Why all Chicago Aldermen, not just the Black Caucus, should reject Tom Ricketts insulting Cubs outreach efforts

By John V. Moore (@johnvmoore)

This morning in the Chicago Sun-Times Fran Spielman reports that Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts is reaching out to the Chicago City Council's African American members in an effort to breath life into his request for public funds to help finance Wrigley Field renovations.  Since the revelation that Joe Ricketts, patriarch of the family that owns the Cubs, was soliciting proposals to attack President Barack Obama, Tom Ricketts has been in damage control mode.  As the New York Times reported the plan presented to the Ricketts family (not just Joe, but Cubs shareholders Pete and Todd) used race in attempt to do political damage to the President.  To me this outreach to African American Alderman is insulting for the following reasons:

1. Both Dan Bernstein (@dan_bernstein) and Steve Rosenbloom (@stevenrosenbloom) have made the allegation, with compelling evidence, that the Ricketts family is misleading about their father's role in Cubs ownership.  If this allegation is true, why should anyone believe Tom Ricketts explanations and spin regarding the family backing of the racist attack on the Obama?  Hopefully reporters, Alderman, Mayor Emanuel and anyone else that Tom reaches out will challenge him to fully explain Joe's involvement in Cubs ownership.
2. The New York Times also reported that the race baiting proposal was presented to Cubs shareholders Pete and Todd Ricketts.  So while its great to separate Joe Ricketts from Cubs ownership, how does the family explain Pete and Todd's apparent participation in the solicitation of the racist proposal?  
3. Why is Tom Ricketts only reaching to African American Aldermen?  Is he of the belief that white and Hispanic Alderman weren't offended by his father's and brothers' efforts to launch a race based attack on President Obama?  Shouldn't his outreach be to all Alderman?

Tom Rickets must think the African American Aldermen and the people of Chicago are fools.  It is appalling that he is misleading everyone about his father's role in the ownership group, while at the same time ignoring the fact that his two brothers who are acknowledged Cubs shareholders were involved in this raced based plan to attack President Obama.

See also: Ricketts Tap-Dancing Around The Truth (Dan Bernstein)

NYTimes: Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona

From The New York Times:

EDITORIAL: Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona

EDITORIAL

Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona

Published: January 9, 2011

She read the First Amendment on the House floor — including the guarantee of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" — and then flew home to Arizona to put those words into practice. But when Gabrielle Giffords tried to meet with her constituents in a Tucson parking lot on Saturday, she came face to face with an environment wholly at odds with that constitutional ideal, and she nearly paid for it with her life.

Jared Loughner, the man accused of shooting Ms. Giffords, killing a federal judge and five other people, and wounding 13 others, appears to be mentally ill. His paranoid Internet ravings about government mind control place him well beyond usual ideological categories.

But he is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery. With easy and legal access to semiautomatic weapons like the one used in the parking lot, those already teetering on the edge of sanity can turn a threat into a nightmare.

Last spring, Capitol security officials said threats against members of Congress had tripled over the previous year, almost all from opponents of health care reform. An effigy of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., a Maryland Democrat, was hung from a gallows outside his district office. Ms. Giffords's district office door was smashed after the health vote, possibly by a bullet.

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.

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