Chicago Media’s Complicity in Nationalizing Illinois’ Pay to Play

Introducing Jontel Kassidy, Senior Capital Correspondent

As the nation wakes up to the systemic corruption of the Obama administration, and James O’Keefe outs journalistic fraud at the New York Times, it’s only a matter of time until the Chicago mainstream media comes under scrutiny for ignoring the background of the once junior Senator from Illinois during their coverage of the ’08 election.

Not because Chicago’s media luminaries didn’t know his associations with persons of questionable political ethics.  Not because they didn’t know of his lack of experience at running anything as large as a White Castle franchise.  And, not because they didn’t know of his friendships with, let’s say, person with less than conventional beliefs about the nation he was campaigning to lead. Not for any of those reasons will the Chicago media come under popular indictment for journalistic malpractice.

Their professional veracity will be, and is already being, questioned because they were like the piano player in the bordello. He banged away on the keyboard every day while the banging in the building went on upstairs. And then the day after the police raided the place – someone forgot to pay protection – he said, “You mean Gertrude really isn’t their aunt? And the nieces are, are…women of ill repute?  Who could have known?”

The Chicago Tribune’s John Kass wrote the perfect piano player piece last September 11^th.  It began:

The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it's being billed as a Washington story.

But back in Obama's political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls "optics." In fact, it's not just a Washington saga — it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.

Wow! What a journalistic revelation! You mean the politician from Chicago, now in the White House, is metastasizing Pay-to-Play across the nation and the folks back in Chicago knew it was coming?  And they didn’t warn the rest of us? That takes your breath away, don’t it?  Coming as it does from Chicago’s most prominent living reporter.

It brings to mind that scene from the movie Die Hard where Bruce Willis throws a dead terrorist out the window of the besieged building in order to get the attention of the Twinkie-munching patrol officer.  When the body lands on the hood of his black-n-white and the shooting starts, Willis yells, “Welcome to the party, Pal.”

Well, welcome to the party, Kass! You didn’t know that Pay-to-Play would metastasize throughout the nation with a President Obama? Or you did know and didn’t say?

While you're writing about solar corruption these days, here are some other tumors you might check out. Start with the Daily Caller – yea, I know, it’s one of those amateur media outlets you pros look down on – and learn about First Solar, SolarReserve ($737 federal loan), SunPower Corporation and Abengoa SA. They’re part of the solar power scam. And Barry has buds there, too.  What a surprise!  More Pay-to-Play.

Just one more lead, cause you don’t need to be over-worked: Whatever happened to Cathy Zoi, former acting undersecretary of Energy at the Department of Energy? (Here’s a clue.)

As for what set you off – i.e., Solyndra – no worries there, John.  As you wrote, “The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra.” Right, and Eric Holder is their boss. We all remember how Eric had such a stellar legal reputation that Dead Meat planned to pay his law firm $300,000 to certify that the mob mutts who were going to build a casino in Rosemont were really all upstanding troop leaders for the Boy Scouts.

You Chicago media boys and girls, keep bangin’ on your pianos, while Rome burns.