Greetings From The Land Of Lincoln,

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
———–Karl Marx

The problem with Rod Blagojevich isn’t just that he is corrupt but that he is dumber than retarded dog drool as well, so much so that he gives ordinary, decent crooks a bad nameRepublican Departments of Justice have always taken a bead on the Chicago Machine in hopes of disrupting the Democrat conveyor belt there. The “revelations” of Spitzer in New York (with no charges filed after the resignation, of course) should have made it obvious to anyone with alpha waves that the Bush administration was intent on taking out Democrat governors that had a wisp of a hope of becoming presidential candidates. The template used was the revelation, the investigation followed by the purgery trap first devised in antiquity and revived with relish by Lee Atwater, his handler George W. Bush, and his understudy Karl Rove against then Governor Bill Clinton in the autumn of 1989, long before Gennifer Flowers hit prime time. The karmic tumor that ate Atwater’s brain left nearly all that job to the Arkansas Project’s millionaire banker Scaife , Lucianne Goldberg and Ken Starr thanks to the only woman on the planet that couldn’t get a stain out of a new dress.

The federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been hammering on Illinois for years. As part of the Alberto Gonzales Department of Justice, Fitzgerald had nailed the former Republican governor, George Ryan, for bribery which occurred during Ryan’s term as Secretary of State of Illinois in the Ninetys but the indictment came safely in 2006 after his term as governor was over. Fitzgerald had obtained additional indictments against 15 people, including the well known Obama fund raiser Rezko, during the past five years. Then, just as the Rezko case was due to spring the prefect October Surprise at his sentencing immediately before the November election, Rezko gets a delay: He is finally talking to the feds.

Would it not be prudent for our lad to step lightly for a while, perhaps run the Statehouse Shredder overtime in the interests of saving the planet through recycling? It is not as if Blagojevich was blind-sided, Sluggiepoos.

“In America Enterprise is free but nothing else is.”
————-Book of Jim, Chapter 1, Verse 1

The wire taps on Blagojevich’s phones started shortly before the November 4 election. When the financial panic became a stampede in October it was a certainty that Obama’s Senate seat had to be refilled. Predictably, this is close to the time that the Rezko sentencing was delayed and when Rezko gave the feds their first installment, Blagojevich fund-raiser Cellini. In naming names, Rezko could easily have given the feds someone they could turn within the Blagojevich organization, someone close enough to know that Blagojevich was looking for a cash cow before the new ethics laws took effect in January. If it works for MI-5, it works for the FBI.

Now we are told by the usual anonymous sources that bachelor number 5 in the tapes is Jessie Jackson’s kid. Not a bad haul for the Republicans, two Democrat governors down and one Democrat representative in the on-deck circle. Holy Constitutional Crisis, Batman!!! Is the President Elect in the batting order? Think of it as justice DeLayed.

“We have the best government money can buy”
————-Sam Clemens

I spent a good part of the 70’s east of the Mississippi, much of the time between New England with Brown & Sharpe, Illinois and the Tristate area. The region was reveling in “The Godfather” as if it was a celebratory anthem, the “Gone With The Wind” for the region. Dealing with businessmen, vendors and other suppliers you were expected to be on the take. It gets worse: Rhode Islanders, for instance, delighted with the string of wise guy murders that occurred when US Senator Pastori pulled strings to have Ray Patriarca transferred from Atlanta to the ACI in Cranston so that the old man “could be nearer his grandchildren” Then there was that wee fracas when bussing came to Southy.

Thus it is no surprise that the last bout that Illinois had with corruption that was spawned centering on that period. Two governors in a row, Otto Kerner and Dan Walker were later convicted. Kerner was convicted in 1973 for a 1969 racetrack bribery which occurred when he was governor. Walker was convicted for bank fraud during the S&L meltdown. It is a stretch to say that Blagojevich’s possible conviction will have sent four of the last eight Illinois governors to the joint. But this is the blogsphere, so have at it Sluggiepoos.

A point can be made that Illinois is a case similar to American Exceptionalism: That this is unique culture of corruption that occurs nowhere in the US of A, perhaps a point borne locally with perverse pride. I hope that the Ted Stevens trial would dissuade folks of that canard. For those who do not wish to take the Bridge To Nowhere to ends of the earth, I suggest that those folks consider Senators Durenburger and Williams. A similar corrupt Senate period occurred at the turn of the Nineteenth century with Senators Burton & Mitchell.

You effete, intellectual snobs can also take solace that the Executive Branch can also claim Vice President Spiro Agnew as a Famous Felon. For the lowbrows among you, New York and New Jersey are superb hunting grounds, especially at the mayoral level, where it is just as just as common for mayors to leave office after a grand jury vote as an electoral one.

There is a reason we have all those laws against public corruption.

“In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash”
———Postcard at a rattlesnake farm on Route 66 in the 50’s

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