::Cough Cough:: Bullshit! ::Cough::

We can only imagine that this is part of the plea deal Shortshanks negotiated prior to hiring J-Fled as a part of the de facto Federal Consent Decree:

• Mayor Richard Daley today defended his top cop, a onetime FBI supervisor who has been much criticized by rank-and-file police officers.
  
  “When the headlines glared for months and years all about police brutality and everything else about the city and look what’s going on and the police department disarray, this man came in and did the job that was necessary,” Daley said, referring to Police Supt. Jody Weis. “He’s done a very, very good job, and I’m very proud that I appointed him.”
  
  The defense came a day after one potential mayoral candidate, Ald. Thomas Allen, 38th, said his first act as the city’s chief executive would be to fire Weis.
  
  “I think our public safety crisis is pretty self apparent,” Allen said. “He polices with charts, graphs, bars and statistics. It’s a sham.”

Exactly as we've been saying for years now - along with most of our readership, who happen to be Chicago Police Officers, and who might have just a wee bit of insight into the number fudging.

And then the Tribune starts printing these whoppers and we just have to shake our heads at the amount of Kool-aid dumped by the Daley-media on the public:

• Weis was hired by Daley nearly three years ago and tasked with cleaning up a department beset by corruption scandals. His contract expires March 1, and Weis told the Tribune he plans on staying through then.
  
  During his tenure, the flow of corruption news out of the department has all but halted, but morale has plummeted as Weis changed the way the department does its work.
  

Corruption news halted? Well sure, if you tell the media not to cover something, we guess that's "halted." But in case you were actually paying attention, you might have seen the following:

• guns and drugs at the bartenders condo;
  
• armed field invasions by Elton John fans in violation of federal rules;
  
• distribution of strong-armed concert tickets to certain former feds to head off an investigation;
  
• sustained Rule 14 violations;
  
• domestic telephone threats and conduct unbecoming;
  
• a serial sexual harasser busted down to lieutenant, then triple promoted after being booted from consideration for an Arizona police job (he also gives accused murderers advice - on tape!);
• the continuing Tow Truck scandal;
  
• another exempt promotee being the subject of an open federal investigation;
  
• not one, but two drivers being promoted "meri-clout-oriously" when no definition for "merit" exists anywhere on paper...

We're sure we missed a few. Funnily enough though, all those scandals (except one) involved exempt members of the Department. You know, people with clout. And that gets overlooked.

The media and Daley continue to spout the fiction that J-Fled was brought in to rein in a Department that was out of control. This is a lie, plain and simple. Did we have a rough patch? Yes, but no worse than any other scandal that has rocked major Departments from time to time:

• The drunk driving incidents were dealt with, severely in most of the cases;
  
• Jefferson Tap was a bunch of drunk civilians with a history of suing after losing bar fights they started;
• Abbate was an out of control drunk who was hired despite his background and spoke more to the poor judgment of the clout that eased him through the system:
  
• Same thing with Callahan being allowed back despite a long history of drunken behavior, but a wife who worked in politics;
  
• Cozzi was wrong for losing his temper - he has said so and so have nearly all of his defenders - and he served the penalty handed down by the courts and Police Board;
  
• The SOS scandal, for all the hype, ends up being a single rogue team in an unit of connected officers, 99% of whom were unfairly tarred with the corruption brush...
  

All told? Probably under 25 officers involved. Maybe even less than 20. In a Department of around 10,000 (give or take a few)? That's a quarter-of-one-percent. We don't know about you, but 99.75% honest, hardworking, keeping-your-nose-clean is nothing to sneer at and damn near as far from "out of control" as you can get.

That doesn't excuse any of the misbehavior and we will delete any comment that accuses us of glossing over misconduct. Police corruption is intolerable. But to imply the Department was out of control and only J-Fled saved it from itself, while studiously ignoring the misbehavior, mischief and criminal acts of the brass and their sponsors is laughable. And the media failures to investigate any of these incidents and hold elected officials accountable for the actions of their appointees is a travesty that will not be forgotten by anyone here.