In Chicago, incumbent Mayor and longtime Democrat fixture Rahm Emanuel floated the idea of renaming one of its airports after President Obama. After all, according to Emanuel, both of Chicago's major airports, O'Hare and Midway, are "named after battleships." No they're not, as will be seen after the jump.
The Chicago Tribune's Bill Ruthhart failed to recognize Emanuel's startling gaffe until the fifth paragraph of his story. Even then, he treated his breathtaking ignorance as some kind of routine, unimportant mistake. If you have a hard time imagining the Trib giving a Republican or conservative committing a similar whopper such an easy time of it, join the club.
Emanuel was born in Chicago, grew up in and north of the Windy City, received a masters degree from Northwestern in Evanston, was a three-term congressman who represented Illinois' 5th district, and has been the city's mayor for almost four years. Yet it has somehow escaped him for the 55 years he has been on this earth that neither of Chicago's two airports is named after a battleship.
Midway is named after a pivotal World War II battle, and O'Hare is named after extraordinarily brave World War II Navy pilot Edward “Butch” O’Hare.
Here are Ruthhart's first five paragraphs, followed by an update (HT Iowahawk, who also pointed out that "ORD Terminal 1/2 has a hard-to-miss Butch O'Hare exhibit, complete with a Grumman F4F Wildcat. Rahm has apparently never noticed it"):
Obama International Airport? Emanuel floats idea of renaming O'Hare, Midway
Could Mayor Rahm Emanuel be thinking about renaming Chicago’s airports, perhaps after President Barack Obama?
Emanuel brought up the airports' names during a candidate forum Wednesday night at Chicago State University.
The topic came up as the mayor fielded a question on why he quickly proposed, then abandoned efforts to name a new North Side high school after Obama and the South Side’s Stony Island Parkway after the late Arthur Brazier, a revered African-American civic leader who founded the Woodlawn Organization and was pastor of the Apostolic Church of God for 48 years.
"We have to, in some way, whether it’s President Obama or in the other case, Dr. Brazier, acknowledge people who have done significant things. We have an airport, two of them, named after, you know, Midway Airport, O’Hare Airport,” Emanuel said. “These are people who have been transformative in the city of Chicago. But we have airports named after battleships.”
Actually, O’Hare is named after World War II Navy pilot Edward “Butch” O’Hare, and Midway was given its name by city officials in 1949 in remembrance of the 1942 Battle of Midway, a crucial battle in the Pacific during World War II.
... Update: Later, Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the mayor has no plans to rename either airport.
Well, if he has no plans, why did he talk about it?
Emanuel's apparent justification for naming the aiports after people "who have been transformative in the city of Chicago" would seem to exclude Barack Obama, whose legacy most certainly does not include any such transformation — unless the following two items would qualify:
- His friend Tony Rezko "transformed" parts of the city's South Side by running several high-rise residential buildings into the ground. At the time, Obama, in an early preview of what we've heard time and again when scandal has struck during his presidency, "told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was unaware of Rezko’s growing reputation as a slumlord until he read Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak’s two-part series on the subject."
- Obama supported "botanical garden in an economically blighted area on the South Side of Chicago — complete with “a gazebo, a parrot sanctuary, and a walk of fame." The transformation which resulted from that was a $100,000 meaningless gazebo which otherwise produced nothing but broken promises.
Another "transformation" largely attributable to President Obama's policies is an issue in the election, and perhaps explains why Emanuel brought up the idea of naming an airport after the President as a sop to placate black voters. The WGN video seen at Ruthhart's story (which conveniently includes no footage relating to airport naming) noted that "Chicago's unemployment rate for African-Americans (is) one of the hightest in the country."
I don't think it's wise name an airport after a person who is largely to blame for that, Rahm — especially since your former boss isn't done "transforming" things yet.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
