Thursday, August 04, 2005

Davlin Names Cracker as Executive Assistant*

If you wanted to have some fun with easily outraged right wing bloggers, send them a synopsis of today’s SJ-R article on the hiring of Mayor Davlin’s new executive assistant. Tell them how the opposing party’s aldermen referred to him as just “another white boy” and a member of the “old boy network”, and said that the only thing lacking from his lily-white pedigree was a private school education. You might embellish a bit by conjecturing that the aldermen stopped just short of calling him a jive-ass honky and that they reserved the right to ridicule his dancing ability until after the city council’s annual Christmas party. Add that the mayor’s allies on city council backed the selection, calling the new assistant “a pretty bright guy.” Then sit back and watch the charges of black-on-white racism and liberal hatred fly.

Of course the jig would be up as soon as the bloggers got a hold of the actual article and found that it wasn’t the party of Michael Moore dissing stupid white men, but rather the Republican aldermen who were making like Jesse. And that is was a black alderman who supported the hiring of the white assistant. But it would be fun for awhile.

The Republican’s outrage here isn’t really about race, it’s about politics. They saw a chance to jab the Democrats with their own stick, put on their black berets, and with one fist raised defiantly in the air, took to the streets. Well, to the floor of city hall anyway. It’s dangerous out there in the streets.

Such posturing really is distasteful and perhaps hypocritical. Does anyone doubt that if Karen Hasara had made such a move that the Democrats would have been the ones to work themselves into a little tizzy over the matter while the Republicans touted the hiring as sound and reasonable?

It’s also puzzling why one alderman used the occasion of the hiring of a Southeast High School grad to get in a dig at Sacred Heart-Griffin.

The always glib Davlin and the always frank Kunz, to their credit, aren’t having any of it. Their responses to the criticisms have been dismissive and strike just the right tone given the source of the disconcertment. It will be interesting, however, to see if a more thoughtful explanation for the hiring will be forthcoming if Ken Page of the NAACP weighs-in.

*Possible headline for a news release issued by Alderman Judy Yeager in response to the mayor's recent hire.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show.....not a lot of quality politicking happening on either side of the fence. But, at least it's better than the County Board, where a large percentage of it's members are only slightly more qualified than your average fry cook!

Anonymous said...

Clearly, Aldermen Yeager and Bartolomucci are anti-everything Davlin (and Bartolomucci obvioulsy has a chip on his shoulder concerning the Cyclones). Without fail, they can be counted on to negatively comment on any position Davlin takes, any decision he renders, or any comment he makes. They begin to lose credibility, because it's easy to dismiss them as 'Judy being Judy' or 'Joe being Joe', taking a stab at the mayor because the opportunity presented itself rather than because they had something with some merit to offer.

Anonymous said...

Why couldn't he have hired an SHS graduate?

Anonymous said...

And we all wondered why his previous assistant, Ms. Dewith-Anderson, resigned!?! Obvious as the nose on your face - can you spell "rednecks."