphere gets really upset, those commenting on our online content will now be required to (identify themselves by something other than a screen name; seek psychological counseling; learn to spell).
A last word about the weather map. It’s true we have reversed our decision to (reduce the size of the map to something resembling a baseball card; tell our readers to get their damn pollen counts online; give readers less and tell them it’s more).
As you know, we originally trimmed the weather map (to make space for a house ad; to enhance the reader’s navigation experience; to expand our “Twitter Roundup” feature).
Out of respect for our readers, who are always (aging and cranky; our editorial true north; consistently unwilling to embrace our strategic vision), we (brought the old map back, better than ever; totally caved; responded in a way that provides our readers with new products that serve them well).
For the seventh time in 20 years, we have moved “Doonesbury” (from the comics page to the editorial page; from the editorial page to the comics page; from the editorial page to the feature section, right below the gossip column).
The comics page has been revamped and the comics in 2009 are now (microscopic; about as funny as Timothy Geithner; basically knockoffs from “The Far Side,” “Shoe” and “Calvin & Hobbes”).
Finally, the issue of copy editors.
It is true that as the right sizing has gone forward over the last two years or so, a number of veteran copy editors were (reassigned to work on the publisher’s lakeside estate; exiled to strip-mall bureaus out where the buses don’t run; given MapQuest information for finding the community college).
We miss them and we honor their years of service.
Yes, we were upset when (First Lady Michelle Obama was misidentified as talk show host Tyra Banks; we reported that the Administration is considering sending 40,00 combat troops to Albania; our Daylight Savings Time, spring forward, fall back clock thing was off by seven months).
But to make the sacrifices that are necessary as shift our focus to a digital platform, we must (lower our expectations; move forward toward a bright and economically healthy future; get with the program or get the hell out). Your job is your perk, people.
Sure, it’s a work in progress, but I think you’ll agree that the redesign has (enhanced the product in ways that will improve both usage and commerce; solved all the problems created by last year’s redesign; bought a lot more yellow boxes and exclamation points into the editorial mix).
Later this afternoon we hope everyone will join us for coffee and ice cream (by the elevators; near the former ombudsman’s office; in the area where the movie critic, the art critic and the TV critic used to sit).
We’ll be (discussing the end of the ESOP plan; chatting with Jayson Blair on newsroom ethics; reporting on progress being made with taking whole the thing nonprofit, just like NPR).
Hope to see you all there.
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