Among the  “Seven Stories Obama Doesn’t Want Told” as listed by Politico’s John Harris is —

That’s the Chicago Way… The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols.

The expression apparently dates back to at least 1931 when, according to legend preserved cinematically in the 1987 film “The Untouchables” (see below),  a disillusioned cop told famed G-man Eliot Ness: “You want to get Capone, here’s how to 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.”

It’s unclear from the online archives when the term became synonymous with insider politics, as in “(Former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski)  made a few dollars, which is the American way, and helped a few friends, which is the Chicago way, ” in a May, 1994, Mike Royko column.

And it’s also unclear to me whether other cities also feel that they have their distinctive “ways.”  Do world-weary residents speak of “the New Orleans Way,” “The Philadelphia Way” or “The Kalamazoo Way”?