You never actually own a City Hall seat, you merely look after it for the next generation

The bad news is that I'm stepping down. The good news is that my son, Neil Steinberg Jr., will be taking over this space. So it'll still be Neil Steinberg writing this. It just won't be me.

I know what you're thinking: "But this Neil Junior" — I call him Sport — "is he any good?' Will he similarly hold us captive with his biting wit and hard-hitting journalism? It isn't as if writing well is a heritable trait, like my green eyes or wide feet.

OK, OK ... the above is untrue, mostly, except for the lack of a column-writing chromosome. I'm sticking around. And as pompous as I can be, I didn't name either of my sons after myself — Jews don't generally do that. Neither of my boys feels it worth his super-valuable, billable-by-the-1/10th-hour time to regularly read my column, never mind consider taking a pay cut to write it.

What inspired the above is Fran Spielman's Friday article on Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) wanting to bestow his City Council seat upon his 29-year-old namesake.

"Don't judge him based on him being my son," said Burnett, pere, as if there were any other reason the lad is being finessed into City Hall. "Judge him based on what he can bring to the table ..."

He went on at length to extol his son's many excellent qualities. I don't fault him for that. I'm a big fan of my kids, too. I just wouldn't have the chutzpah to try to hand one my job as if it were my wedding china. Not that he'd want that either.

You know who never says a peep in Fran's story? Despite being invited to do so by the dean of City Hall reporters.

That's right, Walter Redmond Burnett. The man can speak, correct?

I know he can because Block Club recently cornered him at a coffee shop, where he addressed such crucial matters as what he likes to be called — "Red" — and why this isn't yet another case of, in Block Club's words, "classic Chicago nepotism." The story also mentions, in the 14th paragraph, that Burnett the Younger spent "almost a decade in New York" as an investment banker.

That brings to mind Dan Lipinski, summoned from his Tennessee academic exile by U.S. Rep. Bill Lipinski and handed pop's congressional seat as if it were a Patek Philippe ("You never actually own a seat in Congress. You merely look after it for the next generation.")

I don't want to suggest Burnett will also turn into an glittery-eyed anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ fanatic. But Lipinski hung around for eight terms. Once you give junior the keys to the car, who knows when you'll get it back? And in what condition?

This family political dynasty business is a bait and switch. Internationally, it's the path of despots — I'd say ask a North Korean, but they aren't permitted opinions.

It's bad nationally — George H.W. Bush looks like George Washington compared to his son, George W. Bush, who set a standard for blinking inadequacy that wasn't surpassed for nearly a decade.

U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, impassioned defender of the downtrodden, sired Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., quackery's avenging angel.

It's bad locally. The last time I addressed John and Todd Stroger, his minions picketed the paper. So let's look at Richard M. Daley instead. True, his father died without placing him bodily into his office on the 5th floor of City Hall. But the magic of the Daley name was a greased rail Richie slid along to get there.

Given the mess that Daley fils left — the parking meter giveaway, a textbook case of government privatization gone horribly wrong, the city's metasticizing pension debt, etc. — his mayorship is a cautionary tale against being gulled by a familiar name. Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon, begets Jesse Jackson Jr., hot mess felon.

Ald. Walter Burnett — the current, not the future, one — is an ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson, who needs all the friends he can get, and is expected to install Walter Burnett 2.0 into his dad's chair at the end of the month as thanks for past and future services rendered.

But look at the record of alders like Ed Burke and remember what finally tripped him up — a sense of entitlement and a focus on making money. Proud Papa Burnett might think his high finance son is just right for his job.

But the way I see it, given the two qualities actually on display here — entitlement and avarice — the young man is entering the City Hall game with two strikes against him. We know how this game ends. We've played it before.