CFD Endorses Brown

The Firefighters Union, over the objections of their own president, has voted to endorse Dorothy Brown for mayor over Daley. We suppose that the Union President is mindful of the fact that the firefighters are about to be negotiating a new contract shortly and doesn't want to rile the current occupant of the fifth floor too badly lest he take it out on the rank and file during negotiations. But sometimes, you just have throw caution to the wind and let the guy in charge know that you are royally pissed off.

And what exactly has the mayor done recently to engender any sort of respect or earn any sort of endorsement from the firefighters? Last contract we recall proposals to discontinue the 24 on/48 off that enabled firefighters to hold a number of side jobs. We remember "variances" cutting manpower on trucks being increased. There was a bunch of other stuff that really ticked off the firefighters too - we think they went over 3 years with no contract.

But the mayor isn't worried - he's got Obama's endorsement!

• "I don't think there's a city in America that has blossomed as much over the last couple of decades than Chicago -- and a lot of that has to do with our mayor. He has a national reputation that's well-deserved ... as somebody's who's innovative, as somebody who's tough, as somebody who's willing to make the hard decisions, as somebody who is constantly thinking about how to make the city better."
• In August 2005, Obama nearly ran into trouble with Daley when he hedged on whether he'd support the mayor for re-election in light of the corruption investigations at City Hall.
• Asked then if he planned to support the mayor or if the corruption probes might have given him pause, the senator replied, "What's happened -- some of the reports I've seen ... give me huge pause."
• An hour later, he called the Sun-Times saying he wanted to clarify his remarks. Obama said the mayor was "obviously going through a rough patch," but he also said Chicago has "never looked better" and that "significant progress has been made on a variety of fronts." The senator said then it was "way premature" to talk about endorsements because the mayor had not yet announced his candidacy.

Way to flip flop Obama. You're well on your way to being the John Kerry of the 2008 election season. The only thing that has changed since 2005 is the number of guilty pleas Fitzgerald has wrung out of patronage hires. The city is still as crooked as they come.