From the Sun-Times:

Eddie who? Vrdolyak faded, but not his clout
All-but-forgotten ex-alderman still a force in picking judges

May 13, 2007
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
Did you notice that the newspapers had no color photos on file for Edward R. Vrdolyak and a great deal of ink had to be devoted to just explaining who he was and why he was important?

I don't know about you, but it made me feel old.

But just because nearly a generation of Chicagoans has no firsthand knowledge of Vrdolyak, I wouldn't want anybody to get the impression that he is some benign has-been from yesteryear.

For sure, "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak is not who he was in the 1980s, when his star burned so white-hot that his political career succumbed to the explosive forces he had unleashed, leading him to retreat into the background to make money.

But his influence -- built during years of doing favors -- didn't just disappear overnight.

He still had his friends in high places, and he was still the master of the back channels.

Right up until Thursday's announcement that he had been indicted, Vrdolyak remained a powerful force in this town, a guy that other powerful people still knew as somebody who could help you get things done with a phone call.

Nowhere is his clout more renowned than in the Cook County judiciary, whose ranks are so populated by judges loyal to him that prospective judicial candidates are said to beat a path to his door for a blessing -- and the possibility of an appointment arranged through his core of judicial loyalists.

If the appointment route doesn't work, Vrdolyak can help them get elected, working sub rosa, of course, maybe for both candidates in the race. Once on the bench, the new loyalists replenish the ranks of his allies who date to his time as the Cook County Democratic chairman.

I know you deserve names, but there isn't a published membership list. Just the same, I wouldn't want to find myself on the other end of a court case with one of his friends.

It was surely that same kind of influence that had put Vrdolyak in the middle of what federal authorities allege was a $1.5 million kickback scheme involving the sale of a piece of Near North real estate, some details of which have yet to be revealed.

Most of us who have followed Vrdolyak's career are scratching our heads that his downfall could be a deal in which he didn't even get any money. Prosecutors say the scheme was interrupted before the $1.5 million could be paid.

It's also strange he'd take a fall for something that didn't involve using his government influence, although that may be included in the future details.

Vrdolyak's lawyer says he's innocent, so we should keep an open mind to the possibility, even if we've spent years believing he's skirted prosecution for other suspicious activities.

Should have bided his time
For all the disbelief surrounding this being the case that would finally take Vrdolyak down, there was one piece of symmetry. The investigation is called Operation Board Games, a reference to the manipulation of business involving government and nonprofit boards of directors. Even his friends would agree that Vrdolyak always treated his ethical responsibilities as a game in which he tried to stay one step ahead of investigators.

I'd thought that when the day came to explain Vrdolyak's charisma that I'd compare him to Frank Sinatra, but even that seems outdated now.

Still, if you got a look at that old photo in Friday's paper of Vrdolyak on election night in his V-neck sweater, surrounded by buddies Sam Panayotovich, Howard Carroll and Glenn Dawson, it reminds me of the famous rat pack poster with Sinatra and boys around a pool table.

He has a personal magnetism that made him a leader. A lot of people liked him. His political workers absolutely loved him. But even those who didn't like him knew he was somebody to treat seriously.

One of the best observations about Vrdolyak came from Ald. Bernard Stone, who told our City Hall reporter Fran Spielman in part that Vrdolyak was "not dependable because he's impatient."

It was that impatience that led Vrdolyak to overplay his hand and jump to the Republican Party, making him the plainest example ever of how Illinois politics is not a matter of competing philosophies so much as competing interests. Forced to the margins by Harold Washington, he was pinned there by Rich Daley.

If he'd just bided his time, maybe we wouldn't have had to spend so much time last week explaining who he was.