The Clout Club Never Dies

Anyone surprised by this needs to hike up their Underoos and get back to playing with Tinkertoys:

Report: Rahm Emanuel aides coordinated with 'Chicagoland'

By HADAS GOLD | 4/25/14 10:49 AM EDT

Aides to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel coordinated scenes with the producers of the CNN series "Chicagoland," emails obtained by the Chicago Tribune show.

More than 700 emails show that the production team, led by executive producer Marc Levin, worked with the mayor's team to develop storylines, arrange specific scenes and review news releases for what was billed as an unscripted documentary series.

In one email asking for more access to Emanuel, Levin wrote they were seeking more time with the mayor not to show his weaknesses "but instead to show the best of who he is and what he is doing."

"I know we still have time to round out the Mayor's story and present him as the star he really is," Levin wrote.

...

By request, I watched the first 1.2 episodes of this series. I even made a buncha notes just in case I was ever inspired to write about it.

I never was.

In Chicago politics, the Press is the Enemy, and to rule Chicago a mayor must know how to subdue an Enemy.  I refer you to Lesson Six of the Ten Lessons of Rahmses:

Enemies:

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and the fuckin' consultants jammed face-first right in your crotch every fuckin' minute or they'll bleed you dry.

Also stab anyone who looks at you funny in the fuckin' neck with a fuckin' pencil.

Except for fuckin' Mike Madigan; that bastid's got a neck stabbin' pencil of his own that reaches all the way to Chicago.

Gotta respect that.

Also Lesson Two:

Being Da Boss:

Obey? Moses, Moses, are you fuckin' kidding me?

Bring me a fuckin' pencil so I can fuckin' stab you in the fuckin' neck.

Then say "Thank you, Boss!"

Even though I am a "Chicago writer" of some minor stature, and even though I have written extensively about the grubby, on-the-ground operating realities of Chicago and Illinois politics as they look from inside the Clout Fortress, I was never moved to write anything about "Chicagoland" because from camera placement, to the way each scene was edited, to the way the stories of the main characters were slanted it was painfully obvious to me that it was crafted to be mayoral campaign fodder every bit as much as this much shorter video about a Chicago mayor dealing with schools and gangs and crime: