Oh Eddie Eddie Eddie

We guess the honeymoon is over already:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s surprise pick to become the next top cop said Monday that his goal is to restore the public’s trust in the Chicago Police Department while maintaining his independence of City Hall.
  
  “The central challenge facing Chicago is trust,” said Eddie Johnson, later insisting that he has “complete autonomy” to run the department despite City Hall’s recent history of micromanaging it.

And the accompanying picture:

And we had such high hopes for Eddie. Everyone knows that the Superintendent is a figurehead and that City Hall runs the show. When Daley appointed the first outsider in decades to drive the Department into the ground, he installed J-Fled's Chief of Staff to make sure everyone knew Daley was to be kept in the loop for decisions. Rahm is no different. He was standing right there, staring at Johnson's back, probably positioning the knife. You could almost see the telepathic thoughts emanating from Rahm's forehead into Eddie's mouth, making sure he said all the right things.

You don't advance past a rank or two on this department without being someone's guy. And that means that you surrender a lot of so-called autonomy. Rahm picked a guy WHO DIDN'T EVEN APPLY FOR THE JOB! How dumb do you have to be to not think Eddie owes everything to this guy? If he had stood up there and given a speech without once mentioning City Hall, we might have thought that, "He's going to have a chance to change some things. Nothing drastic, but maybe soften up the edges of a very trying time." We'd be okay with that.

But to go up there and declare how independent you are and will be, with the guy who just handed you the job staring at you? Sorry, not buying it. Not buying it at all. Rahm is still running the show and will continue to for a while yet. He's been wounded, and he's playing the black and Hispanic caucuses against each other (see "Claiming a Tie" post below). But he's running the show, have no doubt.

Independent administrators don't have to tell anyone they're independent. It's obvious. But those who aren't, well, they have to tell everyone all the time.

UPDATE: This made us chuckle a bit:

• Emanuel said Johnson will “lead by example,” including his unusual decision to wear a body camera when he’s out on the streets — like his officers will be expected to do. Johnson has also told his command staff that they, too, will be expected to wear the cameras.

Maybe we'll catch some footage of the 012 Commander  berating his sergeants in public? Or the 025 Commander soliciting input from the watch and then bouncing people off their assignments for daring to speak out of turn? Or the roll calls where Officers are routinely told to "get numbers" for the bosses next meeting lest they be denied time off or furlough extensions or whatever? Maybe even a "secret study group" or two so we can all learn how to qualify for a spot.