- As Chicagoans put away their snowblowers and "dibs" chairs — for now — city officials can look back on the Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011 and congratulate themselves: An overwhelming majority of residents think the city did a good job responding to the storm, according to a Tribune/WGN poll.
Nearly three-quarters of the Chicagoans surveyed — 73 percent — gave the city an overall passing grade for how it handled the storm.
In fact, when it came to the storm's most conspicuous consequence — the hundreds of vehicles snowbound along Lake Shore Drive — respondents were more likely to blame the stranded drivers than the city.
Almost 1,000 cars abandoned on Lake Shore Drive and the city gets a passing grade? Not only as passing grade, but the respondents blame the stranded drivers?
We don't know about you, but if we see an entrance ramp open to a main thoroughfare, we assume that the road is passable, drivable and safe for us to proceed on. We mean, why else would you leave a road open?
But Shortshanks and Tommy Thumb and everyone else started the blame game early and said the citizens should have known better than to drive on a road for pete's sake. Why think you could get anywhere on a road? The media ran with it and all of the sudden, the city did a fine job during a blizzard.
Now imagine if you had a major newspaper or two making political endorsements for a candidate that says things like "politicians shouldn't trade on their connections to make money," but somehow forget to ask that same candidate how he made $18 million for under two years work for a connected buyout of a power company. Or how he got paid another few hundred thousand for attending just 6 meetings for a government agency that precipitated the mortgage meltdown. Or how his enemies list rivals that of Richard Nixon.
Oh wait, you don't have to imagine it. It's happening right now and the object of the media affection is approaching 50% of the vote total from people who don't know any better.
We don't know about you, but if we see an entrance ramp open to a main thoroughfare, we assume that the road is passable, drivable and safe for us to proceed on. We mean, why else would you leave a road open?
But Shortshanks and Tommy Thumb and everyone else started the blame game early and said the citizens should have known better than to drive on a road for pete's sake. Why think you could get anywhere on a road? The media ran with it and all of the sudden, the city did a fine job during a blizzard.
Now imagine if you had a major newspaper or two making political endorsements for a candidate that says things like "politicians shouldn't trade on their connections to make money," but somehow forget to ask that same candidate how he made $18 million for under two years work for a connected buyout of a power company. Or how he got paid another few hundred thousand for attending just 6 meetings for a government agency that precipitated the mortgage meltdown. Or how his enemies list rivals that of Richard Nixon.
Oh wait, you don't have to imagine it. It's happening right now and the object of the media affection is approaching 50% of the vote total from people who don't know any better.