{"id":8571,"date":"2015-07-28T08:05:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T15:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8571"},"modified":"2015-07-28T08:06:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T15:06:16","slug":"the-obama-administrations-chicago-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-administrations-chicago-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obama Administration\u2019s Chicago Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n
by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\"President
President Obama Photo by Mark Wilson via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

B<\/span>arack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama\u2019s most lasting legacy.<\/p>\n

Chicago has long been stereotyped as a city where any-means-necessary politics have ruled, and where excess is preferable to moderation. Convicted felon Tony Rezko, leftist extremists Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger, radical Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky\u2019s take-no-prisoners Rules for Radicals<\/em>, felon and former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich \u2014 all these were part of Barack Obama\u2019s Chicago tutelage. Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel\u2019s infamous adage \u2014 \u201cYou never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that, it\u2019s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before\u201d \u2014 was the unofficial motto of the Obama administration\u2019s efforts to grow government, up-regulate, and borrow immense sums \u2014 measures impossible without a climate of induced panic and fear.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Director Brian De Palma\u2019s 1987 film The Untouchables<\/em> rejuvenated Chicago\u2019s reputation for muscle over niceties. The film dramatized Chicago\u2019s institutionalized bribery and corruption during the effort to bring down Roaring Twenties mobster Al Capone. Screenwriter David Mamet famously had characters brag of \u201cthe Chicago way.\u201d On more than one occasion, a cop advised: \u201cThey pull a knife, you pull a gun.\u201d Gun-control advocate and Chicagoan Barack Obama made waves in his 2008 presidential run when he echoed the film\u2019s advice to a Philadelphia audience. He joked of what his campaign might do to his rival, John McCain: \u201cIf they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.\u201d Obama exemplified the Chicago stereotype of how to get business done when, that same campaign year, he advised his followers to confront their political opponents: \u201cI want you to argue with them and get in their face.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChicago politics\u201d seems a common denominator in serial scandals involving political bias, cronyism, and incompetence at the VA, IRS, DHS, ICE, NSA, Secret Service, and, most recently, Office of Personnel Management. The NSA\u2019s monitoring of the Associated Press journalists fit perfectly the Chicago stereotype, which often involves two prime characteristics: sending a message to political opponents that the power of government can be unleashed against unwise criticism, and using off-the record understandings and under-the-table sweeteners to close a deal.<\/p>\n

Obama has been not just voicing Chicago clich\u00e9s, but apparently living them. Was it just a coincidence that, right before the 2012 election, amateur video-maker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula found himself put in prison for a\u00a0minor parole violation? The administration had falsely blamed Nakoula\u2019s little-watched video \u2014 rather than an al-Qaeda affiliate and the administration\u2019s own lax security \u2014 as the cause of the lethal attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The public shrugged at the jailing of the distasteful Nakoula, as if the hounding of an American resident on a trumped-up charge to mask the culpability of the White House were a minor affair.<\/p>\n

Was it just a coincidence that Senator Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) in April suddenly found himself indicted by a federal attorney on three-year-old, and previously aired, charges \u2014 right after he voiced sharp criticism of the administration\u2019s ongoing Iran deal? Was the not-so-subtle message to congressional Democrats, \u201cDon\u2019t buck the administration if you know what\u2019s good for you\u201d?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Speaking of Iran, why is the administration suddenly talking of releasing master spy and traitor Jonathan Pollard ahead of his parole date? Pollard has served 27 years of a life sentence for spying for Israel. Previously, the Obama administration would not even let Pollard visit his dying father. Is administration talk of Pollard\u2019s early release designed as a sop to Israel over the Iran deal \u2014 a supposed way to cool Israel\u2019s loud opposition, which might threaten congressional ratification of the deal? In Chicago fashion, when a deal is stuck, you add extraneous sweeteners or punishments to move it along.<\/p>\n

What are the recently exposed \u201cside deals\u201d with Iran? Why does the administration brag about the transparent provisions of the treaty, while hiding two concessions to the Iranian theocracy concerning its ongoing uranium enrichment and areas off-limits to inspections?<\/p>\n

During Obama\u2019s 2012 reelection campaign, the Tea Party likewise learned about the Chicago way. At the high-water mark of that populist conservative movement, suddenly many Tea Party affiliates ran into trouble with the IRS. It was later found out \u2014 well after Obama\u2019s reelection \u2014 that IRS bureaucrat Lois Lerner had deliberately targeted conservative nonprofits on the basis of their politics. At the time, Obama feigned outrage. But more recently, he dropped that pretense and scoffed that Lerner\u2019s politicization of the IRS was due only to a \u201ccrummy\u201d law \u2014 and Republican cuts in the IRS budget. In other words, the Republicans were to blame for Lerner\u2019s hounding of themselves.<\/p>\n

We forget that politicizing the IRS worked, in the sense that on the eve of Obama\u2019s reelection lots of conservative groups were deflated. More important, Obama subsequently established the deterrent idea that opposition to him might earn audits for his critics. Or, as Obama joked in Chicago fashion when denied an honorary degree from Arizona State, \u201cPresident [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Obama administration is now fishing for some way to shut down the Guantanamo detention center, after six years of failing to persuade or browbeat Congress to do so. It suddenly complains of the excessive cost of running the facility \u2014 this worry over budgeting from an administration that will leave office having doubled the federal debt, and having borrowed more than all previous presidencies combined.
\nThere has been bad blood between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ever since their acrimonious 2008 nomination fight. Hillary should beware: Obama has a long Chicago memory, and as an unfettered lame duck he no longer worries about polls or national elections. Coincidentally, Hillary just learned that federal officials are once again looking into her private e-mail mess and her possible release of classified information to friends and associates. She should remember what happened to General David Petraeus, whose use of private e-mails and sharing of classified documents were apparently known to the Obama administration well before the 2012 election \u2014 but mattered more opportunely after the Obama victory, when it led to Petraeus\u2019s resignation and eventual guilty plea to a federal charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. In Chicago style, the sword of Damocles falls when the boss chooses.<\/p>\n

Even more curious, as Stanley Kurtz has pointed out, the Obama administration is apparently going ahead with its bizarre plan to force elite suburbs to diversify and become more racially proportionate under federal guidance (certain tony enclaves like Oprah\u2019s Montecito or Silicon Valley\u2019s Woodside will no doubt be exempt). Disbursements of federal money will apparently be used to alter zoning laws in wealthier areas, with the purpose of granting access to the underprivileged. Guess which exclusive enclave the Obama administration tried targeting first?<\/p>\n

Westchester, N.Y. \u2013 home to Hillary Clinton. Pettiness too is a Chicago presidential trait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.\u201d by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Barack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama\u2019s most lasting legacy. Chicago has long been stereotyped as a city where any-means-necessary politics have ruled, and where excess is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2ef","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2464,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/spare-us-the-sermons-mr-president\/","url_meta":{"origin":8571,"position":0},"title":"Spare Us the Sermons, Mr. President","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility. 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