Rahm Emanuel and the Useless Editorial Board at The Washington Post

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

08 March 15

A few words on Rahm Emanuel, special interests, combat journalism and more before signing off for the weekend.

try to keep this semi-regular weekly feature light, but sometimes there are atrocities in my business worth being mad about for three days.

Example The First: "Special interests" is one of those phrases that can mean different things to different people. To Fred Hiatt and the useless editorial board at The Washington Post, a special interest is anybody who ought to be serving appetizers at the Palm to their betters.

A RUNOFF election next month to determine if Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets a second term appears to be close. His opponent, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, is not as well known and has far less campaign money, but recent polls show him within single digits of Mr. Emanuel.

Now, someone who really was interested in the destructive effect of "special interests" on our politics might look at the disparity between campaign treasuries and think, "Hmmmm, I wonder if all those people who gave that much money to an unreconstructed dickhead like Rahm Emanuel might one day want something in return." But that won't get you a seat at Fred's table.

Where Mr. Emanuel was most fearless - and where, as the New York Times recently reported, he seems to be reaping the angriest payback from riled unions - is in school reform. He backed the closing of dozens of underused and underperforming schools, insisted on a longer school day and school year, toughened teacher evaluations and helped expand charter schools. These reforms have produced encouraging results: graduation rates up, suspensions and expulsions down, more African American students taking Advanced Placement classes. But success for long-neglected children appears immaterial to a teachers union focused on protecting its turf. Mr. Garcia got into the race at the urging of Chicago Teachers Union leaders, who along with their national affiliate are leading the charge against the mayor.

The lack of links to the evidence of Emanuel's glorious triumph over schoolteachers is a bit disturbing, and surely, the corporate ties of school "reformers" are not "special interests" in the sense that a firefighter is. Certainly, handing DePaul $100 million for an arena for the school's perpetually underperforming men's basketball team is in no way pandering to "special interests," and Penny Pritzker, as we know, was just a poor woman trying to do her best. And what about those "special interests" in the city's mental health clinics? What's their problem with fearless Mayor Cartman anyway? They should shut up and open a hedge fund or something.

Example The Second: You had to know this was coming.

The president is not the only writer who has drawn comparisons between himself and Spock. I am also a Star Trek fan, but I admit I was somewhat confused by my rather apathetic reaction to Nimoy's death. And as I thought more about the president's statement, I realized he identifies with the very aspects of the Spock character that most annoy me. I don't love Spock at all.

Combat journalism!

Yeah, this guy.

Ok, that's enough of that.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "La tour de garde" (Babineaux Sisters): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Other musical notes, and I see what I did there, too. Congrats to Pete Townshend for selling the entire damn Who catalogue to the CSI people because now, every week, at the beginning of the new CSI: Cyber series, we get to hear the towering genius of the late Keith Moon on "I Can See For Miles," still my favorite single record of all time. Also a hearty well-done to the folks at Sirius/XM's 60's On Six channel for playing Third Rail's completely weird bubblegum record, "Run, Run, Run." ("General chaos, that's general chaos, is up one-quarter. The Great Society, unfortunately, is down five points.") This should never be confused with the first cut on the second Who album, a song which does not yet have its own police procedural.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here's the signing of the treaty that created the Irish Free State and which turned out to be the spark that ignited perhaps the world's most useless civil war. I like the part about subduing a "hostile Catholic population." Tell it to Wolfe Tone. History is so cool.

I'll be back on Monday with what I am sure is going to be some nightmarish retro gobshitery about the Clintons. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake line, or Matt's coming over to combat-journalist your ass.