Richard M. Daley has eclipsed his late father in many ways, and assuming he serves out his current term, also will surpass him as Chicago's longest-serving mayor.

His legacy, like his father's, will be impressive.

Yet, like his father's legacy, his will not be spotless.

It will be marred by what he himself has acknowledged as "a shameful episode in our history" -- two decades of systematic torture of African-American criminal suspects by white Chicago police officers.

What went on -- plastic bags over heads; shackling to hot radiators; gun barrels in mouths; electrical shocks to ears, nostrils and genitals; cigarette burns to arms, legs and chests -- is now well known and has been cited repeatedly in court opinions and, last year, in a special prosecutors' report.