From the Sun-Times:

Booted from inner circle, he still roots for Daley
Controversy put D'Angelo on sidelines, but that didn't dim his enthusiasm

December 10, 2006
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
He was frozen out of Mayor Daley's inner circle -- after a 36-year friendship -- for a pair of controversies that pale by comparison to the Hired Truck, city hiring and minority contracting scandals.

He still considers Daley a friend, even though they never see each other socially and talk only when they run into one another at wakes and funerals.

Oscar D'Angelo still has strong feelings for and opinions about Daley, and he made them known in a rare interview last week at City Hall.

He was there to testify before a City Council committee in favor of a ban on concrete block on the exterior of many new Chicago buildings.

But his old friend wasn't far from his mind.

"The problem is, anybody who's in government long enough relies on others, and others disappoint. In large part, the mayor is guilty of that. The people he relied onobviously did not do him justice," D'Angelo said of the recent scandals that have made Daley's life miserable.

Referring to the Hispanic Democratic Organization at the center of the hiring scandal, D'Angelo said, "It's inattentiveness to the things that were going on around him. The HDO was an agency run amok that had probably gone way beyond its initial intentions. He should have reined them in. ... The time has come to restrain one's activities in terms of their city employment and their political activities."

2 sets of ugly headlines
As federal investigators move ever closer to the mayor's door, D'Angelo, 75, advised his friend "not to rely on people who have, in the past, disappointed him. That requires a higher degree of restraint on his part and less reliance on good old friends."

There's more than a little irony to D'Angelo's advice about old friends who disappoint: He has been persona non grata at City Hall since 2000, after starring in two sets of ugly headlines that embarrassed Daley.

First, D'Angelo made $10,500 worth of interest-free loans to Daley's deputy chief of staff. Then, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association lifted the cover on D'Angelo's backstage maneuverings at O'Hare Airport as an unregistered lobbyist who raked in $480,000 while putting two friends of Maggie Daley in a lucrative bookstore concession deal.

To this day, D'Angelo insists the loans to Terry Teele and Teele's brother were not an attempt to influence Daley's deputy chief of staff and that there was nothing Teele could have done to benefit him.

But, for the first time, he acknowledges that, "perhaps, in hindsight, it's something I, perhaps, should not have done.

"It's a question of the times. There was no malice. There was no intent to deceive or do anything illegal. [It's just that] times have changed, and perhaps, I did not change with the times."

D'Angelo blanched when asked if he feels "vindicated" in any way by the parade of scandals that followed his ouster from Daley's inner circle.

"Vindication indicates I was wrong in the first place. I don't have any sense of vindication. I was innocent then, and I'm innocent now," he said.

Drawing a distinction between the O'Hare scandal and Hired Truck, where clout-heavy contractors were paid to do nothing, he said, "In any instance that I represented a client, the client performed admirably, perfectly, and the city never got cheated a dime."

D'Angelo said Daley is pleasant to him when they run into each other, but that's as far as it goes. That's how Daley apparently believes it has to be to insulate himself from embarrassing headlines -- even though D'Angelo acknowledged he's yesterday's news:

"That's the nature of the people in the media. They have to sell papers. They have to sell television time to advertisers. ... It was a big issue. The frenzy is over. They've had their pound of flesh, and they go on to the next person."

'Greatest mayor'
Even though he's still on the outs, D'Angelo will be among Daley's biggest cheerleaders when Daley formally declares his candidacy Monday for the sixth term he needs to be Chicago's longest-serving mayor.

"Step back and look at the entire picture, and I think he'll go down as the greatest mayor we've ever had," he said.

D'Angelo's City Hall influence dates back to the 1950s. That's when he cemented his relationship with Mayor Richard J. Daley by supporting what the current mayor calls his father's most enduring legacy: the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was built over the objections of D'Angelo's Little Italy neighbors.

'Rely on his integrity'
Asked if Richard M. Daley would go down in history as a better mayor than his father, D'Angelo said, "Clearly. Infinitely more complicated times. The dollars from the federal government aren't there. Richard J. Daley had everybody on his side. ... There was virtually nobody in opposition. ... Nobody dared. In a more difficult time, [Richard M. Daley] has performed more admirably than his dad."

D'Angelo said the feds "can go after anybody" and are almost certainly after Daley. But he does not think they'll get even close to the mayor.

"I know the quality of the man. He would not be involved in something as scurrilous as some of the things people are accusing him of," he said.

"I have no idea what knowledge he had or didn't have. I don't think anybody else does. I'm willing to rely on his integrity as a human being and as mayor of this city. And I doubt very much that the mayor knew about a lot of things that were happening. I just know that he would not be involved."