How much did Rahm Emanuel pay you, Phil?

Talk about the appearance of impropriety! On Tuesday, March 31, Channel 11's Phil Ponce, disguised as a moderator, tried his level best to humiliate Jesus "Chuy" Garcia during his mayoral debate with Chicago's current mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

My personal feeling? Ponce did what he did because he had been paid off by the Rahm Emanuel campaign. Furthermore, Rahm knew about this because he was all-too-ready to interject what appeared to be a spontaneous line.

So what did Ponce do? He asked Chuy, "If you can't keep your own son out of a gang, how can you steer the city away from gangs and violence?" He asked this question twice. During the exchange between Ponce and Garcia, Rahm was mostly silent. Except for one notable interjection:

"I don't actually think this is a fair line of questioning."

So Rahm gets to come across as noble, though he would have most likely asked Chuy that question himself if the polls had shown that Rahm was appreciably behind (say, by 10% or so) with the election to be held next week.

I've watched Ponce at work over the past year and was impressed by his professionalism and even-handed approach to interviews he'd conducted. Which made his blatantly pro-Rahm bias so incredibly noticeable.

If Rahm's people had been able to lure Ponce over to their side, maybe money wasn't the only motivating factor.  Both Ponce and Garcia are of Hispanic origin. But Phil probably looks down on Hispanics like Garcia who speak in heavily-accented English. And who weren't born here as was Phil. Phil comes across as rather elegant and aristocratic and might well even look upon himself as white. Remember: People identify most strongly with the class/ethnicity they aspire to rather than the one they come from. There's a special term for people like Phil who fall into this category: Self-Hating Hispanics.

In short, by putting down their fellow Latinos (I loved his line during the debates, before once again pressing Garcia, "With all due respect..."), such people are trying in effect to deny their own backgrounds.

When I saw Ponce's hatchet job, I was reminded of the Steve Kroft interview with Barack Obama just before the 2008 election. Obama was getting ready to walk on stage for a pep rally. And there was good old 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft about to engage in a spontaneous interview. Again, the appearance was of a set piece in which Obama had already been briefed. In response to Kroft's questions about Obama's executive experience, Obama said - I run my senate office and my campaign for president.

Indeed!

If I had  been in Kroft's shoes, I would have ripped Obama a new asshole: "Senator, two things: All of the other senators run their offices and you don't run your campaign, David Axelrod does. So...what other experience do you have"

By the time Rahm Emanuel has been positioned to run for US President, maybe Steve Kroft will still be around. Or maybe Phil Ponce will fill the role of the stooge.

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Steven Searle, just another member of the

Virtual Samgha of the Lotus and

former candidate for US President (in 2008 & 2012)

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com