[Rhodes22-list] POLITICAL-The Good News from Illinois (NYTimes)

[Ben Cittadino]

 Rhodies;

This NYTimes column by one of my favorite contributors is offered as a
mildly amusing diversion. While the subject is not really funny I suppose,
sometimes a little gallows humor can get you through the day. Enjoy.
 


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December 11, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Good News From Illinois 
By GAIL COLLINS
These are troubled times when people yearn for diversion. We like stories
about a simple crisis in which somebody does something incredibly stupid
that will not cost 100,000 people their jobs. Yet Hollywood starlets and pop
singers have been unhelpfully quiet. Then, suddenly, there was Rod
Blagojevich seeking bids for Barack Obama’s Senate seat with all the
subtlety of a tobacco auctioneer.

That’s the ticket! Now, if only we could indict the economy ...

Feel free to indulge in a little schadenfreude at the expense of the
governor of Illinois. Sure, the last couple of months have been tough. But
at least you didn’t have to spend your birthday listening to the nation
debate whether you were the most corrupt elected official in living memory
or simply out of your mind.

Some people might wonder why Blagojevich chose to say potentially
incriminating things like “I want to make money” over the telephone at a
time when he knew he was the subject of multiple federal investigations.
Perhaps his legal problems sent him off into his own little world. There he
was, sitting around the house in his blue jogging suit, dipping into
delusions of grandeur in which the empty Senate seat becomes a magic key to
a Cabinet post, a big-money job for the missus, the presidency in 2016. 

Lord knows we’ve all been tempted to retreat into fantasyland when things
get rough. Really, the only thing saving us from succumbing was the lack of
a Senate seat to sell.

Those of us who do not live in Illinois had generally not given much thought
to Rod Blagojevich until this week. We had never wondered how a person with
a 13 percent approval rating ever managed to get elected in the first place,
though now I am personally leaning toward the theory that it was the hair.
Blagojevich tossed his thick brown mane and the voters told each other:
“Yes, he sounds a little dumb. But truly, this is the hair of a reformer.” 

Illinois is not the only place going through empty-Senate-seat turmoil. In
New York, the departure of Hillary Clinton for the Cabinet has set off an
unseemly scramble, the like of which you usually see only when someone drops
a pound of hamburger in the middle of a pit bull convention. 

Still, as far as we know, nobody has actually tried to trade anything other
than political advantage, the hope of future campaign contributions and the
gratitude of one or more special interest groups. You know, the normal
stuff. On behalf of my state, I would like to thank the governor of Illinois
for making us feel as if this is a good record.

The Senate seat sellathon is actually not the most damaging thing
Blagojevich is accused of trying to do. There are, after all, 100 senators,
and we know from several centuries of experience that the nation can survive
quite nicely even if a sizable minority are brain-dead bank robbers. 

Worse, he’s upped the already hearty level of cynicism in Illinois voters.
He ran for governor as an antidote to the culture that had sent an average
of one Illinois chief executive to the clink every 10 years. (“Our state has
been adrift. Corruption has replaced leadership,” Rod and his hair said in
early campaign commercials.) Now look at him. It’s the sort of experience
that sets the public wondering if there’s a way to get reform while avoiding
reformers. 

In New York, of course, we elected a reform governor two years ago, and he
was driven from office by some unpleasantness involving the Emperor’s Club
V.I.P. escort service. Now, post-Rod, all that seems kind of petty —
especially since, as far as we know, Eliot Spitzer even used his own money.

That’s something else we have to hold against Blagojevich. He’s definitely
driven the bar of acceptable political behavior below sea level.

Look at Delaware, where the election left yet another Senate seat vacant and
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner quickly announced that she’d be appointing Joe Biden’s
longtime aide, Edward Kaufman, to the job. Given the fact that Biden wants
his seat to eventually go to his son, Beau, who is currently serving in Iraq
with the Army National Guard, some observers found it a tad convenient that
Minner happened to choose a person no one has ever heard of who is intensely
loyal to the Biden family and has already promised not to run in the next
election.

But now Delaware is looking like the gold standard. It was only political
expediency! The State Legislature isn’t going to have to set up an emergency
election so the governor won’t have time to barter the seat away. And
everybody in Washington knows the aides do all the real work anyway so
nobody will even notice Biden is gone. Good work, Governor Minner!

One thing is clear. We cannot have any more vacant Senate seats hanging
around, creating temptation. Next time we have a presidential election,
let’s try to limit the candidates to governors, retired generals and failed
movie stars. Much safer. 




Enjoy,

Ben C. 
  
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