Last week’s City Council meeting threatened to turn into a Leo Buscaglia seminar, with aldermen hugging and pumping hands after the recent primary. Even close Daley ally Charles Bernardini, a big winner, warmly shook hands with arch Daley enemy Dexter Watson, a big loser. Then Alderman Robert Shaw revved things up.
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Shaw introduced a resolution against Republican state senator Walter Dudycz’s bill to eliminate affirmative action in Illinois. Shaw personally addressed Alderman Brian Doherty, the council’s lone Republican: “I would hope that all of our colleagues, every member, including the enlightened Republican that we got in this council, would vote in the affirmative for this resolution,” he boomed.
“See how sometimes we can make a mistake,” Shaw said sadly in a closing speech. “I thought my friend was an enlightened Republican, but I was wrong. You see, sometimes we make a mistake.”
No word on whether that “we” includes Watson’s wrong-thinking constituents. —
