TheRanger:

If Obama cannot be blamed for the violence in Chicago, then it is hard to associate him with the safety.

It should be exceedingly difficult to blame Obama for the safety of Chicago. You will never hear me say either that Chicago is an extremely safe city nor that it is as it is because Obama.

With to your numbers, do you credit Obama with the safety of Naperville? After all, he was one of their Senators for the last two years. Of course, however, you do not, nor should you. For the same reason, I don't think you can credit Obama for the improvements that have occurred in Chicago over the last twenty or thirty years (worst was in the late seventies/early eighties, then again around 92/93); on the list of people with the power to fix the problems in Chicago a US Senator is surprisingly far down the list (and a community organizer or Constitutional law instructor falls farther down that list).

I never said Chicago was safe, nor did I say Obama deserves credit for anything that happens here in Chicago. What I have said, repeatedly, is a combination of two things. First, it's foolish to look at the violent crime rate today while ignoring what it was in the past (and how it's changed). Second, it's even more foolish to look at the violent crime rate today, again ignoring what it was in the past, and then blame one person for all the troubles.