Blagojevich Fumbles Opportunity

I was deeply distressed when I heard disgraced Illinois Governor Blagojevich had made his appointment to serve the remainder of President-elect Obama's US Senate term. I heard the announcement on radio and feared he had offered Plaxico Burress the position. What a relief that he actually selected former state Attorney General Roland Burris to the seat. The troubled New York wide receiver would not be much of a catch as a Senator but is hardly more of a slap in the face to the nation than anyone payola Rod might try to appoint.

Richardson Refuses Post

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson who previously had falsely claimed to have been drafted into professional baseball, has turned down the position he was offered in the Obama administration. A little ethical cloud drifted over to block Richardson's sunshine. Blagojevich, Richardson, one wonders which will be the next shoe to drop. Obama like Clinton before him is promising an administration with ethics beyond reproach. Clinton was and is honest to a fault except for his stained couture problem, his renting the Lincoln bedroom to the highest bidder, and the one or two thousand little foibles America had to suffer through for eight(8) years. Obama will be different; he'll take the TV out of the Lincoln bedroom.

Obama Declares Innocence

Obama today released information affirming his innocence in the Blagojevich affair. Obama says it, so it must be true. Mike Savage on his radio show says the prosecutor must give the President-elect a pass on this as not doing so would cause great national trauma in a time of crisis. What Obama will do to the country if he is unencumbered by scrutiny, will be far worse than having Fitzgerald conduct an exhaustive inquiry. Even his majesty Obama must submit to law, his word is not gospel.

Country's Crime Capital

For years, debate has raged over whether East St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, or Camden, New Jersey, for felons not concerned their Pennsylvania peers would think they were slumming, was the nation's crime capital. The recent collapse of the economic structure would suggest that ne'er-do-wells are liberally distributed across the lower forty-eight, with a deeply embedded vein as rich as oil in Alaska and almost surely a surfer's tide of them rolling onto the verdant shores of Hawaii. The recession was not brought forth by sub-prime loans, labor-management rifts, mark to market accounting rules alone or in combination but as Bernard Madoff seems to have aptly illustrated, quite a bit of raw criminality. George Will, I believe coined the term "cleptocracy" to describe the mercantile machinations of malignant African dictators (see Mugabe). These petty thugs have been surpassed in avarice and impact by a group of confidence capitalists who would have made robber barons blush. Their manipulation has gone a long way toward bringing down the world economy. The government agencies charged with oversight were either populated by naifs who would have made Twain's Innocents Abroad seem like jet set sophisticates, which meant they were ill-equipped for their positions and should never have been hired, or they had become so cavalier that they would keep their positions no matter what, that they did not bother to do their jobs (there must be a way to terminate an employee this blase'), or they thought their compensation package as a Federal employee was meager, and they may have been sharing the benefits of the endemic graft to supplement it. A public official would never seek an inducement or accept a bribe-(Blago) would they?

Conservative Pipe Dream

Several conservative commentators have speculated that Tony Rezko and a Blagojevich aide who just pleaded guilty are singing like birds and may implicate Obama. Why in the world would they do that? Obama has the power to pardon them if they just keep cool and quiet until inauguration. They can talk or threaten to and end up like Vince Foster or they can follow omerta and be free like Susan McDougal. Sean Hannity and his compatriots may hope for someone to crack and spill the beans, but no one wants to be defenestrated.

Thick as Thieves

Do you think Governor Blagojevich is an anomaly? He is an extreme, but politicians of both parties are ethically-challenged. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Ted Stevens are not the face the Republican Party wishes to project, but they are not the only bad apples.Tennessee, my home state, has been notorious from the end of Reconstruction, as a Democrat-controlled den of iniquity with demands of pay for play common in many state-regulated industries. The good government crowd could not claim much success in Tennessee until they brought down Democrat Governor Ray Blanton in a pay for pardons and liquor license scandal in the late 1970s. Neither donkeys nor elephants have a monopoly on graft, and it is feared that honesty is the rarest commodity.

Presidential Prerogatives Piqued

You'll never hear the President preach/ That you must support your local leech/ But that's just what his plans will do/ He's bound to make a monkey of you/ If you work for your money/ He finds that quite funny/ And if you drive, strive, or like your babies alive/ He'll be deft practicing theft and promoting abortion/ You'll find he's strikingly similar to Governor Extortion.

All Knowing Congressman

Is it not wonderful to know that our Congressmen are beyond capable and scrupulous, why in Jesse Jackson's case, they're omniscient. After all, the wind driven snow Representative from the flawless family and Honest Abe state knows no one would ever approach Governor Blagojevich offering inducements on his behalf. Perhaps nothing was offered at Jackson's behest, but there is no way anyone on earth can account for the moment to moment actions of everyone else. Even a real son of a reverend can't do that.

What It Takes

This morning Diane Sawyer bantered with Stephanopoulos that Blagojevich had to be delusional to discuss Presidential aspirations in his secretly taped conversations. Why delusional? The US just elected a junior Senator who had ducked tough votes in both the Illinois legislature and in the Senate with numerous "present" votes except on infanticide where Obama stood for denying medical care for infants who had somehow survived abortion attempts. Hillary's parley of taking a few dollars and turning it into $100,000 in the cattle futures market has become legend but never raised eyebrows as a possible payoff and did not disqualify her from seeking the highest office. The Resko scandal and Obama's criminal cronies did not slow him down. Was Obama more deeply involved in the septic malfeasance in Illinois or simply oblivious like Hogan's Heroes Sargent Shultz? Neither is very heartening in a nation's leader.

Sweet Cesspool Chicago

Yet another politician has been implicated in the endemic corruption of Illinois politics. With today's charges against Governor Blagojevich, another Presidential pardon will soon be forthcoming. Rats of all stripes, Republican and Democrat alike, have emerged from Chicago sewers. I fear that the largest rodent of all may have crawled out and is about to raid the White House cupboard. But today some good news appeared at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee where a woman found $97,000 and actually returned the cheese to its rightful owner. Diogenes would have been proud and that cash would never make it into the Cayman account of an Illinois politician-would it?