Link: www.salon.com/...
As most now know, Rahm Emanuel is in a very, very tight spot with the Laquan McDonald killing, as to his prior knowledge of the tape of the incident. Many are calling for his resignation, including Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, if he did indeed cover up the existence of a tape.
The other Democrat in the race, Hillary Clinton, has not done so. She has kept quiet about the incident for the most part, other than offering confidence in Emanuel’s ability to get to the bottom of it. Hillary has a very long history, along with her husband Bill, with Emanuel.
So, in typical Clintonian fashion, Hillary is trying to straddle her alliance with Emanuel with her supposed campaign desire for reforming our criminal justice system. It’s a very thin tightrope, though:
So here we have a city whose police department lied about and then tried to cover up the brutal killing of a young black man. The same department is also running its own personal gulag. Oh, and it’s also the same department that has cost Chicago nearly $500 million in misconduct settlements since just 2004, and that has a lengthy history of torture and other abuse. It is now under federal investigation. By any measure, what is happening in Chicago, and to Rahm Emanuel, is a terrible scandal that cuts to the heart of the debate we’ve been having about how the police operate in this country and whether black lives are treated with any value.
This debate has become a major theme of the Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton has tried to make it a major theme of her campaign. Whether she is doing that successfully is up for debate, but it would be a huge mistake if she was allowed to sidestep the injustice taking place in such a key Democratic stronghold as Chicago, especially when she has such an extensive political history with the man overseeing the mess there. One of the most important places in the United States has an institutionally bigoted police force. What does Clinton think of that? What does it mean for her plans to tackle these problems? If someone other than Emanuel was running Chicago, would she be supporting that person?
People need to demand that Clinton truly grapple with the details of the scandal, and to ask her if her support of Emanuel really can be squared with her purportedly aggressive stance on criminal justice issues. She should be questioned about why she still has confidence in Emanuel when the majority of his constituents don’t. If she is really going to put her loyalty to Emanuel above what is so clearly a cesspool of corruption and racism, then she should be made to fully articulate that stance. Bernie Sanders has been tougher on the Emanuel question, but he should be held more clearly to account as well. It’s easy to predict what Republicans will say about all of this, but they also need to be put on the record.
Bernie made an easy decision: if he knew about the tape and covered it up, he should resign. Seems perfectly reasonable. If Hillary lets her personal relationship with Emanuel affect her decision-making, then are we REALLY supposed to believe that all of her Wall Street donors will not influence THOSE decisions?
There is an easy decision without having to compromise your OWN morality: Bernie Sanders. In 40 years, he hasn’t been known to be put in these types of compromising positions, because he sticks to his word, and doesn’t sell out to anyone.
VOTE BERNIE SANDERS.