Mayor Daley Refuses To Apologize

According to his speech Daley was supposed to say, "I'll be the first to admit that we screwed up."

But the closest he came to a real apology was saying he takes responsibility for the problems with the transition.

The truth is, leaking the speech to the media ahead of time, was a ploy, a slight of hand, to make it look like Mayor Daley was actually sorry for the meter privatization deal.

Rumors have been circulating that the administration had been doing polling and focus groups on this subject, with the results coming back to City Hall overwhelmingly negative and perhaps injurious to Daley's re-election.

What a surprise!

Now, with the next Mayoral election in the admittedly far distance, the Mayor has to look like he's truly sorry. Because many believe the meters could be Daley's snowstorm.

But he isn't sorry.

Daley is like the petulant two year old forced to apologize to a sibling for hitting them, when they're obviously not contrite.

Daley is obviously not sincere because inside he's seething with anger, you can see it in his scowl, you can hear it in his tone. Because he can't understand why so many people don't see it his way.

He thinks he saved the day by doing this $1.15 billion dollar deal. We needed the money he explains. It was a windfall for the city he tries to rationalize.

The question he won't answer is how did you and your administration mismange the city's finances so spectacularly, that there's been a half a billion dollar deficit two years in a row?

Because if it weren't for these huge budget deficits, the city wouldn't have been forced into what 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack calls, "...One of the worst deals in the history of the nation..."

In order to apologize successfully, it's common practice to speak the words, "I'm sorry," or the lesser used, but equally popular "I apologize."

But don't expect to hear any of these words or phrases from Mayor Daley any time soon.

In fact, don't expect them ever.

Photo courtesy and copyright of Joe M500's Flickr page.