John Kass of the Chicago Tribune speculates that Rahm Emanuel would not have been re-elected Mayor of Chicago if the video of the police killing of teenager Laquan McDonald had been released before the 2015 election.
Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a police officer in October 2014. The video appeared only days ago, more than a year after the event. The police officer has been charged with first-degree murder. There have been marches and demonstrations since the release of the video.
Kass writes that had the video been posted before the election, no black politician would have stood by Rahm Emanuel’s side. He would have lost the black vote, and he would not be mayor today.
It is the Chicago way.
Kass writes:
You can see the truth of it by watching the other politicians scrambling for cover in the wake of the Laquan McDonald video release.
They don’t like questions about how they helped Rahm win. That puts the jacket on them. And they don’t want to wear the jacket.
So they’re stitching one up for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who charged Van Dyke with murder the other day.
They want Alvarez to wear the jacket for it all.
Rahm seems to be throwing her under his bus, but he doesn’t want his fingerprints on her. So his ally, David Axelrod, threw her under.
Axelrod is a Rahm pal, but for years he was also the mouthpiece for former Mayor Richard Daley, and was the top political and media strategist for Obama. It’s a Chicago thing.
“Why did it take a year to indict a CPD officer who shot a kid 16 times?” Axelrod tweeted Tuesday night. “Would it have happened today if judge hadn’t ordered video release?”
That puts it on Alvarez. Does she deserve it?
I don’t think so. To me, she’s not the issue.
The video threatened Rahm Emanuel and his pursuit of power. Alvarez told reporters she’d been waiting for the feds to issue a joint announcement with her office. That didn’t happen.
Funny how things work out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kass is usually a knee-jerk Republican naysayer and never misses an opportunity to bash Chicago and Illinois Democrats (alas there are so many opportunities) but in this case I agree with him.
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Is anyone wondering by now if Emanuel is simply incompetent? It just seems as if nothing is running very well in that city. The big benefit of these well-connected, market theory Democrats is supposed to be competence. They don’t really have any bedrock ideals or values they won’t trade away so we’re supposed to elect them because they’re good managers. The Technocrats were supposed to make the trains run on time.
If they’re not even good managers what’s the selling point, again?
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With Emanuel, as with all neoliberal so-called reformers, where does the incompetence end, and the malice begin?
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Actually, he has been a champion of the 1% and their pet projects. They have done quite well in Emmanuel’s Chicago.
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I think we must ban anyone from Chicago from running for the White House or Congress or to hold any nationally important position in government.
Why?
1. The University of Chicago gave us the neo-conservatives
2. The University of Chicago gave us the neo-liberals
3. Chicago gave Obama
4. Chicago gave us Duncan
5. Chicago gave us Rahm
What is it about Chicago that gave birth to these movements and people?
Did I miss anyone? Did Michelle Rhee, Eva, Coleman, and Brown also come from Chicago?
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Michelle Rhee came from Toledo. She went to a progressive private school that now advertises as an alternative to the grim, joyless test-based culture she foisted on US public schools.
It’s all about the “whole child” and curiosity at Rhee’s alma mater. Meanwhile, Toledo Public Schools are on their 50th set of gimmicky “reforms” pushed by ed reformers.
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Toledo is only 245.9 miles from Chicago and it is also a great lake city not far from Detroit.
It makes sense that the Chicago neo-cancer started to spread from Chicago, and it would reach Toledo before it reached the rest of the country.
Look what’s happened to Detroit’s public schools.
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I doubt it would have made a difference.
The people of Chicago have been voting for con artists for a very long time.
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Anyone who voted for Rahm the second time deserves what they got. Video or no video, it was clear who and what he was (of course that was clear before he ever got elected the first time too). Fred Klonsky ran a graphic showing Chicago’s neighborhoods by race as well as who they voted for. Sadly, the black neighborhoods voted for Rahm almost as strongly as the white neighborhoods did. The only ones who voted strongly for Chuy were the Latinos. I guess some people weren’t hurt enough by the closing of their schools and mental health clinics.
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Similar sentiment for those that re-elected Obama.
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There is some tension, political and otherwise, between Latino and black populations.
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2old – agreed, but is it to the extent that blacks would rather suffer through four more years of Rahm? Better the devil you know, I guess? Pretty sad.
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I have a feeling that Chuy could win now.
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As stinky and corrupt as politics can be.
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If you lie down with dogs, you should expect to get fleas. She is running in a pack with some of the dirtiest wolves in American politics. No need to feel sorry for Anita Alvarez.
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The real question would Obama been re-elected if the public had known the truth about Benghazi?
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What happened in Benghazi has nothing to do with what the Obama administration is doing to public education.
But what Benghazi truth are you talking about?
1. The one that far right hate radio and Fox News talks about all the time?
OR
2. “As the House Select Committee gears up to spend up to more than $ 3 million on another investigation into the tragedy in Benghazi, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee just completed and is about to release an exhaustive, nearly two year investigation that found no deliberate wrongdoing by the Administration.
“This report exonerating the Administration of wrongdoing is one of many investigations into the tragedy. There have already been seven investigations, 13 hearings, 50 briefings, and 25,000 pages of documents have been released.”
http://www.factcheck.org/issue/benghazi/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/10/21/fact-checking-the-benghazi-attacks-2/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/may/16/fact-checking-benghazi-our-most-recent-round-/
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To me, that election and the aftermath of scandal that follows it was a loud affirmation of the unabated power and influence of the billionaire class over the rest of us.
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Chicago politics have always been corrupt. No surprise that Rahm was re-elected. Now he should fall with the rest of them.
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The Benghazi truths discovered is primarily that there was little truth told by the Secretary. The investigation is still ongoing. They discovered a cover-up of the terrorism cause, her private computer server, over 1000 e-mails (so far) of classified information on a nonsecure site and an advisor (Blumenthal) who had specific dealings in the Middle East who was vetoed by the government but hired by the Clinton Foundation, a Secretary of State who ignored the security requests of her ambassador, and a possible illegal arms deal—and that is just part of it. There are others who are yet to be interviewed and Hillary could be (or should be) endited for a host of related crimes if the JD does its job.
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