The Chicago Way, Glenn Beck, David Mamet and me

"The Chicago Way" has gone national.

It has become the pet phrase of Fox News showmen like Glenn Beck, another way to beat up on President Barack Obama. Just the other night, Beck waved a baseball bat around like a weapon, explaining that this is how the Obama crowd silences dissent -- The Chicago Way.

The next night, a Chicago Tribune columnist who has all but made the phrase his own, John Kass, got on Fox News and agreed -- yeah, the Obama White House fights like a bunch of Chicago thugs -- The Chicago Way.

This is silly stuff, and I'll leave it at that.

But if people are going to start throwing the phrase around, let's at least give proper credit to the author. Kass didn't dream it up, though another Fox talking head claimed Kass "coined" the phrase. In fact, I stole it before Kass did, making it the name of a weekly column I wrote for the Sun-Times for a couple of years.

The phrase, as most of us know -- Beck even showed a clip from the film -- comes from the 1987 movie "The Untouchables." Sean Connery, playing a tough old Chicago cop, tells Kevin Costner, playing Elliot Ness, that if the feds are serious about taking down Al Capone, they'll have to do it "the Chicago way."

"You wanna get Capone?" asks the cop. "Here's how you get him: He pulls 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! That's how you get Capone!"

I explained all this -- how the phrase comes from the movie -- in a column I wrote in 2005. But here's the thing: I failed to mention who actually wrote the screenplay for the movie. And that was a huge oversight because while the movie is terrible, the screenplay is terrific.

So who wrote the screenplay?

One of the greatest of American writers.

David Mamet.

I knew this when I wrote the column but forgot to mention it. I failed to give Mamet credit.

And for this, I caught a little friendly grief the next day from Mamet himself.

He sent me a long email in which he told the story of how the famous Iwo Jima Memorial was unveiled in Arlington National Cemetery in 1954 with a lot of pomp. Everybody was there, including President Eisenhower.

But one man -- Joe Rosenthal -- wasn't there, Mamet told me. Rosenthal was the Associated Press photographer who took the unforgettable World War II photo -- of three soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima -- but he skipped the statue dedication ceremony.

Rosenthal visited the statue later, just him and his wife, once the big shots had gone. He walked all around the statue and decided he liked everything about it. He liked the strong granite base and the cast bronze figures and the noble words: "Uncommon Valor Was a Common Virtue." He liked that the sculptor, Felix de Weldon, got credit on a plaque.

But, Mamet told me, there was one thing missing that made Joe sad. He looked all over the statue but could not find it -- his own name.

Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the iconic photo on which the statue was modeled, had been forgotten.

"Until I read your column this morning," Mamet wrote to me, "I did not know how Joe felt."

I laughed out loud, of course. Perfect. We should all show this much class when registering a complaint.

I quickly wrote back.

"David, I'm sorry I failed to give you credit for writing 'The Untouchables.' But seeing as how my mistake prompted this great note from you, I have no regrets."