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| ALVAREZ: Complaining to CBS |
She
may well be getting hit with more abuse than state Sen. Donne Trotter,
D-Chicago, the congressional candidate who had hopes of an easy ride to replace
Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress until his recent arrest at O’Hare International
Airport.
WE
DEFINITELY HAVE in Alvarez and Trotter the “first couple” of abused Chicago
political people.
Both
have gone “national” in their political embarrassment. For the Cook County
state’s attorney, her embarrassment came from a recently-aired episode of “60
Minutes” that portrayed her office as abusing the rights of defendants to
extort false confessions out of them.
After
several days of refusing to comment, Alvarez is now claiming the report was a “misrepresentation
of the facts,’ and she says she sent a formal letter of complaint to the
chairman of CBS News.
Which
strikes me as being about as weak a gesture as on the old “Happy Days” show,
when actor Ron Howard’s “Richie Cunningham” character would respond to any
issue out outrage by saying he was going to, “send a letter to the editor of
the Milwaukee Journal.”
NO
MATTER WHAT complaints she tries making, there are bound to be some people for
whom the label “The False Confession Capital” (courtesy of “60 Minutes”) will
stick to Chicago and Cook County.
When
combined with the stink that is emanating from Cook County courts concerning
the death of a young man allegedly caused by a nephew to former Mayor Richard
M. Daley, Alvarez is coming across as someone who can only appeal to the “law
and order” crowd who don’t care about the abuse of a person’s civil rights.
Following
years of inaction in the 2004 incident, a special prosecutor had to be brought
in from the outside (former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb) in order for any activity
to occur in the courts.
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| TROTTER: A race to the bottom? |
I find all of this interesting because I remember the impression she created
among some people back in 2008 when she first got elected as state’s attorney.
SHE
WAS THE breath of fresh air from a field of political hacks who ran for the
office that year when Richard Devine decided it was time to retire.
She
went through a Democratic primary with a half dozen candidates wishing to
replace Devine in the post, and I still have in my collection of political
memorabilia/junk a campaign card that portrays all of the candidates as playing
card characters – going out of its way to trash everybody.
Except
Alvarez, who apparently the publisher of the campaign card considered to be too
insignificant to be included. Better to trash people like Howard Brookins and
Tony Peraica!
So
perhaps she won that primary based on the idea that all the other candidates
were trashing each other so hard that she slipped under the radar. And she won
a general election against then-Cook County Board member Peraica because he had
the potential for such a surly personality that there were a number of people
(including myself) who thought, “Anybody But Tony” when casting our ballots
four years ago.
THOSE
PEOPLE WHO were paying attention to Alvarez did include a few naysayers who
claimed that her work in the state’s attorney’s office included nothing to
indicate that she was qualified to be put in charge.
I’m
sure those people who were screaming “Political Hack!” (and other harsher, more
unprintable labels) toward Alvarez are now feeling self-satisfied with her fate.
Personally,
I’m a little more concerned with where we go from here.
Many
political people think Trotter’s career as an elected official will recover
(even though Alvarez’ staff is talking about hauling Trotter’s case before a
grand jury to get an indictment on assorted criminal charges), even if his
chances of winning this particular special election may wither away in coming
weeks. His performance before Democratic Party officials on Saturday in terms of seeking party slating for his campaign could give him a significant boost!
FOR
ALVAREZ, IT might be harder – although she has the advantage of having just won
re-election. She has four years to “shake off” the taint that she now carries.
Which
means that Alvarez and Trotter could very well be in the running for the “comeback
politico of the year” come the 2016 election cycle.
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