That’s The Chicago Way
Posted on June 12th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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The distinguishing characteristic of Hyde Park’s political history – the feature that sets it apart from every other neighborhood in the city – is its longstanding defiance of the Chicago machine. ~Thomas Frank
That must be why Obama, true son of Hyde Park, is deeply opposed to the Chicago machine. Oh, wait, that’s completely untrue:
Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley’s own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones (D-ComEd).
As I have made clear already, I think the Hyde Park-bashing attack is ridiculous, but any notion that Obama gets to take credit for Hyde Park residents’ opposition to machine politics in Chicago is even more so. Did the WSJ give Frank a regular column deliberately as a way to embarrass the left, or was it just a happy accident?
Filed under: politics
I think this is sort of unfair. Frank doesn’t really make Obama out to be the son of Hyde Park in any substantive sense; he just lambastes the GOP’s ridiculous image-creation attempt. I don’t think he’s giving Obama credit for Hyde Park’s anti-machine politics, although he is certainly pointing out how un-ironic it is for the GOP’s anointed to line up on the side of the machine.