Saturday, December 13, 2008

Not Your Traditional Corruption

Reform gets identified with well-educated people who are comfortable with laws that say city jobs should go to the person who is best qualified. After all, educated people usually are the best qualified. Regulars know that regular people sometimes need a little help. Under this kind of ethic, steering rewards to friends and family becomes a virtue. As Mayor Richard J. Daley once famously exclaimed when caught trying to shovel city insurance business to one of his sons (not Richard M. or Bill Daley), "Any father who doesn't do for his son isn't a good father, and if they don't like it, kiss my ass."

A Chicago alderman once complained to me about modern reform hiring laws -- the line was so good, I borrowed it, unembellished, for a novel -- "What's this world coming to when a guy can get a job for a stranger more easily than he can for his brother in law?"

Read the rest of Scott Simon on the new low in Chicago politics.

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