True, Garry McCarthy, the new police chief — just marking six months on the job — is an outsider, and that was supposed to be the kiss of death. But not being from Mount Greenwood would be counterbalanced, I thought, by his heroic 9/11 credentials.
Wrong.
McCarthy spoke at the City Club Monday. Given the ability of the angry, racist, misogynist, whiner faction of the CPD (a sliver, I like to think, but who knows? It isn’t like you can take a poll) to bellyache, I assumed that had McCarthy already become a Weis-like figure of contempt, I’d have heard about it.
Again wrong.
Of course, Steinberg cites no alleged examples of the supposed angry racist misogynist whining. We were never contacted by him and we assume Shaved wasn't either. And seeing as how ourselves and Shaved account for some tens of thousands of clicks per day, you'd think he'd offer us a chance to defend or justify our sites. Shaved is a bit rougher around the edges, but like ourselves, he doesn't intend to prove (and certainly isn't obligated to prove) that even a single visitor spouting off in the comment section is, in fact, a Chicago Police Officer. We know we have trolls pretending here. We know the Occupy people mounted a concerted effort to get their messages into our comment sections.
- To test my hunch, I pulled on hip boots and took a wade in the septic stream of cowardly, anonymous thuggery that passes for police dialogue online. Golly. Journalistic standards plus basic human decency forbid me from even alluding to the catalog of misbehavior that various cheezed-off cop sites lay at McCarthy’s feet, already predicting — no make that yearning for his departure (is there a moderate, non-brutish cop site I’m missing? Because you’d think that some cops — most, one hopes — would bristle at allowing their foulest elements to tarnish the image of police officers 24/7, and set up such a site — notcrazycop.com perhaps).
This from a guy who regularly writes columns so off the wall that he has to close the comment section lest someone hand him his ass - verbally speaking of course.
Has Steinberg even done any homework on McJerseyShore? His confrontation with other police officers over a ticket given to his daughter? His liberal use of the "n-word" when confronting other officers? His freewheeling attitude toward weapon discharges while intoxicated? Not to mention the growing number of stories here in Chicago.
Cops hate a phony. Especially a phony who talks down to other cops. And a phony with an attitude a mile wide who thinks policing was invented in New York late last century?
This actually explains Steinberg's attraction to G-Mac. McCompStat is a phony and a bully, plain and simple. And so is Neil - just ask Mrs. Steinberg.