When my parents moved to Jacksonville, Illinois from Lewiston, Maine in 2006, I remember looking over the drivers' license manual with my mother. The first ten pages of the manual were devoted to warnings against fradulent licenses. (Illinois' "Rules of the Road" website informs the public that falsifying your ID papers can result in up to 3 years of jail time and a $25,000 fine.) I was flabbergasted - the State of Maine is completely unworried about this problem.
Governor Rod Blagojevich's brazen attempt to sell his right to appoint Barack Obama's senate replacement is certainly not the first corruption scandal that Illinois has dealt with. Blagojevich is the sixth Illinois governor to be arrested or indicted; his predecessor George Ryan is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for 20 convictions including racketeering, bribery, exortion, money-laundering and tax fraud. And that is just the beginning!
Blagojevich, who ran on an anti-corruption platform, has been investigated at least 14 separate times since 2005, largely for offering kickbacks to everyone and their brother. He has been involved in feuds with his Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and state treasurer. He is America's least popular governor, with only 4% of his constituency rating him "good" in an October 2008 Rasmussen poll.
The senate seat scandal has grabbed the public attention, but the real question is, how could Illinois' governor possibly be so dumb? Everyone who is anyone knew that Blagojevich was being wiretapped. Why would he be so blatant? Only obscene arrogance or a desparate need for attention of any kind could explain his behavior.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Obama and his ideals, including community organizing, seem like "new Chicago" with corruption and kickbacks being "old Chicago." But this scandal (and the attendant investigations into other corrupt figures in Illinois like Rezko and Kelly) demonstrates that the old Chicago is alive and well. Who you know in Chicago and who might get paid is everything; else why would the Democrats even have nominated Blagojevich in the first place? It turns out he has absolutely no leadership skills; in fact, he's an anti-leader whose only accomplishment is unifying all the legislature against him. Rooting out this form of corruption has occupied federal agencies for decades, apparently with almost no success. How to really change Illinois politics will take something drastic and no one knows what it is. Meanwhile, Obama is being tainted by this scandal, even as it appears that he has done his best to stay clean.
ReplyDelete