The Total Corruption of Chicago

The Chicago Tribune reports:

When there's no opposition party to provide checks and balances to the ruling group, corruption is unavoidable. There was corruption in the Soviet Politburo, and in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and in the inner circle of Roman Emperor Nero. If Attila the Hun had kept any records, they'd surely show skullduggery by his aides.

It's human nature to take what you can get.

In this vacuum, the Chicago news media has served as the closest thing to a loyal opposition on a day-to-day basis. Scores of investigations by the Tribune, the Sun-Times and other journalists have uncovered the same depressing pattern of secrecy and profit, decade after decade.

But reporters don't have subpoena powers.

So, when it comes to keeping the Democratic Party reined it--at least, a little--the series of U.S. attorneys, starting with Thompson and continuing to the present-day holder of the office, Patrick Fitzgerald, have been much more successful.

Yet news stories and criminal trials won't really make a dent, even if Fitzgerald is somehow able to net the biggest fish of all. As long as one party dominates Chicago government so completely, corruption will never disappear.

No wonder Chicago's lost population 53,000 people since the year 2000.