Chicago Daily Observer

On Friday Barack Obama spelled out his Latin America policy (it’s just like his Middle East policy—talk to everybody), and inadvertently supplied another example of his stunning ignorance of history and naive foreign policy ideas. The speech is transcribed at the official Obama campaign web site: Renewing U.S. Leadership in the Americas.

Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.

No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum.

This is pathetic. Hugo Chavez came to power during the Clinton Administration, and was first elected President of Venezuela in 1998, two years before the Bush Administration took office.

A mole wore a wire for a year while acting as a bagman carrying bribes from developers and contractors to Chicago building inspectors, exposing systemic corruption in the Zoning and Buildings Departments, authorities said Thursday.

Even for a town that has turned payoffs into an art form, the operative uncovered brazen misconduct, investigators alleged.

City inspectors ignored problems, fabricated reports and sped up paperwork in exchange for envelopes of cash, work on their homes and tickets to skyboxes for Bulls games, the federal charges alleged. One inspector took $10,000 to approve two illegal basement units in a building, while another allegedly took $7,000 to “inspect” plumbing that was already covered by concrete, investigators said.

“Anyone who pays a dime of city taxes should be dismayed by the conduct of these city employees,” city inspector general David Hoffman said at a press conference at the federal courthouse Thursday afternoon. He spoke just after “Pat”—as he called U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald—announced bribery charges [see links on right] against 15 people, including seven city employees, stemming from an investigation that started in Hoffman’s office more than a year ago.

“These employees of the buildings department and the zoning department are paid good salaries with excellent benefits,” Hoffman said. “Their jobs were to make sure that the building codes and the zoning ordinances were laws that protect city residents. But what they actually did with their jobs was to make sure the laws were violated. Everything was the exact opposite of the way it should be. The people who we the taxpayers were paying to protect us were ... Read More...

How long before the national media and Republican strategists start openly wondering if a guy who’s allied with this city’s mayor—with his long list of achievements and rhetorical flair—is indeed a ”hack Chicago-style Daley politician”?