July 10, 2012
State of Denial
There's a great scene in Michael Crichton's book State of Fear in which an actor named Ted Bradley (a thinly-veiled version of Martin Sheen), is captured by a tribe of natives on a tropical island. The poster child for modern eco-consciousness, Bradley views the island as a paradise and its denizens as noble primitives, living in harmony with nature just as Gaia intended -- right up to the moment they cook him up for dinner.
Kind of reminds me of Rahm Emanuel.
You might have heard that the murder rate has soared even higher in Chicago since Barack Obama's former chief of staff moved into the mayor's office. No surprise there. Chicago is a rough town, and in spite of his tough-guy persona Emanuel is, after all, a Democrat -- and they aren't exactly known for being tough on crime. Even with that in mind, though, hizzoner's response to the crime wave simply boggles the mind:
We've got two gangbangers, one standing next to a kid. Get away from that kid. Take your stuff away to the alley. Don't touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don't get near them.And it is about values. As I said then [when a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed last month], who raised you? How were you raised? And I don't buy this case where people say they don't have values. They do have values. They have the wrong values. Don't come near the kids -- don't touch them.
Yeah. Ted Bradley thought the same thing about the cannibals, and look where that got him.
The article goes on to say that Emanuel's plan for dealing with the situation involves tearing down the gangbanger hangouts and closing up their favorite liquor stores. While he's at it, maybe he can send out some community organizers to remind the thugs that they shouldn't stay out so late on school nights either.
Suddenly, Emanuel seems a lot less "Rahmbo" and a lot more Steve Urkel. Perhaps he should take a page from the Rudy Giuliani playbook, and instead of appealing to the better natures of murderers and rapists he could try busting some heads. Like Chicago, New York City had a huge problem with violent crime before Giuliani turned things around with effective policing -- which included the actual targeting of criminals, and not just the places they liked to go.
Or is that concept just too Republican?
Hatched by Korso on this day, July 10, 2012, at the time of 9:28 AM
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