Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Blago didn’t do anything that most politicians do all the time, he was just a bit more blatant about it. It seems his real transgression was that he didn’t hide the fact that he was just a money grubber for reelection funds and a jockey for political power.
Abortion Bush Campaign Finance Cheney Climate Clinton Congress Conservatives Corporations Corruption Deficits Democrats Drugs Economy Education Election Elections Energy Environment Fox News Gays Guns Health Immigration Lies McCain Media Middle East Obama Palin Protests Racism Religion Republicans Romney Spying Supreme Court Taxes Tea Party Terrorism Terrorists Torture Trump Unemployment War
6 Comments
It may be cynical, but yeah, IK, you’re right
Yeah, it is cynical, like the real problem was that he wasn’t very good about lying about what he was doing. He made the mistake of thinking that what he was doing was normal.
What he was doing was, unfortunately all too normal. But he didn’t even try to keep it quiet. I do believe, though, than a minority of politicians actually do this kind of thing overtly – most of them are trying to do a good job, in a system rigged against them at every turn.
If they had used just Illinois politics as the comparative it would have probably seemed normal, but his misfortune was they compared his actions to non-Illinois politicing. No more “Planet Blago”.
Living in Louisiana, bribery capital of the U.S., where we just had a mayor and other officials resign because they accepted a bribery contract from a “garbage can cleaning corporation” named “Cipher 5000” (seriously?) which was actually a federal sting called “Operation Blighted Officials”, I still feel what he did was illegal (it is, that’s why he’s going to jail) and he deserves to be punished.
Maybe it does happen more often than we think, but that doesn’t mean we should devalue those laws if we don’t catch anyone on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth pass.
Maybe I’m just reading you wrong, IK đŸ˜›
http://westbatonrouge.wafb.com/news/news/port-allen-mayor-steps-down-admits-wrongdoing/49610
There’s the link to the article. It’s actually pretty funny, but still a little upsetting that something as stupid as a city-wide garbage can cleaning company was believable enough to bait them.
I’m with you IK. Several years ago a congressman from southern California was tried and convicted of accepting bribes and doling out favors. I felt then that he really believed that what he was doing was okay and that he was railroaded. I took it as an indicator of how much of this type of behavior on the part of our elected officials occurs – enough that the more naive ones think it’s okay.