Everybody Else Already Knew He Was Lying...
In the Wednesday Chicago
Sun-Times, you'll enjoy a Lynn Sweet and Fran Spielman
article (filed, interestingly enough, from D.C., not Chicago)
titled, "Daley's Meigs alibi crumbles."
Big time, it "crumbles." As we pointed out a week ago
Monday, the TSA told us, "That decision did not originate with
the Department of Homeland Security, or with the TSA." The
Sun-Times story says that Secretary Tom Ridge was
"'disappointed' to see Meigs closed." Ridge also said he knew the
decison to close Meigs predated September 11, 2001. "At least
that's what was communicated to me," he said.
Terrorist? Schmerrorist. I want another park!
The Sun-Times points out the brazen nature of Chicago's
ruler: "On Tuesday, the mayor changed his tune. Daley
dropped all pretenses about fears of a private plane
flying into a Chicago skyscraper and acknowledged his real motive
was to create more open space as envisioned by planner Daniel
Burnham and others some 100 years ago. [The Sun-Times
doesn't mention the consideration Burnham may have given aviation,
a hundred years ago... --ed.] 'That's what makes Chicago unique
from the rest of the world: that we have protected this
wonderful lakefront. That's the greatest asset we have
here,' Daley said.
Nobody is safe from rapacious appetite:
Daley continued in the
Sun-Times piece, "'From the Calumet River on the south to
the Evanston border on the north, 'we want to eventually
fill in all the way ... for parks and open space,'
the mayor said." ...And he'll do anything, including sneak around
at night, break contracts and his word, steal public assets, break
laws, or endanger aviators, to do it.
The Trib Wakes Up
In a story also filed in Washington, Chicago Tribune
reporter Frank James, aided by Chicago staffer John McCormick,
noted, "Ridge `disappointed' at Daley's closing of Meigs
Field."
"The World's Greatest Newspaper" said, "In a meeting with
reporters, Ridge refused to be drawn into the issue of whether the
closing constituted a security issue for the city, but he pointedly
added that he always enjoyed flying into the airport... As
[Pennsylvania] governor I occasionally used it. It's a beautiful
short runway along the lake," he explained, to anyone reading the
Tribune, who might not know.
Always a politician first, Ridge told reports
who asked if Chicagoans were 'safer' because of the destruction of
the airport, he said, "From the mayor's point of view, they
are."
Ridge, whose TSA's heavy-handed command of airspace, aircraft
regulations, and 'security' issues has been as subtle as a bunch of
drunken jocks in a sorority house, wimped out, and
said, "You can't tell mayors what to do." ...but the
Tribune article noted, "The sense that Ridge didn't share
Daley's stated concerns about Meigs was reinforced when the
secretary indicated he wasn't afraid to ask mayors to close certain
facilities or locations when he thought it imperative."
Even so, the sneaky bum running Chicago didn't want to hear from
anyone prior to his letting loose with the bulldozers in the middle
of the night. As the Trib said, "Asked if the mayor told
him beforehand that the city was going to close the airport, Ridge
said: 'No.'"