For a politician who was once viewed as inarticulate — and even took public speaking lessons to overcome that reputation — Mayor Daley sure has come a long way.
The retiring mayor has signed on with a New York speakers bureau and lecture agency to make a living delivering speeches — in exchange for a fee in the $50,000-an-engagement range.
The Harry Walker Agency has a blue-chip roster of clients that includes former President Bill Clinton, former Vice-Presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and rock star/philanthropist Bono.
Has anyone from the Harry Walker Agency actually seen Shortshanks deliver a speech? It's painful. Choppy monotone, little-to-no-audience connection, constant mangling of the King's English.
And then there's the question of what he's going to speak about?
Urban planning? Anyone seen the laundry list of scandals this goof presided over? Shoddy construction, crooked contracts, friends and relatives with no job experience running departments into the ground while the politically and Outfit connected businesses get rich. Then there's the flower boxes, parking meter contracts, pension disaster, No-lympic glory, the list is near endless.
Leadership? All his speeches about how he "don't know nuthin," yet has a reputation as a micro-manager without peer, every cog in the Machine reporting to his political organization, yet no obvious successor or heir-apparent which most successful leaders attempt to groom. Do we really need to rehash the mess he made of the police department command structure. And exactly how many chiefs-of-staff did he go through in his 20-plus years?
The article was written by, you guessed it, Fran Spielman, who never met a Daley press release that couldn't be spun into some fawning profile, even to the very end of Shortshanks' career. We really have no idea how she's going to make a living once the Daley gravy train ends. We imagine her emaciated remains will be located, starved to death on lower Michigan Avenue, her clothes stuffed with all the clippings of Daley-praise she's written over the years in an attempt to stave off the freezing temperatures.
It's the kind of thought that keeps us warm at night as we dream about eating cat food in our own cardboard box after the Ballerino finishes Daley's dirty work draining our pensions.
And then there's the question of what he's going to speak about?
Urban planning? Anyone seen the laundry list of scandals this goof presided over? Shoddy construction, crooked contracts, friends and relatives with no job experience running departments into the ground while the politically and Outfit connected businesses get rich. Then there's the flower boxes, parking meter contracts, pension disaster, No-lympic glory, the list is near endless.
Leadership? All his speeches about how he "don't know nuthin," yet has a reputation as a micro-manager without peer, every cog in the Machine reporting to his political organization, yet no obvious successor or heir-apparent which most successful leaders attempt to groom. Do we really need to rehash the mess he made of the police department command structure. And exactly how many chiefs-of-staff did he go through in his 20-plus years?
The article was written by, you guessed it, Fran Spielman, who never met a Daley press release that couldn't be spun into some fawning profile, even to the very end of Shortshanks' career. We really have no idea how she's going to make a living once the Daley gravy train ends. We imagine her emaciated remains will be located, starved to death on lower Michigan Avenue, her clothes stuffed with all the clippings of Daley-praise she's written over the years in an attempt to stave off the freezing temperatures.
It's the kind of thought that keeps us warm at night as we dream about eating cat food in our own cardboard box after the Ballerino finishes Daley's dirty work draining our pensions.