Well, that’s the sore point, you see. The RW hardcore can’t deny, now (at least, not by any honest argument), that Obama really is the people’s choice. So they’re trying to pre-emptively delegitimatize his presidency by means of any bullshit they can dream up. That birth-certificate conspiracy-theory crap, for instance. Now this pops up, and the Freeptards are jumping on it like stray dogs on a sausage-truck spill. They simply assume as self-evident fact that this has got to be to Obama’s discredit, somehow or other.
Obama, in fact, appears to be the cleanest politician in Illinois – which is kinda like being the skinniest guy at fat camp, but, still, first the Clinton machine and then the whole RW had plenty of months to dig for dirt, and the best they could come up with was his connections to Tony Rezko, Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers. All pretty weak tea. It is possible, though never easy, to emerge from a political cesspool smelling – not like roses, but at any rate like nothing in particular. Harry Truman was famous for keeping himself personally honest while building his political career from inside Kansas City’s famously rotten Pendergast Machine.
Heck, Illinois – or at any rate Chicago – has that kind of reputation even among gangsters. A close friend of mine is an amateur student of organized crime in America, and one thing I’ve learned from him is that, throughout the 20th Century, mobsters in other cities despised the Chicago Outfit as savages not worth talking to – no rules, no codes of honor, no diplomacy, just go right through whomever and whatever is standing between you and what you want.
All very true, I have no doubt, but I think that when Bricker said “it’s not fair to make that assumption,” he was referring to Ferret Herder’s assumption that “government corruption is a bipartisan agenda in [Illinois].”
I do not know enough of Illinois politics to say whether it is a fair assumption or not, but from down here it at any rate sounds like a plausible one.
Maybe it does. But can it possibly work as well as honest government? (A thing that does exist, you know; even in America there are countless examples.)
The choices for Governor were horrible last time around, and Blago had not yet shown his corruption publicly. We knew he was an asshat, but at least his lt. gov choice was unobjectionable, which is more than I can say for JBT.
Again, Quinn was not chosen by Blagojevich. He ran for the Lieutenant Governor position on the Democratic ticket, and was selected by Illinois Democratice primary voters.
Slight hijack to give ya’ll yet another reason to laugh at me for my chronic foot-in-mouth disease: I was having a cup of coffee with my pastor and he said, “At least I voted for Judy.”
“She didn’t come off as any smarter than Blago,” says I.
“She’s really quite smart and articulate. We used to date.”
WTF, God! If I can’t make fun of an Illinois politician without stepping on toes, who the fuck CAN I make fun of?
What exactly are you insinuating here? That Obama owes something to G-Rod? Not at all likely. Obama has openly admitted his personal mentoring by Durbin-who is also a fairly clean pol. It’s my understanding that Durbin wants Ryan out due to the poor health of Ryan’s wife, not because he thinks he’s served enough time.
Talk about being non-productive… This scandal has NOTHING to do with Presidential politics at all. Why are you castigating people for expressing opinions about choices made for the '04 election? Because Blago and Obama are both Dems? Do you know that Springfield and Chicago only deal with one another reluctantly and with bare civility? If your feelings are still hurt since the debacle that was 2004, I am sorry for you.
If you want to call those Illinoians lunkheads for re-electing G-Rod, then do so-I was one of those lunkheads. I figured better a Dem than a Rep, given the Reps stranglehold on power and their inability to play nice with others. I regret my decision and my vote.
But don’t drag Obama into it or W. One has a huge, almost impossible job of cleaning up the mess the other is leaving behind. Blago is a different kettle of fish. He may have started out well intentioned, but the power quickly went to his head. He has been hated in Springfield for both terms, and disliked state wide for some time. This is a one man show here–Rod is not supported, defended and admired by his own party here (unlike Bush was, but I digress). I see no Dems standing up and saying “no, he’s a great guy; I want to have a beer with him.” etc as was said re Bush for oh, so long.
I see Reps and Dems being corrupted by the power they hold. In that aspect, there is no moral superiority to be had by either party, but we’ve got it over you on all the other humanitarian issues. If that sticks in your craw, so be it. The Dems have individuals who are out for their main chance, but the Reps (IMO) are the party of “I got mine; fuck you.” (pssst–that free market economy and let the market work it’s magic thing ain’t working. Neither is the abstinence education. Might want to address those issues intra-party sometimes soon…)
Quinn is the real deal–he is pristine and rabid about cleaning up politics. He has made many enemies by not doing the insider deal stuff that hallmarks ALL politics, no matter the state/city/country. Frankly, I don’t see IL as all that more corrupt than some other states, but we do implode spectacularly. If we could get Quinn in there, it might help. Lisa Madigan is saying the right things, but I trust her about as much as I trust any other progeny of a king maker/breaker–she’s got her agenda, including a finance committee to discuss her own run for governor.
A fair trial on any criminal charges. Impeachment, OTOH, does not threaten him with loss of his civil rights, only with loss of his job. It is meant to be a political, not a judicial process, and different standards apply.
Because the state is in gridlock, and nobody will accept any action he takes until this thing is resolved. But Blago is not about what is best for the state…
