- Michael Jarecki/Sun-Times Media
- Papa Mell offered some revealing observations about how Chicago politics really works at the Hideout earlier this week.
If I were Mayor Rahm, I’d say that our opening-night gig at the Hideout was such a smashing success that Mick Dumke and I should replace David Letterman when he retires.
Videographer Peter Holderness was on hand to film the event. And he captured some classic moments, like Waguespack explaining the city’s strip-club law, Mell describing the pain he feels in his ass, and Moreno defending his proposed ban on plastic bags.
And with that Mell was off on a long and wild account of how he essentially gave his council vote to the Boss in exchange for the jobs the Boss gave him so that he, in turn, could be the boss of his own little patch of turf.
As the big decision drew closer, Mell—who sat next to Waguespack in the council—was whispering in the rookie alderman’s ears things like “Don’t do it. If we don’t get the games, they’ll blame you. It’ll kill your career. I’m tellin’ ya—don’t do it!”
In any event, Mell’s anecdote reminded me of an article I’d recently read in the New York Times about a Russian legislator named Ilya V. Ponomarev, a member of the State Duma, Russia’s parliament.
