From National Review Online. Just too funny not to share.
Chicago Way
The familiarity of Obama.
By David Kahane
We’re not afraid of you, John McCain.
Sure, you’re an old, old — did I mention old? — fighter jock who’ll get 99.9 percent of the military’s votes as well as those of every other “patriotic,” “God”-fearing “American.” But so what? Against you we can field an army of community organizers, lawyers, activists, advocates, Code Pink ladies, hippie draft-dodgers, metrosexuals, MoveOn.org’ers, communists, Hollywood stars, NARAL, NAMBLA, the entire population of Seattle, and a platoon of New York Times oped columnists leading most of the rest of the media, all commanded by Der Olbermann. Hail, victory!
Listen, pal o’ mine, I’ve got news for you: This jazz about “fighting” belongs to us. We bought it, we paid for it, and we’ve been fighting for it for 40 years. Not that we mean “fighting” in any sense other than metaphorical, of course. We liberals would never stoop to actual fisticuffs or, the Deity of Your Belief System Here forbid, firearms. Real men really do eat quiche.
But now, Mr. “POW,” you’re in for a real fight. For you, my friend, are up against B. Hussein Jr., the Messiah, the Moshiach, and the Mahdi all rolled into one Manchurian package.
Yes, I’m talking about the great Community Organizer himself, the Lion of the Annenberg Challenge; the invisible editor of The Harvard Law Review; the Illinois state senator whose favorite vote was “present”; the speechifying U.S. senator who started running for the White House almost as soon as he got to Washington; the Land of Lincoln’s very own “Cadillac” Deval Patrick on a grander scale — ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, wearing the red trunks with the hammer and sickle on them: the Punahou Kid!
Let me tell you, this man Barry Soetero, a.k.a. the Talking Parrot, is tough. His fight manager, trainer and dialogue coach is none other than David Axelrod, dubbed “Obama’s Narrator,” by the New York Times. Axelrod is the former journalist and political columnist at the Chicago Tribune who switched sides, working on the late Harold Washington’s campaign for mayor, defending Mayor Richie Daley against ludicrous charges of “corruption,” and forming his own influential political-consulting firm. Working both sides of the street — that’s the Chicago Way!
Yeah, I said the Chicago Way. Just like in that movie, The Untouchables, written by a guy whose name is no longer spoken in polite liberal circles, you know, the one who wrote a few months ago that he was no longer a, quote, brain-dead liberal, unquote. Hey, David Mamet — can you spell “anathema”?
In Chicago, the media/Daley Machine complex has two role models. One is Jake Lingle, a legman for the Tribune who made five bucks a week and yet wore a $150 diamond-studded belt buckle and owned a $25,000 home in Michigan City, Indiana, where he stashed the wife and kids while he resided in splendor in the Stevens Hotel (now the Hilton) on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Jake’s gig for the Trib was “covering” organized crime, which he did until one fine day in 1930 when somebody messed up his perfectly fine straw boater and ruined a good cigar with a .38-caliber bullet in the back of Jake’s head. Seems that Jake was skimming from the Outfit, and had to be taught a lesson.
That lesson was delivered by the other great Chicago role model: Scarface Al Capone, from Brooklyn and Cicero, Ill., who made sure that the politicians stayed bought, that the booze flowed, that “walking around” money got paid, and that his opponents got what was coming to them well before they knew they had it coming.
One of the ways they roll in Chicago, election-wise, is to win by eliminating opponents before the first vote is cast. You know, find some irregularities in their signature drives — sayonara, progressive activist Alice Palmer! — leak some damaging personal information to the Tribune about Bambi’s 2004 Senate Democratic primary foe, Blair Hull — I wonder who did that? — and finally persuade a friendly judge to unseal some oo-la-la divorce records at the behest of… wait for it… the Chicago Tribune (“Ryan File a Bombshell”). Hasta la vista Republican opponent Jack Ryan and say hello to my little friend, Alan Keyes.
Frankly, McCain, we expected the same thing to happen to your token, imported triggerchick in the red-white-and-blue Photoshopped bikini, Sarah Barracuda. You know, the tough broad who looks like a cross between Macushla Maggie Fitzgerald from Million Dollar Baby and Daisy Mae from Dogpatch, Alaska. We figured the rookie would be so rattled by all the hot lead our media buddies threw at her those first few days that she’d forget to bring her moose knife to a gunfight. How were we to know that she was a natural-born killer, and that her first punch would break B.O. Plenty’s glass jaw and sending him rushing into the arms of Bill O’Reilly, where he proclaimed that of course the surge worked, he always said it would work, and furthermore he always said that he always said the surge would work, but that he still thought it was a sucky idea.
Then you delivered another low blow last night when, at the end of your speech you defied that crowd of chanting fascists in St. Paul — those who would deny the plain language of the Constitution’s Article One: A Woman’s Right To Murder Her Unborn Baby for Her Own Personal Convenience Shall Not Be Infringed — and roared through the end of your jingoistic inaugural address. I mean “acceptance speech.” Fight, fight, fight, America, truth, justice, and all that stuff, blah blah blah. You were so impassioned and fired up it was almost like you believed what you were saying.
Still, we had to put some ice on that. The look in Bambi’s eyes today is like Dolph Lundgren’s in Rocky IV, after Sly Stallone first bloodies Ivan Drago, and the noble, indestructible Russian thinks: O my Gaia, I could lose this thing.
Afraid of you? Hah!
But this morning, maybe we are.
— “David Kahane” is named after the patron saint of screenwriters in the movie, The Player, who gets bludgeoned and then drowned in Pasadena by a studio executive played by Tim Robbins. You can teach him the finer points of the Chicago Way at kahanenro@gmail.com. If you have scripts or story ideas, though, please send them to Jake Lingle.
— David Kahane is a nom de cyber for a writer in Hollywood. “David Kahane” is borrowed from a screenwriter character in The Player.
Showing posts with label Chicago Tribune. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Tribune. Show all posts
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Measures of Progress in Baghdad
This Thanksgiving Day feel-good story has everything.
“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” said the killer of Al Qaeda’s “White Lion” in Baghdad.
It gets better.
“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. “You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!”
From last Thursday's Chicago Tribune:
New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda
Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally
By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
November 22, 2007
BAGHDAD
The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.
Earlier this year, Abul Abed, a disgruntled Sunni insurgent leader, began secret talks with the Americans about ending Al Qaeda's reign of terror in this run-down, formerly middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, renowned as one of the city's most dangerous. He had been gathering intelligence on the group for months.
One day in late May, he said, he decided it was time to act.
He hailed the car carrying the feared leader of Al Qaeda in the neighborhood, a man known as the White Lion, on one of Amariyah's main streets. “We want you to stop destroying our neighborhood,” he told the man.
“Do you know who you are talking to?” said the White Lion, getting out of his car. “I am Al Qaeda. I will destroy even your own houses!”
He pulled out his pistol and shot at Abul Abed. The gun jammed. He reloaded and fired again. Again, the gun jammed.
By this time, Abul Abed said, he had pulled his own gun. He fired once, killing the White Lion.
“I walked over to him, stepped on his hand and took his gun,” Abul Abed, which is a nom de guerre, said at his new, pink-painted headquarters in a renovated school in Amariyah, as an American Army captain seated in the corner nodded his head in affirmation of the account. “And then the fight started.”
It was the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda in Amariyah. The next day, a firefight erupted. Al Qaeda fighters closed in on Abul Abed. Most of the 150 men who had joined him fled. Holed up in a mosque with fewer than a dozen supporters, Abul Abed thought the end was near.
“The blue carpet was soaked red with blood,” he recalled. Then the imam of the mosque called in American help.
A friendship was born.
Now Abul Abed, a swaggering former major in the Iraqi army and reputedly a top leader in the influential Islamic Army insurgent group, reigns supreme in Amariyah -- with considerable help from the U.S. military.
Still wearing the White Lion's pistol tucked into his belt, he commands his own 600-member paramilitary force, called the Knights of Mesopotamia. He receives $460,000 a month from the U.S. military to pay, arm and equip them. They wear crisp olive green uniforms with smart red and yellow badges bearing the Knights' horse-head logo. They are well-armed, and some have flak jackets.
But they don't really need them. Since the Knights drove Al Qaeda out of Amariyah after a two-month battle, the neighborhood has become largely safe.
“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. "You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!"
An 'Awakening' in Iraq
Men like Abul Abed have helped change the face of the war. Following in the footsteps of the late Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the tribal leader who led the Sunni revolt that drove Al Qaeda from the base of its operations in Iraq’s Anbar province, more than 70,000 people, most of them Sunnis, in 148 groups have joined in the so-called Awakening, or Sahwa, movement, according to the U.S. military, turning against Al Qaeda and turning to the Americans for help.
Since Abul Abed's fight in Amariyah, some of the most feared Baghdad neighborhoods, including Abu Ghraib, Fadhil, Ghazaliyah, Dora and Adhamiyah, have followed suit, forming their own brigades of Knights, welcoming the U.S. military and receiving U.S. money.
Abul Abed is coy about his insurgent connections. He gave his real name as Saad Erebi Ghaffouri al-Obaidi, though he is known across Baghdad as Abul Abed. U.S. officials, Amariyah residents and Sunni leaders say he was a prominent commander in the Islamic Army. He described himself as a former Iraqi army major who "went into business" after the regime fell. He won't say what business.
But he acknowledged that many of his men once fought Americans and now work closely with them.
“They recognize that they made a big mistake,” he said. “They realize that they were on the wrong path and that they wasted many chances with what they did.”
The implications of creating this network of trained, armed paramilitaries loyal not to the government but to an assortment of local strongmen have yet to be played out. U.S. officials said they are relieved that the revolution within the Sunni community has helped to sharply reduce the number of attacks. According to the military, attacks in Iraq fell 55 percent between March and October.
The U.S. wants to absorb the Sunnis who have joined the Awakening movement into the Iraqi security forces, but so far the Shiite-led government has hesitated, concerned that they will one day turn against the government. If the government continues to frustrate the Sunnis, U.S. officials are concerned their new allies could go back to the insurgency.
“That's the big intangible that makes me nervous,” said Col. Martin Stanton, who oversees the reconciliation and engagement effort. If there is no progress on getting the paramilitaries regular jobs with the security forces and delivering services to Sunni areas, Sunni frustrations will continue to mount, he said.
“The question is, what's the break point? ... How long before people start getting sick of it and start checking out?” he said.
‘Americans are our protectors’
Abul Abed said the Sunni revolution has gone too far for that.
“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” he said.
The real enemy of Iraq, he says, now is Iran. He pulled out his mobile phone to show pictures he has saved of the bodies of his four brothers, who were kidnapped and murdered in 2005 by what he suspects was a Shiite death squad with ties to Iran. One of them had a nail driven into his head. Another was missing a hand.
“Even animals wouldn't do that,” he said, his face darkening. “Iran is so deeply infiltrated in Iraq, the problem here still cannot be solved. Iran wants to demolish us. If the Americans leave, then you can count Iraq as a second Tehran.”
“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” said the killer of Al Qaeda’s “White Lion” in Baghdad.
It gets better.
“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. “You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!”
From last Thursday's Chicago Tribune:
New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda
Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally
By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
November 22, 2007
BAGHDAD
The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.
Earlier this year, Abul Abed, a disgruntled Sunni insurgent leader, began secret talks with the Americans about ending Al Qaeda's reign of terror in this run-down, formerly middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, renowned as one of the city's most dangerous. He had been gathering intelligence on the group for months.
One day in late May, he said, he decided it was time to act.
He hailed the car carrying the feared leader of Al Qaeda in the neighborhood, a man known as the White Lion, on one of Amariyah's main streets. “We want you to stop destroying our neighborhood,” he told the man.
“Do you know who you are talking to?” said the White Lion, getting out of his car. “I am Al Qaeda. I will destroy even your own houses!”
He pulled out his pistol and shot at Abul Abed. The gun jammed. He reloaded and fired again. Again, the gun jammed.
By this time, Abul Abed said, he had pulled his own gun. He fired once, killing the White Lion.
“I walked over to him, stepped on his hand and took his gun,” Abul Abed, which is a nom de guerre, said at his new, pink-painted headquarters in a renovated school in Amariyah, as an American Army captain seated in the corner nodded his head in affirmation of the account. “And then the fight started.”
It was the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda in Amariyah. The next day, a firefight erupted. Al Qaeda fighters closed in on Abul Abed. Most of the 150 men who had joined him fled. Holed up in a mosque with fewer than a dozen supporters, Abul Abed thought the end was near.
“The blue carpet was soaked red with blood,” he recalled. Then the imam of the mosque called in American help.
A friendship was born.
Now Abul Abed, a swaggering former major in the Iraqi army and reputedly a top leader in the influential Islamic Army insurgent group, reigns supreme in Amariyah -- with considerable help from the U.S. military.
Still wearing the White Lion's pistol tucked into his belt, he commands his own 600-member paramilitary force, called the Knights of Mesopotamia. He receives $460,000 a month from the U.S. military to pay, arm and equip them. They wear crisp olive green uniforms with smart red and yellow badges bearing the Knights' horse-head logo. They are well-armed, and some have flak jackets.
But they don't really need them. Since the Knights drove Al Qaeda out of Amariyah after a two-month battle, the neighborhood has become largely safe.
“You can move freely in Amariyah at any time of the day or night,” Abul Abed said. "You can even see women without head scarves, wearing tight jeans!"
An 'Awakening' in Iraq
Men like Abul Abed have helped change the face of the war. Following in the footsteps of the late Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the tribal leader who led the Sunni revolt that drove Al Qaeda from the base of its operations in Iraq’s Anbar province, more than 70,000 people, most of them Sunnis, in 148 groups have joined in the so-called Awakening, or Sahwa, movement, according to the U.S. military, turning against Al Qaeda and turning to the Americans for help.
Since Abul Abed's fight in Amariyah, some of the most feared Baghdad neighborhoods, including Abu Ghraib, Fadhil, Ghazaliyah, Dora and Adhamiyah, have followed suit, forming their own brigades of Knights, welcoming the U.S. military and receiving U.S. money.
Abul Abed is coy about his insurgent connections. He gave his real name as Saad Erebi Ghaffouri al-Obaidi, though he is known across Baghdad as Abul Abed. U.S. officials, Amariyah residents and Sunni leaders say he was a prominent commander in the Islamic Army. He described himself as a former Iraqi army major who "went into business" after the regime fell. He won't say what business.
But he acknowledged that many of his men once fought Americans and now work closely with them.
“They recognize that they made a big mistake,” he said. “They realize that they were on the wrong path and that they wasted many chances with what they did.”
The implications of creating this network of trained, armed paramilitaries loyal not to the government but to an assortment of local strongmen have yet to be played out. U.S. officials said they are relieved that the revolution within the Sunni community has helped to sharply reduce the number of attacks. According to the military, attacks in Iraq fell 55 percent between March and October.
The U.S. wants to absorb the Sunnis who have joined the Awakening movement into the Iraqi security forces, but so far the Shiite-led government has hesitated, concerned that they will one day turn against the government. If the government continues to frustrate the Sunnis, U.S. officials are concerned their new allies could go back to the insurgency.
“That's the big intangible that makes me nervous,” said Col. Martin Stanton, who oversees the reconciliation and engagement effort. If there is no progress on getting the paramilitaries regular jobs with the security forces and delivering services to Sunni areas, Sunni frustrations will continue to mount, he said.
“The question is, what's the break point? ... How long before people start getting sick of it and start checking out?” he said.
‘Americans are our protectors’
Abul Abed said the Sunni revolution has gone too far for that.
“Americans are our protectors and saviors,” he said.
The real enemy of Iraq, he says, now is Iran. He pulled out his mobile phone to show pictures he has saved of the bodies of his four brothers, who were kidnapped and murdered in 2005 by what he suspects was a Shiite death squad with ties to Iran. One of them had a nail driven into his head. Another was missing a hand.
“Even animals wouldn't do that,” he said, his face darkening. “Iran is so deeply infiltrated in Iraq, the problem here still cannot be solved. Iran wants to demolish us. If the Americans leave, then you can count Iraq as a second Tehran.”
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