Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There’s a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn’t exist.
There are too many senior citizens and good residents in Chicago who are sick and tired of having to walk several blocks out of their way when they leave their homes just to avoid the gangs and drug dealers on the street corner.
In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.
I don’t want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn’t pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.
Things happened there that I don’t think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.
Every policy officer is sworn to protect life, and, under the most extreme circumstances, to take life. It is a staggering responsibility that requires officers to make split second decisions.
What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,’ or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America’s security foremost in mind?
The overwhelming number of police officers in Chicago are doing good work under difficult conditions. They put their lives on the line every day in situations none of us can fully comprehend or appreciate.
Everybody knows they’re on the Obama team: There isn’t vice presidential vs. presidential division, there’s not a generational pull. People have internalized that this is a real moment in history.
The world for our law enforcement community has changed dramatically: everything from filling out paperwork to relationships with the community and how they think the narrative is in the media.
Banks are slowly but surely lending again, and never again will taxpayers foot the bill for Wall Street’s excesses. In case we forgot, that was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.
Fighting crime requires a partnership between the police and the community. And we all know that this partnership has been tested in Chicago. It is a problem that has festered in this city for decades.
