Analysis: Emails show Emanuel’s obsessions: crime and media image

Judging from his private emails, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has two major obsessions: his media image and the bloodbath on Chicago streets.

That’s the overwhelming conclusion from the massive information dump that ended Emanuel’s legal battle to keep his private emails completely concealed from public view.

What we learned about the mayor is what we already knew: Emanuel and the people around him are pre-occupied with the care and feeding of the mayor’s media image.

They plant favorable stories, cherry-pick reporters and lobby opinion-makers — including columnists, editorial writers and talk show hosts — to do positive stories and interviews about the mayor and Chicago.

The incessant lobbying of the national media that made Emanuel’s precipitous fall from grace after the police shooting of Laquan McDonald so remarkable was typified by the mayor’s September 2011 email to David Brooks of the New York Times. “All three schools voted yes for a longer day. 76 pct of the teachers voted yes in defiance of union leadership. Watershed moment,” Emanuel wrote.

When the lobbying is done, the mayor and his staff trade copies of newspaper stories and summaries of television newscasts. They ask each other, “How did we do? How did it play?”

The mayor’s fixation with crime is, at least in part, an offshoot of his media obsession.

If anything has the potential to undermine his own image and the city’s, it is the unrelenting gang violence that has turned Chicago into the murder capital of the nation.

That was true long before homicides and shootings in 2016 surged to levels not seen since the 1990s.

Former Police Supt. Garry McCarthy lasted nearly five years before Emanuel fired him for becoming a “distraction” in the unrelenting furor over the mayor’s handling of the McDonald video.

But, it’s a wonder McCarthy lasted that long, when you consider how often the mayor was on his case via email.

McCarthy was literally dancing on a string, updating the mayor on virtually every shooting, protest and suspicious package.

Whenever an innocent child was shot or wounded, Emanuel was demanding updates and requesting the family’s address and phone number so he could pay a visit or place a call to offer comfort.

“Did the top come off last night? What happened here?” the mayor wrote to his superintendent after a September 2011 murder in Lincoln Park.

McCarthy replied, “No, it didn’t. Not a good night though.” The superintendent then followed with, “14 murders this week last year vs. 7 this year. Still gaining ground.”

Emanuel also lived up to his reputation as a micromanager of the police department.

On Aug. 5, 2011, Emanuel wrote an email on his private account to Marty Nesbitt and Jim Reynolds after a 13-year-old was shot and killed in the 4200-block of South State Street.

“I just reviewed the deployment with Superintendent McCarthy for the weekend,” the mayor wrote.

The following Monday, Emanuel wrote the two heavy-hitters again to check in. Nesbitt is the presidential pal who chairs the Obama foundation overseeing construction of the presidential library in Jackson Park.

Reynolds is an Emanuel appointee to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority who has helped the mayor raise millions for at-risk kids to combat youth violence.

“You had forty cops there over the weekend. Did it feel different?” the mayor wrote.

A grateful Nesbitt replied, “Saw a few more cruisers. Kids [Alex, Maxine and few Lab School friends] felt safe enough to ride the bus home from Lollapalooza. No incidents. I will keep you posted on the feeling around the neighborhood.”

A few days later, Nesbitt wrote, “Very noticeable difference. This place is swarming with CPD on a Friday evening. Very comforting.”

After reading most of the mayor’s personal emails, Ald. Joe Moore (49th) wondered aloud why the mayor fought so long and hard to keep them secret. Not only is there no smoking gun. Chicagoans didn’t learn anything they didn’t already know about Rahm Emanuel, the maestro of media.

“That’s been the narrative on Rahm Emanuel for years,” Moore said. “Not just starting during his tenure as mayor, but when he worked for presidents and when he was in Congress.

“To a degree, all of us who serve in elective office are concerned about our image and want to make sure our message gets out and the facts, as we see them, get reported accurately. Maybe he’s a little bit more attuned to that than a lot of the rest of us. But, it’s something that all of us are aware of.”