Guilt By Association

My Chicago connections keep rearing up and biting me on the bottom, this time when Hillary Clinton’s attack machine clubbed Barack Obama with his not-for-profit connection to Bill Ayers. In the 21st century Bill and wife Bernardine Dohrn had become mainstream political fixtures in Chicago, doing good work around education and children’s issues. They have led a positively tame life. Bill and his late father frequently took Bill’s kids to Cubs games, and Bill and Bernardine burst with pride when their kids made it to the Ivy League–and won a Rhodes Scholarship. But in the eyes of media and political scandal-mongers, mere “association” with aging radicals is enough to taint one for life. This has me worried. It also has me grinning at the irony.

I worry because my husband Monte recently “associated” with Bill Ayers at a dinner in Chicago. The host is a relative of Bills, and Bill had dropped by for a visit. Recalling the dinner, I immediately fretted that Monte’s recent “association” with Bill might imperil my chances of election to the PTA .

I grin, however, at the irony of at my own long-ago “association” with Bill and Bernardine. I met them at an election night party in November 1992 celebrating Bill Clinton’s Presidential victory returning a Democrat to the White House. Bernardine was distracted by residual pain from a wisdom tooth extraction, but Ayers was ebullient, and chucked our infant daughter under the chin. Both cheered elatedly when the networks called it for Clinton.

Oh, and where was Barack Obama in 1992? Spearheading a voter registration drive in Chicago–to help elect Bill Clinton.

Tracers

My daughter N. often exclaims, “everything traces back to Chicago!” Those were certainly our formative years. Chicago is where I started my career, met my husband, bought my first home, birthed my two older daughters, forged my deepest friendships, gained my political education, discovered labor history, and confirmed my enduring passion for my native Great Lakes bioregion.

Spending the 80s and 90s in Chicago also meant that we crossed paths with lots of prominent Democrats. (I blogged about this before, here.

Back in the 80s, the public interest law firm in Chicago to work for was Davis, Miner, Barnhill, and Galland. True, serving an assistant corporation counsel during the Harold Washington administration, as I did, also won progressive brownie points, but Davis, Miner was hot, hot, hot. Name partner Judd Miner became Harold’s second Corporation Counsel, following James Montgomery’s return to private practice. Name partner Allison Davis, who was later to provide technical advice to the producers of the film version of Phillip Roth’s The Human Stain, was extremely successful in real estate practice, and also did his own real estate development. Chuck Barnhill moved to Madison, Wisconsin, but somehow stayed affiliated with the firm. And curly haired George Galland was active in the progressive bar association, the Chicago Council of Lawyers. The brilliant Brigette Arimond, then an associate at Davis, Miner, joined the corporation counsel for a time, and years later popped up with my dear friend Cyd as a fellow Bell magnet school mom .

Naturally, I had to chuckle when I read today’s Washington Post column, “The Fact Checker,” in which Michael Dobbs susses out a line of attack against Senator Barack Obama. I sat right up when I reached the fifth graph, quoting Obama’s “supervisor at the law firm,” William Miceli. Bill Miceli was at the corporation counsel when I arrived in 1985; at that time he and his wife occupied the Rogers Park apartment directly beneath my friends Ken and Caryn. Bill was one of the least partisan guys I knew. He was one of the legions of skilled City attorneys whose fine work was overshadowed by an office reputation sullied by decades of patronage sloth. Bill’s fine work, fortunately, drew the attention of the top dog, Judd Miner, who wisely took Bill with him when it was time to return to private practice. And it was completely fitting that a talented, public-interest minded, Ivy-educated community organizer-turned-attorney would later be snapped up by Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland. Look where he is now!

I haven’t shown my daughter the news clip yet. She’ll just grin and nod knowingly. Another tracer, back to Chicago.