The Road to Federal Prison Is Paved With Good Political Intentions

Sideshow Blag Laughs At the People Who Elected Him

Ah, another day, another high-profile political scandal. Gov. Blagojevich (D-Il.) has been arrested by the FBI and been let out on a measly $4500 bail for a variety of sleazy charges related to his office. This includes trying to sell off Obama's vacated senate seat, withholding financial assistance from the Chicago Tribune, and trying to shake down the CEO of a hospital to pony up campaign dollars in exchange for state health care funding. The details are available in the affidavit with colorful language included (this excerpt is in regards to the Tribune):

Deputy Governor A agreed and said that HARRIS needs to be “sensitive” about how he does it. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said there is nothing sensitive about how you do it and that it’s “straight forward” and you say “we’re doing this stuff for you, we believe this is right for Illinois [and] this is a big deal to[Tribune Owner] financially” but what ROD BLAGOJEVICH is doing to help Tribune Owner is the same type of action that the Tribune is saying should be the basis for ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s impeachment. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said Tribune Owner should be told “maybe we can’t do this now. Fire those fuckers.”

A real swell guy, as you can tell. So why has the media been blowing this guy the last five years? CBS published this article about teh Blagster cracking down on that great scourge of our society, violent video games. And the LA Times just yeaterday wrote about the soon-to-be-imprisoned Governor showing his support to Chicago Factory Workers. Mike at Crook's Shadow writes that this puts the Illinois track record for felonious governors at 4 in just the last 50 years.

There is no reason to believe that politicians are anything but sleazy, corrupt egomaniacs, who make ridiculous campaign promises at the expense of the taxpayers to secure their victories. Yet we continue to elect clowns like Marion Barry and Ted Stevens (almost) as we overlook their conspicuous crimes. Historically low approval ratings of those in public office suggest that we are more than willing to run these people out of town. But, the American citizenry has become so hopelessly dependent upon entitlement programs that we fear any sort of instability within the government. Until then, we'll continue electing people like Blag who make smiley-time appearances with "real Americans" so they can rip us off behind the scenes.

(see The Obacalypse on any possible Obama-Blago connection)