Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas
"Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas", is a self-explanatory, Spanish proverb, which teaches that, although we may not even belong to the same species, too much intimate contact with lesser beings can have disagreeable consequences for us.
That saying is, in essence, the national and international significance of the Blagojevich scandal: Chicago politics are as corrupt as it gets and no matter how clean you are -- and I don't think Obama has ever even fixed a friend's traffic ticket -- there is no way you can lie down with those dogs without developing at least a mild rash.
I grew up about five blocks from Lake Michigan on Chicago's North Shore; and as someone who as a small child used to stand on a windy street corner in below zero snow storms, with frozen, chocolate colored, sooty, slush, up to my galoshes tops... waiting for a bus to school to appear out of the dark... As someone who lived through that, I have trouble understanding why anyone from a sunny paradise like Hawaii would ever want to live in such a horrible place as the urbs in hortis.
In my opinion the answer to that question is the key to both the strengths and weaknesses of our president-elect.
The motto of Chicago is "The City that Works", with its obvious play on the meaning of the word "work", which contains both labor and function: as in "my watch works, but my brother in law doesn't".
Chicago works in both senses: there are usually lots of jobs and people work hard and the city clears the snow and picks up the garbage in exemplary fashion.
Labor and function. Chicago "works" in every sense. This laborious functionality touches all elements of the city culture down to the most humble individual and even its corruption.
It was one of Chicago's most glamorous exports, Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as "Bricktop" a redbone saloon keeper, owner of Paris's legendary Chez Bricktop, mentor of Duke Ellington and Mabel Mercer, close friend of Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway, who expertly described Chicago's peculiar ethic. "In Chicago" she said, "if you pay your two dollars to get laid, you get laid, but in New York you may just end up with a sore head and your wallet stolen": "Chicago the City that Works".
This obsession with laborious functionality at the expense of almost any other value even gives Chicago's legendary corruption it's special flavor:
"Government in Illinois isn't about political ideology or helping people," said Christopher Mooney, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Springfield. "It's about which idiot brother-in-law are you going to get a job on a road crew because he helped you get into office." BloombergNow it is obvious that Barack Obama didn't go to live in Chicago because he liked the weather, or because, as a Harvard graduate, he had trouble getting a job anywhere in the world. I can only imagine it was the functionality part of the word "work" that, as an aspiring politician, took him there. And I am sure that his aspirations were always political, because he could just as easily have made piles of money as a lawyer in Manhattan.
To see what he needed to work for him in Chicago it would be useful to review his obvious weaknesses: a funny name that sounds Muslim, no local, clan, family or ethnic identity anywhere in the world to give him any political context. Half white, raised by whites in a place like Hawaii, where there are practically no African-Americans, educated in white private schools and elite universities. He was an aspiring politician with no identifiable constituency.
Aside from his name, Chicago solved all of those things for him and very quickly.
Of his own free will he moved to the north's most segregated city, where skin color is a political badge. Chicago is a city of strong ethnic identities and clearly defined neighborhoods. It was the smartest move he ever made in his whole life... like when Elvis left Tupelo Mississippi and moved to Memphis.
The segregation of Chicago makes its organization by a political machine much easier. Each area is a well "fortified" barony and the barons are responsible for delivering the peasants vote on election day: a vote from whom all blessings flow. In exchange for their fealty the loyal peasants are rewarded with city jobs for their dimmer relatives, thus all have a stake in the machine's success. This has gone for many decades and power is as entrenched as in any feudal aristocracy.
Among the most useful, important and essential "knights" that the barons and their king have to fight their election battles are the "Precinct Captains", here is how Wikipedia describes their role:
A precinct captain is the individual who acts as the direct link between a political party's machine and the voters in an election precinct. A precinct captain helps with voter registration, and helps voters get absentee ballots or get to the voting booths on election day.Here we should note that when Barack Obama married Michelle Robinson, he not only married a beautiful, intelligent and highly educated woman, he also married the daughter of a precinct captain, Fraser Robinson III who, naturally, was a municipal employee. Although, Michelle's father died before they got married, with their marriage Obama became "family" of the legendary Daley machine, where membership is often passed charismatically from father to son. Richard M. Daley is the son of Richard J. Daley, who was first elected mayor when I was ten years old. It makes me feel young merely to write the words, "Mayor Daley is".
Here might be a good place to underline that no Democrat in Chicago can have a successful career without the blessings of Richard M. Daley. Since no politician in America's history has had such a successful and meteoric career as Barack Obama has with Chicago as its base, it might be safe to surmise that in Obama's case, the fickle finger of fate has taken the small but feisty form of Richard M. Daley.
This is not to in any way slight the intelligence, good luck, talent, charisma and temperament of Barack Obama, but for anyone, even as brilliant as Obama is, to rise so fast as he has, influential patrons are essential. As another Spanish proverb has it, "without a godfather you can't get baptized".
Bing Crosby once said that, "there is probably a guy singing in saloons in New Orleans that can sing 'Stardust' better than I can, I have been very lucky". America's then most famous bandleader, Paul Whiteman, discovered the young Crosby and made him a star and it is safe to say that Chicago's Mayor Daley is Obama's Whiteman.
Here it is important for me to interject that I don't think that Barack Obama has ever taken a bribe or sold influence or ever done anything in the least shady... I don't think Daley would let his prize pupil get spoiled like that.
Chicago and its political organization have nurtured and groomed Obama with great care and now have placed two of Mayor Daley's favorite proteges, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel at his elbow to see that he comes to no harm. The real question has to be.... what will Daley want in exchange for handing Barack Obama a political career? Maybe he'll be satisfied with just a summer Olympics for Chicago or maybe he'll want more and when he asks for it he will ask in a soft voice and if the president of the United States says no, then the mayor of Chicago will hand him his head on a plate, because you can be sure that he has built into all of this the mechanisms to control his creature.
I'm still a Chicagoan enough to think that this isn't necessarily all that terrible. Over the last years the rest of America seems to have become hopelessly corrupt too, maybe now it will "work".
Advertisement
You know for someone who professes to be/have been a journalist. There is an awful lot of guessing and innuendo in your diary with nary a substantiating fact in sight.
I also believe your a bit off on why Obama went to Chicago. After Columbia, it was because he was offered a job as a community organizer. He then returned to Chicago again after Harvard Law because University of Chicago offered him a teaching position and a grant to write a book on race relations. He also got a job with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004.
So I am not sure, and I am guessing as you have, as to whether Obama's main reason for going to Chicago was politics.
December 10, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
As the black, former editor of the Harvard Law Review he could have written his ticket in New York City in a top law firm... but New York politics are, though corrupt, much more free style than the Windy City's and the paths to power much less direct. Chicago gave Obama access to an organization and levers of power that no other city in America can offer.
I'll stick with my Bing Crosby analogy: Der Bingle had a wonderful talent, but meeting Paul Whiteman accelerated his career by decades... Daley is Obama's Whiteman.
December 11, 2008 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
He went there to take part in the "Washington Revolution" after Harold Washington got elected mayor of the city, you idiot. Daley had nothing to do with it, and had very little to do with any of Obama's later success.
There's two ways to succeed in Illinois Democratic politics: you are either the Machine's chosen candidate, or you look the other way as the machine continues it's corrupt stranglehold on governance in Chicago and Cook County. Obama was a "look the other way" kind of politician; he ran on government reform without ever explicitly attacking the entity most in need of reform. Furthermore, the Machine backed a different candidate in the race for US senate that Obama won; much like his presidential campaign, his intelligence and charisma made him the winning candidate after the independently wealthy frontrunner dropped out due to embarrassing personal revelations.
Anyone in interested in Chicago politics should read "Clout City," the blog at the Chicago Reader website, and in particular the columns of Ben Joravsky, and ignore the dribblings of this somewhat delusional old fool.
December 11, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe what Crosby was talking about is he was lucky to be white. He was the first white guy to take blues inflected crooning to a mainstream white audience.
and if the president of the United States says no, then the mayor of Chicago will hand him his head on a plate, because you can be sure that he has built into all of this the mechanisms to control his creature.
This is just nuts. Obama has even said the stimulus isn't going to be awarded based on friendships and old political ties, it'll be based on most bang for the buck. I have no doubt Chicago and Illinois will get a fair share as we know how to put money to work effectively. If Obama has a major political patron in this state it's Durbin whose stature inside the state and party is growing every day. Obama started in politics as an outsider, a community organizer, not a precinct worker. He ran for Alice Walker's seat when she asked him to and bucked her and the system when her bid to move up failed and she asked him to step aside and let her reclaim her old seat. He's not beholden to Daley but neither is he at odds with him.
And you still think Chicago is the most racist city in the world? Hell I think Mosul is more racist than Chicago.
December 11, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bing Crosby "discovered" the electric microphone aside from that he was not only lucky to be white, he was plain lucky all his life. He died playing golf in Madrid and the doctor who did the autopsy said that his cadaver was smiling from ear to ear.
December 11, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come on!
Sure he was offered a job as a community organizer, but he could have done anything he wished to do and he could have done it anywhere he wished to do it. Of course his decision to go to Chicago was political. Please! He's not a corrupt politician, but he isn't just a Little Bo Peep either. Anyone who makes it where he's made it as fast as he has, has had ambition and foresight as well as good luck and powerful patrons.
December 11, 2008 2:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Umm where did I say he was little BoPeep. I have never thought for one minute Obama wasn't a smart, tough politician. As to your "Oh come on" point. My point and this is based on reading his book (I take it with a grain of salt since Obama gets to define the narrative) was that he tried the corporate career,found it lacking and took the community organizer job. My further point - to assume that this was all part of some grand political plan from the get go fails for lack of evidence. It is conjecture which is fine, but admit it is and don't try and sell it as a fact.
December 11, 2008 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess you're right about the plan not being clear except for the outcome. Open your eyes! It wasn't luck and it wasn't random. He set out to do this and he succeeded. Nothing wrong with that, but to delude one's self into thinking that this was luck alone without a plan or an objective is just unrealistic.
December 11, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe (and this is just a wild-ass guess here) he wanted to go where his wife had history? WHAT A CONCEPT.
David, you should really be ashamed of this tripe.
December 11, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. There's literally no 'facts' in here - just 'deduction.'
The truth is, Obama ran AGAINST the so called 'machine' when he tried to get Bobby Rush's Congressional seat.
December 11, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course he couldn't possibly have chosen Chicago simply because it's a great city. What kind of a lunatic would live in The City of Corruption unless they were trying to pull a scam? Last time I was in Chicago, my car was stolen, the cashier at the grocery store stole my wallet, and the gas station where I filled up my rented car was pumping water instead of gasoline. Oh, and that crap about the architecture and the restaurants and the music? ALL LIES! Chicago is a hell-hole of corruption with NO REDEEMING QUALITIES WHATSOEVER! Any moral person with a brain and a sense of honor would choose the completely corruption-free New York City over Chicago any day of the week. There isn't an honest person living in Illinois. A fact David, or anyone with similar intelligence can attest to.
December 11, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your ability to use a lot of words when you have nothing of substance to say would serve you well in the "term papers for hire" industry.
December 10, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
To have any skill that is marketable in any industry these days is very comforting. Thank you for your kind words.
December 11, 2008 5:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
You invent a debt not present. Obama did his own politicking, and owes Emil Jones way more than any imagined obligation to Daley. Come on back here, it's a good city, and we have a great orchestra. And please don't mix Springfield with Chicago, they are wholly separate corruptions.
December 10, 2008 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Emil Jones is a liege man of Dick Daley or he would not have his power and he is also a fine piece of work, Jones is tight with Blago.
And as someone who spent summers in his grandmother's village in west-central Illinois, I am well aware of the difference between Springfield and Chicago... for those who actually live in those places. For the political hacks it is just a shuttle between two interconnected water holes.
December 11, 2008 2:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder why Obama would have to owe anything, now. Hard to see what these evil kingmakers can do to him, unless it is spill the beans about some sort of corruption. That seems not to be happening, with the Fitz giving Obama a clean bill of health.
I guess you can hope Blago takes him down with him. But the fleas you imagine seem to not be in the picture, if we take the right inference from the tapes. Obama's gone rogue, acting on (horror!) principle.
December 11, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your scenario of Mayor Daley as the puppeteer who can still hand his "prize pupil" -- the president of the United States -- "his head on a plate" is not convincing.
You pay lip service to Obama's intelligence, charisma and temperament, but somehow need to find some other explanation for his meteoric rise. Sometimes, David, things are what they seem.
I would not be surprised if Obama brings Chicago a world's fair; that in no way implies he's doing anybody's bidding.
He's got the nuclear football now. Chicago better not get too greedy.
December 10, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is another analogy: when Elvis moved from Sun records to RCA is when he got national recognition. His talent didn't change, but the organization promoting him had.
December 11, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a completely specious argument and you know it. When Jimi Hendrix moved from Seattle to London he got famous. So what? When Kurt Cobain moved from Aberdeen to Seattle he got famous. So what? And when Elvis moved from Sun to RCA he started recording crap, and it was the beginning of the end of his over-long career. So what?
December 11, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can we trust a word you write when you're so heavily associated with Chicago?
December 10, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Donal, I see you have read my piece with full attention and fruition.
December 11, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right up to the part about Lake Michigan.
December 11, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like you've riled some of the faithful again David by daring to point out the obvious. Bravo!
December 11, 2008 2:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the really amazing thing about Obama's career in Chicago is how he managed to avoid so much of the machine. He never went through the alderman system, which (as knowledgeable people know) is how things are done in Chicago; Daley didn't support him for his State Senate run in 1995; he pissed off the entire establishment by challenging Bobby Rush (and losing) in 2000; and he didn't have the backing of the Blagojevich / Madigan wing in 2004.
But yeah, David's post is brilliant. Just like his work earlier in the year, when he assured us that (a) the Democrats were crazy to nominate Obama because he would go down in flames and destroy the party in the process, (b) the Rev. Wright scandal would be his undoing, and (c) America would never vote for a black man (though David said this more in sorrow than in anger, to be sure). David Seaton is TPM's answer to Dick Morris, and we should cherish him.
December 11, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have to love the Bing Crosby anecdote, though.
December 11, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hah. I love it when you appear.
I do cherish David, generally, for the very reasons you list.
December 11, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I prefer to alternate moments of cherishing him with long stretches of mocking and shunning.
December 11, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent example of just what I mentioned above. Thanks!
December 11, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was wrong on "C", but I think I still may turn out to be right on "A" and "B"...
December 11, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't be right on "A" since Obama won. You can be right on "A prime" or something if it can be shown, after some years, that winning was a Bad Thing overall. Can't see how to be right on "B" for the above reasons.
December 11, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice grainy photo of Obama and Blago....it really sets the mood for some good old guilt by association!
December 11, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
David:
Has your long standing prejudice, bias, hatred, bigotry, or whatever it is, toward Obama yet caused you to register Republican? You shouldn't delay. That way, you'll belong to a community of like-minded asshats.
December 11, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahoy, Captain A-Hat has set full sail in pursuit of his true nemesis, Moby Obama! Shiver me timbers, the grizzled Cap'n will see the leviathan's gore upon the decks or meet his own doom in trying!
December 11, 2008 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
David, this drivel that you write does really belong on a right wing blog, or on radio, you can be the new Walter Winchell. He also indulged himself in unsubstantiated rumor and smear tactics.
I'm sorry, your series of tenuous presumptions remain no more than that.
December 11, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
David Seaton's posts have, for the most part, driven me away from the Cafe. Not because of the posts themselves--I couldn't really care less what David writes--but because they're actually making the Recommended list, which tells me that the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.
More power to ya, David. With the happy assistance of who-the-hell-knows, you've at least temporarily putrefied a formerly respectable site with your tedious drivel.
Who the FUCK is recommending this bullshit?
December 11, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
One curious thing, since you like technical wrinkles: I guess no TPM readers use the MS Explorer browser, because, as an experiment, I put in a background music tag that only can be read by Explorer with Robert Johnson singing "Sweet Home Chicago". I was hoping that someone would notice, but nobody has.
December 11, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Internet Explorer isn't available for Mac, so that leaves Mac users out. And with all the serious security risks on the Internet these days, I think the majority of Windows users have moved to a safer browser. Browsing the 'net with IE is just begging for trouble.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1972
http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20080915/clickjacking/
December 11, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would have included this link as well, but TPM has some bizarre two-link limit on comments:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1973
December 11, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I noticed, David. I like Robert Johnson (have him on vinyl) but that clip came in pretty damn loud.
December 11, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's because David uses WYSIWYG editors and can't be bothered to learn the code--even though learning a new language is the best possible way to keep your mind spry in your later years. (Aside to David: I used the word "spry". Does that give you any indication of how close we are in years?) I'm not your enemy, David. I've got the bow. Or possibly the stern. :o)
December 11, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/doofusino.html
December 11, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, I can't stand the humidity in Hawaii, and guess what, it's not the main action. Who goes there to make it? Why settle for big fish/small pond when going through the Machine Scene could lead to biggest fish/biggest pond?
Here's to empty assertion:
"Chicago politics are as corrupt as it gets and no matter how clean you are -- and I don't think Obama has ever even fixed a friend's traffic ticket -- there is no way you can lie down with those dogs without developing at least a mild rash."
This is the essence of essentialism. There is some pure essence of corruption that exists without any indication, without weight or charge. Even though the is zero evidence, and the dogged Fitzgerald has not even hinted, (actually the opposite) at any taint, Obama must be corrupted, since he talks to these evil people.
Desperate.
December 11, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This sort of guilt-by-association inanity has been going on since Hector was a pup. Assigning the sins of one man to another simply because they may have ridden on the same bus is one of the last refuges of the scoundrel with no real argument to put forth. David joins the ranks of every other right-wing raver when he stoops to this sort of logically fallacious, idiotic attack. Of couse, David has been so corrupted by his well-known association with Francisco Franco, that I'm sure there's little left of his poor, brainwashed mind. As a resident of Spain--a country that will forever be tainted by Franco's dictatorship--how can David possibly understand the first thing about our democracy?
December 11, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, David, the most offensive assertion in your post is your nonsensical assertion that the kingmaker somehow makes the king. It's just garbage. At their very best, kingmakers are lucky opportunists. But they're also completely unnecessary. Your naive statement, "America's then most famous bandleader, Paul Whiteman, discovered the young Crosby and made him a star..." shows how little you understand about talent and about the people who have what it takes to make it on their own. Perhaps some people smoothed the road a bit, but Obama would have been successful no matter what. Daley, like Sam Phillips and Danny Goldberg and Dave Ayers and Don King and a million others are just punks who got lucky and who were in the right place at the right time.
Elvis Presley didn't need Sam Phillips. The Beatles didn't need George Martin. And Barack Obama most definitely did not need Richard J. Daley. And your attempt to make the case that Obama was somehow installed by some corrupt Chicago power broker is just absolutely idiotic. Do you seriously believe this crap? Or are you just trying to piss intelligent people off? Richard Daley was a 20-dollar prostitute. Barack Obama is a natural-born leader.
Every musician in the world has listened to their manager tell some chick, "We're playing at such-and-such a club this weekend," or "We're going into the studio to work on our new album next month." We just let it pass. It's no biggie. We know the guy is just as into the free drugs and the easy sex as anyone else. But he's not in the band, and he's not playing anywhere. And he's not making any album in any studio any time soon. More likely, he's just drinking the band's beer. Just like fans of the Minnesota Vikings who are not playing the Green Bay Packers next weekend. They're only watching it on TV. And Richard J. Daley never had a hope of being President of the United States of America, and he also never had a hope of installing one. And neither does Rod Blagovejich.
One of my good friends in the music business is a guy named Cliff Burnstein. Ever heard of him? Of course you haven't. He's one of those kingmakers who knows his job and does it incredibly well. And I've never heard him even come CLOSE to taking credit for someone else's sucess. He gets it. You don't.
December 11, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. I just did a search for Cliff. He currently manages The Black Keys. Still a fuckin' selfless, visionary mensch (no pun intended).
December 11, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink