J-Fled to Stay On?

Once again, Shortshanks playing the bi-polar puppet-master:

• [from BreakingNews.com] - Mayor Richard M. Daley today praised his beleaguered police superintendent Jody Weis on a radio talk show, but dodged questions on whether he would renew Weis' contract up next year.

  On a taping of WLS-AM's "Connected to Chicago," Daley told host Bill Cameron that Weis worked the streets like few of his other superintendents.

  But when questioned on whether he would offer the former FBI agent a new contract before his current $310,000-annual contract runs out next March, Daley veered the conversation into the responsibility of parents.

"beleaguered"? That's a good description. So is "demoralizing force," "big mistake," "Daley tool" and "J-Fled."

• [from the Sun Times] - Mayor Daley on Friday praised Chicago’s $310,000-a-year police superintendent and hinted strongly that Jody Weis’ contract would be renewed when it expires next March — albeit, sources said, at a substantially reduced salary.

  “He’s doing the best possible [job]. The crime rate was higher under previous administrations,” Daley said, during a taping of the WLS-AM Radio program, “Connected to Chicago,” to be broadcast at 2 p.m. Sunday.

• Pressed further on whether Weis’ contract would be renewed, Daley said, “Well, we’ll see. We’ll work with him.”

  Other sources said Weis would be asked to take a substantial pay cut if his contract is renewed.

• Earlier this month, a retired police officer went so far as to file a formal complaint against Weis, accusing the superintendent of being a “coward” who “cut and run” when he should have responded to a scene 45 seconds away where shots were fired.

  Ever since then, a police blog that previously referred to Weis as J-Fed started calling him J-Fled.

Whoops! There it is again. In any event, Shanks continues his demoralization policy and is still smarting from the pants-ing he used to get from his bodyguard detail back in the day. We expect some offer to be tendered to J-Fled for an extension unless this summer is especially bloody, which it appears it might be.

The downtown "wildings" every weekend haven't been covered by the media for some reason, but by the time the Taste of Chicago rolls around, they'll be hard to ignore with all the suburbanites around. The bad publicity will mount and J-Fled might never see an extension. The odds are currently 50-50.