Given, Not Earned

Nice to see the tradition continues:

• Retiring City Council dean Walter Burnett said Thursday his 29-year-old namesake is not only his son but a “son of the 27^th Ward” who has earned the right to replace him.

  Some community leaders have argued that the city’s fastest-growing ward deserves better than a continuation of the old-school, all-in-the-family parade of Chicago politicians who have bequeathed their seats to their children.

  Burnett doesn’t view it as nepotism. He believes Walter R. Burnett — who goes by the nickname “Red” — deserves to inherit his father’s mantle because he has built the “relationships and the resources” to continue the development progress that has transformed a ward that once included “skid row.”

Continuing the "lucky sperm" qualification that has doomed not only the political class, but the Police, Fire, Streets and Sanitation, Transportation, and pretty much every city department in one form or another.