The Toddler Sock Puppet Show

By Margaret Lyons in News on Dec 22, 2007 6:25PM

Just when you thought the current Cook County administration couldn't get any more ridiculous, it's now been revealed that a Stroger aide made a call to a local radio station pretending to be a constituent just thrilled to pieces that his taxes were about to be jacked through the roof.

Stroger's director of media affairs, Andre Garner, has admitted to calling the John William's show on WGN-AM Thursday morning, where he proceeded to disguise his voice (perhaps by using a wistful falsetto?) and claim to be "Jonathan from Chicago" whose wife works for the county. He then went on to sing the praises of Todd Stroger's vision and that those against the tax increase were preaching "gloom and doom" when in fact we would all be so much better off paying an extra 2 percent for everything we purchase.

That should have been the tip off right there, but some astute listeners recognized Garner's voice and revealed the ploy -- although given the small pool of people that approve of Stroger nowadays, it was probably a simple process of elimination. Garner claims he made the call simply out of "frustration", and that Stroger did not have advanced knowledge of his wacky radio stunt. [Trib] [S-T]