Governor Ron Blagojevich's name was largely unpronounceable to the public until last week. Now only hard part left is to spell it, but do really need to learn to spell a name that might just be a number some day?
I'm not saying that he's guilty of anything since we will leave that to his day in court. But let us for the sake of argument say he's done all the things he is alleged to have done, he's not that unusual for Chicago and Illinois. This sort of thing has been business as usual in the Windy City for years now.
Remember Mayor Richard Daley the First? I certainly do. Way back in 1968 I landed a job in Chicago at WIND on the eve of the Democratic convention there. It was just coincidence and you know what happened at that event. I had come in from Minneapolis where I had been doing a talk gig and was settling into the job when our chief reporter Bernard Shaw (later of CNN) pulled me aside and told me I was being watched by the Daley secret police because I had said bad things on the air about him back where I had come from.
This was the sort of tactic that Daley felt intimidated his nay sayers. Of course it didn't apply to me because I was in no position to comment on the son-of-a-bitch because I was just playing records. This was my introduction to the wonderful world of the Chicago political machine.
Later that week I found myself in Lincoln park getting tear gassed and that event immediately radicalized me. Nothing like gas or a billy club to change you from a bystander into a full grown radical. After that I was never the same. Thank you Mayor Daley for my conversion.
So it's not surprising that nothing much has changed and the each successive politician to come to power figured that this was the way business was done. That it was a way of making lots of money and the more power you got, the more money you pocketed.
Into all of this comes Barack Obama. It makes you wonder, just how much he may or may not have been corrupted by the process. To believe that he had nothing to do with (cut and paste name) Blagojevich would be naive. But what that involvement was has a wide range. I'd like to believe it was just putting up with the asshole as a necessary part of politics. We really don't know a hell of a lot about our new president, so like a woman you start to date that you're crazy about at first, you never know what you're going to find out later.
The bottom line is that politics always seems to attract the "bottom-feeders" of our society and not people like you and me who would never want power. They take power and then feed off the public trough. How do we change it and make it less attractive the Blagojevich's of the world? I don't know that we can. It seems that to them that public confidence a shiny gem of gullibility they just have to pluck.
The biggest problem is that we get to the point where we believe no one. If a honest person does come along, we've been stung so many times that we just don't trust them.
Let's hope Obama is one of the good guys. He's all we've got!
2 comments:
If you wire tapped every politician we would probably have a revolution due to all of the shady things we would learn about people who hold office. And that includes all of them...local, state, and federal politicians.
B.O.B. (B for Barack, O for the O in Obama and B for the B in oBama) was probably smart enough to keep his distance from Blagojevich. If he wasn't the Republican's would have been all over him during the election and they left it alone.
"How do we change it..."
I worked in politics and I know first hand it can be a lonely job. Your closest friend and worst enemy are only as far away as your next vote on some issue. People are coming after you from every angle ALL THE TIME....this includes our polarized 4th estate.
Also, your never going to get $$$ out of politics. Quit trying. Instead, we need to develop a strong third party....we have a duopoly in American politics and were all worse off because of it. We need a party that wants to govern....not rule....in other words enough of the "my way or the highway" BS.
The govn't is too big at all levels which leads to a situation where our 4th estate, even though it's become rather pathetic, can't do it's job properly. There is simply too much to cover and too many ways to cover it.
Until we reduce it's size to a manageable level there will always be an open door to corruption, dishonesty, misrepresentation.
ps - It would be really f'king cool if you started referring to our new president by his obvious acronym (BOB) on the show. It makes him sound more white anyway....
"We really don't know a hell of a lot about our new president, so like a woman you start to date that you're crazy about at first, you never know what you're going to find out later."
I suspect ya probly meant ta say:
"We really don't know a hell of a lot about our new president, so like a woman you start to date that you're crazy about at first, you never know when a better lookin' one will come along."
Hee, hee...
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