Well Isn't This Special

Aldercreature Burke, a man who defines "shady," hires someone who can only charitably be called "of questionable background:"

• Former Cicero Police Supt. Thomas Rowan took the Fifth 29 times when questioned under oath about whether he took part in setting up a Cook County commissioner for a bogus arrest — once the focus of an FBI investigation.

  Rowan has been accused of threatening an officer with the loss of his job for cooperating with that FBI investigation.

  In another matter, Rowan allegedly retaliated against a different cop by pulling back-up officers from her after she was sent out on a potentially violent call.

  For another Cicero cop, though, Rowan was quite helpful.

  Rowan wrote a letter to a federal judge on behalf of a violent Cicero officer, allegedly on the mob’s payroll, who is now in federal prison.

  None of that stopped Rowan, 68, from getting a new job in recent months — with the Chicago City Council, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

  Rowan was hired as chief investigator with the Council’s Finance Committee, whose chairman is Ald. Edward Burke (14th). Rowan has donated more than $10,000 to Burke’s campaign fund, records show.

And the topper:

• In his new city job, Rowan, who began his career as a Chicago cop, is making nearly $70,000 a year.

From Chicago to Cicero and back to Chicago? If you have any doubt as to who's pulling the strings around here, let this be yet another abject lesson in the reach of the Outfit. Capone is laughing his ass off somewhere.