Chicago's alderman are mad and they aren't above letting director of Administrative Hearings Scott Bruner know about it. You would be too if you had to mix with the great, unwashed masses like these poor, put upon alderman have been forced to do. Why, it's unseemly, don't you know?

As it happens Chicago's aldermen are being forced to go through the metal detectors to gain entrance to the central headquarters for administrative hearings. It's a travesty of what's good and decent, they say.

Last week during the City Council budget hearings, director Bruner was chastised by Alderman Howard Brookins (21st Ward) and several other aldermen for being forced to go through the detectors.

“Why am I searched as an alderman and as an attorney?…I don’t want to be searched going through a city building. There’s only 50 of us and we all have gold badges,” said Ald. Howard Brookins (21st).

… Budget Committee Chair Carrie Austin (34th) was so “offended,” she warned Bruner what might happen if he fails to “take another look at your policy.”

“It’s not a matter of giving anybody any preference. But us that are aldermen—we are the ones who set your budget. If we’re the ones setting your budget maybe we’ll take an adjustment” downward, if the policy is not rescinded, Austin warned.

The Sun-Times piece reminds us of another recent incident where aldermen thought they should be afforded premium service.

(In 2000) a handful of aldermen complained about showing up to claim their VIP seats at a Taste of Chicago concert only to be turned away like gate-crashers by sassy, part-time security guards.

“When I get there, I don’t expect some $5-an-hour, part-time summer help to talk to me like I’m somebody who just rolled in off the corner,” Lyle said at the time.

“It’s a matter of disrespect more than anything else…There are five or six male, white aldermen who could have walked in there and never been questioned. But I saw several black women who were hassled [by security who said], ‘Those seats are for the sponsors.’ Well, as an elected official of the city of Chicago, I’m a sponsor, too.”

Yes, I don't blame these important, important aldermen for being upset over how shabbily they are being treated. After all, it's a tough job to be Daley's rubber stamp in City Hall. That whole not thinking for oneself must be taxing.