Oprah-lympics

Let's just shut down a major thoroughfare so Oprah can pimp for the Olympics:

• Will Chicago motorists tolerate having a chunk of the Magnificent Mile closed to traffic for nearly three days in exchange for the worldwide exposure talk show diva Oprah Winfrey will bring to Chicago by kicking off her 24th season at Michigan and Ohio?

  Mayor Daley believes they will.

  “This is a great thing we’re doing. I wish we could do this every day in Chicago. How many people it will employ. How much publicity we’ll receive throughout the world. It is unbelievable. You can’t even give us that exposure globally,” Daley said.

We don't know about that tolerance level. The fuse seems to be getting shorter and shorter. And that smarmy Ryan character justifying six-figure salaries while police and firefighters have to beg for scraps is intolerable:

• Salaries as high as $300,000-a-year for top executives spearheading Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid are “unacceptable” during tough economic times and some of those salaries should be reduced, Mayor Daley said today.

  “Some are unacceptable. You know that. But like anything else, they were put together with private money. They compete [with] the private sector,” Daley said after dedicating a new affordable housing development in Pilsen.

Private sector jobs lined up with the promise of billions in public sector contracts should the Olympic dream come to pass. Can't you smell the corruption from here?