I’m Not the Only One

It appears that I’m not the only one to whom Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s New York Times op-ed looked bizarre. Consider Kim Janssen’s reaction at the Chicago Tribune:

Eiither someone at The New York Times doesn’t like Mayor Rahm Emanuel very much, or the Gray Lady needs to brush up on her history.

How else to account for the unfortunate evocation of murderous Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the headline NYT editors put on Emanuel’s op-ed column about his work to improve the CTA in Monday’s Times?

[…]

So Emanuel, who rides the “L” to work once a week, seized the chance to gloat that “Modernizing our existing mass transit is one reason Chicago’s economy has expanded faster than the economies of New York and Washington, and faster than the national average for the last five years.”

But the impact of the mayor’s boast may have been overshadowed by the headline, which called to mind the old fascist trope that you can “Say what you want about Mussolini, but at least he got the trains running on time.”

Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said Times editors picked the headline. “They chose it,” he said.

CTA passengers may quibble with the mayor’s assessment of the “L.” But fascists, take note: Historians are in broad agreement that Mussolini did not, in fact, make the trains run on time.

while the New York Daily News takes exception to it:

Congratulations to Chicago for having a transit system that’s so popular with its passengers.

Now try getting them home without anyone getting shot.

That’s the message New Yorkers had Monday for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who threw New York’s subway system under the bus while touting the Windy City’s mass transit approval rating.

While straphangers from Dyckman St. to Ditmas Ave. were swiping their MetroCards, Emanuel took a swipe at New York City in an off-the-rails column about the Big Apple’s mass transit woes.

In an op-ed for The New York Times Monday, Emanuel puffed his chest out about Chicago’s famed L (short for elevated), boasting of an 85% approval rating that is as high as the Windy City’s elevated tracks.

You’ve got to ask two questions about the Mayor Emanuel’s op-ed. Why did he go to the New York Times? There’s something unseemly about it. And why did he pick touting his record with the CTA rather than Chicago’s more basic problems?

I think the answers are that other than the CTA he’s been a complete failure as mayor (is he really responsible for the CTA’s success?) and that the audience for the op-ed doesn’t use mass transit either in New York or Chicago. Their limo drivers take them wherever they want to go. He’s appealing to his small but select donor base, more likely to read the New York Times than the Daily News or the Tribune.

We should also consider that he may be raising money and burnishing his national credentials for a presidential bid in 2020. It’s pretty obvious that he isn’t particularly interested in Chicago.