Ever since 2008, I have heard people decry President Obama as a “Chicago politician,” as though that in and of itself is enough to condemn him to historical ignominy (yeah, I’m using $0.50 words today). I have never really been sure how Obama’s actions in office so far can have such purportedly obvious parallels to the erstwhile corruption of Chicago’s municipal government, but then I am not psychologically predisposed to dislike everything this president says, does, likes, touches, or looks at.

Here’s the problem, at least as I see it, with describing Obama as a “Chicago politician” without much in the way of context: it makes me think of Jim Malone in 1987’s The Untouchables, Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning performance:

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone.

If the rhetoric against the sitting president puts people in mind of the greatest speech of Sean Connery’s film career, or really any role ever played by Sean Connery (except maybe Zardoz), you’re probably doing it wrong.

Put another way, Republicans should not assume that they are Elliot Ness in this analogy.

Also, you might consider not calling it “Chicago-style politics,” because the only other thing to which the descriptor “Chicago-style” applies, to my knowledge, is really, really, really good pizza. Think about that.