CHICAGO’S BUM.

Despite an abundance of candidates the choice is clear.

Every town has at least one bum. On the old Andy Griffith show the town of Mayberry had a bum. His name was Otis. Otis was the town drunk, an affable bum who was buddies with Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife.

All throughout America, there are people, usually men, who hold the title of town bum. In small towns and in sprawling suburbs and in the big cities there are bums.

Chicago has bums. Chicago is a large city so there are lots of bums, probably thousands. Individual neighborhoods have their own bum(s). The bums are not just the stereotypical poor, or drunk men who become the neighborhood nuisance. Bums can be from any socio-economic level.

For example, there are millionaire bums throughout the entertainment world. Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, despite their wealth and power, are bums as well as creeps. So is washed-up pedophile loser Roy Moore.

In Chicago, a notable bum is Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham, who blindly supports even obvious bad cops such as Jason Van Dyke, who pumped 16 shots into a retreating, unarmed teenager. Incredibly, Graham cannot bring himself to do, or say, the right thing, which further taints the cliché that 99 percent of cops are good cops.

Chicago Tribune Columnist John Kass, whose writing is so subjective and subpar he is rendered unreadable and un-credible, is another bum. Things are so bad that Kass shares the coveted Page 2 slot with several other more talented and objective columnists.

John Kass following the legendary Mike Royko is like the list of bad coaches who followed legends; Jim Dooley following George Halas; Phil Bengtson following Vince Lombardi; and Gene Bartow following John Wooden. Kass is way, way over his head.

Any number of Chicago aldermen were also contenders.

Today, though, like choosing the queen for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, we anoint a single bum to represent the entire City of Chicago.

And if anyone ever earned the right to be named Chicago’s bum, it is ex-congressman Mel Reynolds.

Reynolds is Chicago’s bum and is one of the dumbest people on earth. He’s a two-time felon who last week was sentenced to six months in prison for tax evasion.

In addition to his tax evasion misdemeanor sentence, Reynolds should receive a much longer prison sentence, charged with unbelievable stupidity.

Reynolds, even though he is a bum, is filled with so much narcissism and arrogance that it’s, well, dumbfounding. A man with supposed intelligence who attended Harvard and Oxford, Reynolds is on the verge of returning to prison. We can only hope the warden loses the key to his cell and Reynolds stays in prison for a very long time.

Reynolds is no stranger to the pen, having served time in the mid-1990’s for convictions of bank fraud and statutory rape for having sex with a teenage girl. Which means, like Cosby, Weinstein and many other men, Mel Reynolds is a bum and a creep.

What was once a promising political career was thrown away as Reynolds was forced to resign from the U.S. Congress, trading in the pinstripe suits he wore in the U.S. Capitol for a jump suit in the Big House.

(As has happened too often in Illinois, Reynold’s replacement, Jesse Jackson, Jr., followed Reynolds to prison, in the same way Governor Rob Blagojevich followed his predecessor, Governor George Ryan, to prison. It is no surprise that Illinois, which has produced a bumper crop of crooked and inept politicians, is in such sorry political and financial condition. Not surprisingly, Illinois was recently anointed the 3rd most corrupt state in America.)

Mel Reynolds was given new life upon his release from prison. But he continued to live on the edge. Periodically, his name would surface in the news and it seemed he was always one step ahead of more trouble.

In one bizarre situation, Reynold’s was taken into custody after lying to a judge. Who, in their right mind, stands in a courtroom and lies to a judge after they’ve served time in prison, knowing the judge has the power to send them right back to jail? Mel Reynolds did just that and the judge immediately ordered Reynolds to be handcuffed and taken away.

Unadulterated stupidity. That’s Mel Reynolds and he is as good at being stupid as anyone ever has been.

In the past couple of years, Reynolds somehow convinced a couple of businessmen, including Chicagoan Willie Wilson, to pay him $400,000 to drum up business for them in Africa. In his infinite wisdom (dumbness) Reynolds claimed the money was not a salary but was for operations, therefore he paid no taxes. The judge who decided on the tax evasion case said ‘baloney’ and the result is Reynolds has a ticket for another prison stint.

Willie Wilson, Chicagoans will recall, is running for mayor again (a stretch if there was ever a stretch) and had the temerity to run for president (a joke if there was ever a joke). The last time he ran for mayor, Wilson’s performance at mayoral debates bordered on surreal, with his closing statements turning into a mini-sermon, because Wilson had little grasp of policy issues.

However, Wilson has done good things in Chicago’s black community. Most notably, he persuaded county officials to re-do the bond process to keep low-income people charged with misdemeanors from languishing in jail for months, just because they cannot afford to bail out of jail. At his core, Wilson is a good man who helps those less fortunate by spreading around some of the wealth he has accumulated.

Mel Reynolds is not a good man. Reynolds is a bad man, and not in the way Muhammad Ali meant when Ali used to exclaim “I’m a bad man!” Reynolds is bad in the true meaning of the word. Heading back to prison is just the place for a stupid, bad man like Mel Reynolds and it will be poetic justice for another crooked Illinois politician to join the ranks of prisoners.

Lock him up. Toss away the key. Good riddance, Mel Reynolds.

Douglas FreelandMay 17, 2018