God bless the Italians:
A Chicago politician is thinking twice about renaming Columbus Drive for Barack Obama after outraged Italian-Americans questioned why the former president should be honored "at the expense of one ethnic group."
The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans had blasted the proposed rebranding as "offensive" last week, with president Ron Onesti describing it as "insensitive and unvetted."
And yes, just so we're clear, there is a "Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans" in Chicago. This is a thing that actually exists.
Numerous cities and municipalities in recent years have scrambled to rename things after Barack Obama. My sense was that this is usually something that takes a while longer, but civic leaders seem reaaallly determined to rename everything they can after the 44th president.
Chicago Alderman Lamont Robertson tried to placate the city's tough guys about this proposed name change:
Robinson's office said the name change was more about honoring Obama's history than removing Christopher Columbus.
"It's not because of the controversy around him, Barack Obama had a historic victory speech at Grant Park, it's steps away from Columbus," the spokesperson said.
But we know the truth:
Stand strong, paisanos!
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