Rebuilding the J-Fled Brand

Someone must be looking to burnish the old resume for a future job hunt:

• Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, suddenly a target of all the leading candidates in the city's mayoral race, likely has just a few months left as top cop in the nation's third-largest city. But he's confident he accomplished what he set out to do when he took the job nearly three years ago.

  The embattled police chief defended his tenure last week in a year-end interview with The Associated Press, as two mayoral contenders were calling for his replacement. On Tuesday, two more candidates — former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and City Clerk Miguel del Valle — said they too would not renew his contract when it expires in March.

  Also among those lining up against Weis are some rank-and-file officers who've viewed the former FBI agent as an outsider. The chief's critics cite low morale in the police force and community frustration with both crime and the reduced number of officers deployed on the streets because of budget cuts.

But statistics wouldn't lie, would they?

And the superintendent wouldn't conspire to hide the results of a morale survey he commissioned after publicly stating he'd resign if he was the cause of low morale, would he?

And a string of politically connected embarrassments

• like drugs and guns found in your #3 exempts condo;
• a lying sexual harasser being denied employment elsewhere and being re-promoted over numerous objections (but then, birds of a feather and all that);
• and not being able to appoint your own chief of staff but being saddled with another political pick who ran a complete end-around state firearm qualification processes

That wouldn't have anything to do with the perception that he isn't really in charge of jack shit?