NBC's Chuck Todd Ascribes to Chicago Mayor Daley Tremendous Power Over White House Olympic Push

You Have No Idea Who I Am, Do You?

Our own Managing Editor Ken Shepherd delivered earlier NBC's Chuck Todd analyzing the bad news that Chicago finished fourth out of four as a potential host site for the 2016 Olympics. This abject failure came despite a full-on push by both President Barack Obama and his First Lady Michelle, live and in person in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Despite all of this Presidential effort, Todd somehow arrived at the conclusion that the "the biggest political loser" was not Obama - but Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.  A man who roughly 95% of the country (conservatively) has never heard of in their lives is somehow a bigger political loser than the President.  A President who very publicly dropped everything to make a MUCH discussed trans-Atlantic jaunt to make the pitch for the Toddlin' Town.

This is a BIZARRE assessment. But Todd's explanation - in defense of his bizarreness - had him venturing further into the realm of the absurd.  He insisted that Mayor Daley basically ordered the White House - and the President specifically - to get involved on behalf of his Olympic effort (video below the fold).

If this is true, Todd is breaking some serious news here - that the titular head of the vaunted, notorious Chicago Political Machine can bend the White House to his will whenever he wishes.  Which would be more than a little disturbing. 

And this after the media repeatedly assured us throughout last year's campaign of the incredible chasm that somehow miraculously existed between Obama and the Machine - despite Obama's career-long immersion in those fetid and festering waters.

Get a load of this:

TODD: But the biggest political loser here is Mayor Daley in Chicago.  Nobody had more on the line than Mayor Daley.  He was pushing this, this was his pet project.  He's the one that just put so much pressure on the White House to get the President out there.  He worked this White House, every contact he had here, harder than anybody.

If Daley really has this kind of juice inside the White House, we are indeed in for a LOOOONG four years.

Is Todd so desperate to deflect political damage from Obama that he would assert something so paranormal as this?  Obviously, the answer is yes.