Reprinted from dianeravitch.net
John Kass of the Chicago Tribune speculates that Rahm Emanuel would not have been re-elected Mayor of Chicago if the video of the police killing of teenager Laquan McDonald had been released before the 2015 election.
Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a police officer in October 2014. The video appeared only days ago, more than a year after the event. The police officer has been charged with first-degree murder. There have been marches and demonstrations since the release of the video.
Kass writes that had the video been posted before the election, no black politician would have stood by Rahm Emanuel's side. He would have lost the black vote, and he would not be mayor today.
It is the Chicago way.
Kass writes:
You can see the truth of it by watching the other politicians scrambling for cover in the wake of the Laquan McDonald video release.
They don't like questions about how they helped Rahm win. That puts the jacket on them. And they don't want to wear the jacket.
So they're stitching one up for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who charged Van Dyke with murder the other day.
They want Alvarez to wear the jacket for it all.
Rahm seems to be throwing her under his bus, but he doesn't want his fingerprints on her. So his ally, David Axelrod, threw her under.
Axelrod is a Rahm pal, but for years he was also the mouthpiece for former Mayor Richard Daley, and was the top political and media strategist for Obama. It's a Chicago thing.
"Why did it take a year to indict a CPD officer who shot a kid 16 times?" Axelrod tweeted Tuesday night. "Would it have happened today if judge hadn't ordered video release?"
That puts it on Alvarez. Does she deserve it?
I don't think so. To me, she's not the issue.
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