Daley’s mealy-mouthed apology Posted on March 25th
The script called for leadership—a denunciation of corruption, a promise of reform—but what we got from Mayor Richard Daley is a mealy-mouthed apology and a shrug.
Minutes after a federal jury convicted former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez of hiring fraud, Daley issued one of his famous tone-deaf pronouncements: Sanchez was “a hardworking public servant committed to doing his best to serve the City of Chicago.” It reminded a lot of people of November 2006, when the mayor publicly praised his prison-bound former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, and three other convicted employees as “very fine young men.” The charges against Sanchez involved events that happened “years ago,” Daley said, as if to dismiss them as relics of a bygone era, before City Hall was cleansed by reform.
By Tuesday morning, even he realized how ridiculous that sounded. But his second try wasn’t much better.
“I want to say to the people of Chicago that I understand that this is a disappointment and that this conviction does not reflect well on our city or my administration,” he said. “For that I am sorry.”
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