Saturday, January 10, 2009
Democrat Corruption Watch
In a one-year period: A New York governor has resigned over prostitution; a Detroit mayor has been convicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges; a New Mexico governor (and brief Cabinet nominee) is under federal investigation on pay-to-play allegations; and an Illinois governor is implicated (and now impeached) over a host of corruption issues.
The latest on the elected Democrat rap sheet: Baltimore's mayor is indicted on 12 counts:
I actually believe Barack Obama: He may well be the only honest person in his entire party. What a fun four years he has in front of him!
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The latest on the elected Democrat rap sheet: Baltimore's mayor is indicted on 12 counts:
Baltimore Mayor Sheila A. Dixon was charged today with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office, becoming the city's first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted.Like Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick, Dixon apparently mixes business with pleasure -- of course, her boyfriend is involved!
The case stems in part from at least $15,348 in gifts Dixon allegedly received from her former boyfriend, prominent city developer Ronald H. Lipscomb, while she was City Council president. She also is accused of using as much as $3,400 in gift cards, some donated to her office for distribution to "needy families," to purchase Best Buy electronics and other items for herself and her staff.
I actually believe Barack Obama: He may well be the only honest person in his entire party. What a fun four years he has in front of him!
Labels: corruption, Democrats, Rod Blagojevich
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Roland Down The River
Josh Marshall gets it
Agreeing with Dianne Feinstein, he recognizes that Rod Blagojevich -- disgraced in the public eye as he may be -- is still the governor of Illinois. He has the power to fill the vacant US Senate seat. He has done so. No one has charged Roland Burris with any sort of corruption -- and for an Illinois politician, that's saying a whole heckuva lot.
The longer Democrats refuse to seat him, they look, at best, politically venal -- obsessed with keeping the seat, they won't relent until someone other than Blagojevich appoints a senator who won't have the scandal hanging around their neck in 2010.
At worst, well barring one black man from taking his seat in the Senate -- when Reid "can't remember" whether he specifically told Blagojevich not to appoint Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rep. Denny Davis and Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones (three black men) -- may not be as racist as it looks. But it's pretty damn close.
By the way, Harry Reid might want to realize that racism takes many forms: No one is suggesting that Reid wouldn't want any of those men in the US Senate, simply because they are black.
But there is, to use one of George W. Bush's better political expressions, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Trying to block an appointment because you think a given individual can't win statewide -- if part of your reasoning is derives from an assumption that voters won't support a black man, is, yes, a subtle form of racism -- even though it is dependent on the implied racism of others for it to be present.
As a Republican, I'm amused by the entire process.
But if Reid were smart, he would just realize that Blagojevich has outsmarted them on this, let Burris take the seat -- and move on (unless he plans on allowing Burris a three-fifths vote. Heh heh). Who knows? If Democrats have a successful couple of years -- and Obama campaigns for Burris (assuming he runs in 2010) -- maybe they can retain the seat. But the longer this situation plays out, the odds actually get better for the GOP -- regardless of whom is sitting in the seat.
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Agreeing with Dianne Feinstein, he recognizes that Rod Blagojevich -- disgraced in the public eye as he may be -- is still the governor of Illinois. He has the power to fill the vacant US Senate seat. He has done so. No one has charged Roland Burris with any sort of corruption -- and for an Illinois politician, that's saying a whole heckuva lot.
The longer Democrats refuse to seat him, they look, at best, politically venal -- obsessed with keeping the seat, they won't relent until someone other than Blagojevich appoints a senator who won't have the scandal hanging around their neck in 2010.
At worst, well barring one black man from taking his seat in the Senate -- when Reid "can't remember" whether he specifically told Blagojevich not to appoint Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rep. Denny Davis and Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones (three black men) -- may not be as racist as it looks. But it's pretty damn close.
By the way, Harry Reid might want to realize that racism takes many forms: No one is suggesting that Reid wouldn't want any of those men in the US Senate, simply because they are black.
But there is, to use one of George W. Bush's better political expressions, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Trying to block an appointment because you think a given individual can't win statewide -- if part of your reasoning is derives from an assumption that voters won't support a black man, is, yes, a subtle form of racism -- even though it is dependent on the implied racism of others for it to be present.
As a Republican, I'm amused by the entire process.
But if Reid were smart, he would just realize that Blagojevich has outsmarted them on this, let Burris take the seat -- and move on (unless he plans on allowing Burris a three-fifths vote. Heh heh). Who knows? If Democrats have a successful couple of years -- and Obama campaigns for Burris (assuming he runs in 2010) -- maybe they can retain the seat. But the longer this situation plays out, the odds actually get better for the GOP -- regardless of whom is sitting in the seat.
Labels: Harry Reid, race, Rod Blagojevich, Roland Burris
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Rush To (Mis)Judgment
Great catch by "BarbinMD" over at Daily Kos! Bobby Rush -- who threw racial Molotov cocktail into the Obama-seat succession process this week -- previously expressed a a more mainstream viewpoint on whether the indicted Blagojevich should be able to appoint the next Illinois senator:
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... Rush has done everything he can to raise the specter of racism in this tainted process. And when he's not conjuring visions of fire hoses, dogs, and George Wallace, Rush has defended Blagojevich's right, and his duty, to appoint Obama's successor:Good question, that. Given all the charges swirling around the governor, perhaps it's time to wonder if there's some quid pro quo going on between Blago and Rush.Well, I think what needs--what needs to happen now is that all these folks who are opposed to Governor Blagojevich, they need to take a chill pill. We're still a nation of laws and I believe that Roland Burris and Governor Blagojevich, they're on solid constitutional grounds in terms of them being--of him being selected.But that's not what Rush was saying after Blagojevich was arrested:...he has the constitutional responsibility as governor of the state of Illinois to appoint.
I believe that the acts that are alleged to have been committed by the Governor are so heinous that he has forfeited his right to appoint someone to fill the seat of President-Elect Barack Obama. My bottom line is that the Governor should not be the one to make the appointment to this important office.Instead of trying to whip up racial tensions, perhaps Mr. Rush should explain why his bottom line has changed so dramatically in just three short weeks.
Labels: Bobby Rush, Rod Blagojevich
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
You Be Illin(ois)
OK, everyone had their nice laugh at Rod Blagojevich when US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald released the audiotapes earlier this month -- the profanity, the megalomania,etc. Then his press conference quoting Rudyard Kipling -- and, of course, the hair. Ha! Ha! What a joke.
Well, joke no more, boys and girls.
With his announcement that he would appoint former state attorney general Roland Burris to the US Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama, Blagojevich demonstrated that he is a damn canny politician who should not be underestimated.
But, then again, why should anyone be surprised? You think you make it through the Illinois political machine to become governor by playing beanball? Politics in Illinois is Chicago Bears '86-defense tough. Beyond that, "Hot Rod" continues to do exactly what I thought would be the case when his scandal first broke: He, more than any other individual or issue, would be responsible for ruining Obama's political "honeymoon."
By selecting Burris -- a 71-year old African American former state attorney general, and the first black to win statewide -- Blagojevich implicitly dared the now-all white US Senate not to seat his candidate. And, to make the implicit explicit, US Rep. Bobby Rush -- a former Black Panther -- just "happened" to be at the press conference. Blagojevich invited him up to speak. He did not disappoint:
In the campaign, Rush had no qualms about raising questions about how "black" Obama really was:
Yeah, this is the flip side of the "magic Negro" stuff that the Republican Party is, bizarrely, obsessing itself with currently: Issues of class in the black community often get played out in the broader dynamic of how "culturally black" a given individual is. Indeed, often the word "Negro" is used among blacks as an in-house rhetorical device to bring another member of the race "down to earth." (Which, by the way, parody or not, conservatives and Republicans are doing themselves no favors by wading into a cultural mire of which they continually prove themselves totally clueless.)
Don't underestimate how much personal satisfaction Rush would feel in getting to be a de facto racial kingmaker replacing the "above-race" Golden Child. Burris -- who Rush supported in the 2002 gubernatorial primary against Blagojevich -- thus becomes something of a happy willing pawn serving the tactical and cultural ambitions of two far savvier politicians.
Obama supports Harry Reid and the US Senate's assertion that they will refuse to seat any Blagojevich-appointed senator. But, the issue of whether the Senate can block this appointment could end up in the Supreme Court. In a previous decision involving, yes, a black member of the House, New York Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the court determined that the chamber could only assess the objective "qualifications" of a member -- age, citizenship, residency, etc -- in deciding whether to seat him. Reid claims that the Senate is a different chamber, not bound by that precedent. We shall see. Regardless, anyone want to guess what Bobby Rush might be doing while the high-court of the land is deciding whether a black man should be allowed to sit in the Senate?
Such a scenario would be a nightmare for Obama, whose entire campaign -- and political life story -- is about bridging America's racial divide. Instead, the immediate fallout of his successful run for the presidency has been a farcical RNC campaign over Obama's cultural identity as the "magic negro" and now a potentially far more ominous racial conflagration over his former Senate seat.
Magic Negro? Try "tragic" negro.
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Well, joke no more, boys and girls.
With his announcement that he would appoint former state attorney general Roland Burris to the US Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama, Blagojevich demonstrated that he is a damn canny politician who should not be underestimated.
But, then again, why should anyone be surprised? You think you make it through the Illinois political machine to become governor by playing beanball? Politics in Illinois is Chicago Bears '86-defense tough. Beyond that, "Hot Rod" continues to do exactly what I thought would be the case when his scandal first broke: He, more than any other individual or issue, would be responsible for ruining Obama's political "honeymoon."
By selecting Burris -- a 71-year old African American former state attorney general, and the first black to win statewide -- Blagojevich implicitly dared the now-all white US Senate not to seat his candidate. And, to make the implicit explicit, US Rep. Bobby Rush -- a former Black Panther -- just "happened" to be at the press conference. Blagojevich invited him up to speak. He did not disappoint:
"Let me just remind you that there presently is no African- American in the U.S. Senate," Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, told reporters.
"I don't think that anyone — any U.S. senator who's sitting in the Senate right now — wants to go on record to deny one African-American for being seated in the U.S. Senate," Rush added.
That man was former state attorney general Roland Burris, 71, named by Blagojevich on Tuesday to fill Obama's seat.
Senate Democrats needed no reminder that blocking one black man to fill the seat of another might not go over well in a party whose presidential candidate soon would become the nation's first African-American commander in chief.
And in case people thought he was being too subtle, Rush warned the media not to "hang or lynch" Burris because of his connection to Blagojevich. This is Chicago politics, folks!
Bringing Rush into this was a masterstroke on several levels. Aside from the "high-tech lynching" rhetorical sequel he unleashed, he has a psychological advantage in Illinois and national politics that no one else can claim: He was the last person to defeat Barack Obama in an election. When the then-state senator made an ill-advised decision to challenge incumbent Rush in a House primary in 2000, Obama got his head handed to him.In the campaign, Rush had no qualms about raising questions about how "black" Obama really was:
Mr. Obama’s Ivy League education and his white liberal-establishment connections also became an issue. Mr. Rush told The Chicago Reader, “He went to Harvard and became an educated fool. We’re not impressed with these folks with these Eastern elite degrees.”Indeed, Rush did to Obama what another old-school black veteran, Sharpe James, did to a similarly light-skinned "mainstream" Young Turk, Cory Booker, in the mayoral race in 2002.
Mr. Rush and his supporters faulted him for having missed experiences that more directly defined the previous generation of black people.
“Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it,” Mr. Rush told The Reader.
Mr. Obama was seen as an intellectual, “not from us, not from the ’hood,” said Jerry Morrison, a consultant on the Rush campaign. Asked recently about that line of attack, Mr. Rush minimized it as “chest beating, signifying.”
The implication was not exactly that Mr. Obama was “not black enough,” as some blacks have suggested more recently; his credentials were suspect. “It was much more a function of class, not race,” Mr. Adelstein said. “Nobody said he’s ‘not black enough.’ They said he’s a professor, a Harvard elite who lives in Hyde Park.”
Yeah, this is the flip side of the "magic Negro" stuff that the Republican Party is, bizarrely, obsessing itself with currently: Issues of class in the black community often get played out in the broader dynamic of how "culturally black" a given individual is. Indeed, often the word "Negro" is used among blacks as an in-house rhetorical device to bring another member of the race "down to earth." (Which, by the way, parody or not, conservatives and Republicans are doing themselves no favors by wading into a cultural mire of which they continually prove themselves totally clueless.)
Don't underestimate how much personal satisfaction Rush would feel in getting to be a de facto racial kingmaker replacing the "above-race" Golden Child. Burris -- who Rush supported in the 2002 gubernatorial primary against Blagojevich -- thus becomes something of a happy willing pawn serving the tactical and cultural ambitions of two far savvier politicians.
Obama supports Harry Reid and the US Senate's assertion that they will refuse to seat any Blagojevich-appointed senator. But, the issue of whether the Senate can block this appointment could end up in the Supreme Court. In a previous decision involving, yes, a black member of the House, New York Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the court determined that the chamber could only assess the objective "qualifications" of a member -- age, citizenship, residency, etc -- in deciding whether to seat him. Reid claims that the Senate is a different chamber, not bound by that precedent. We shall see. Regardless, anyone want to guess what Bobby Rush might be doing while the high-court of the land is deciding whether a black man should be allowed to sit in the Senate?
Such a scenario would be a nightmare for Obama, whose entire campaign -- and political life story -- is about bridging America's racial divide. Instead, the immediate fallout of his successful run for the presidency has been a farcical RNC campaign over Obama's cultural identity as the "magic negro" and now a potentially far more ominous racial conflagration over his former Senate seat.
Magic Negro? Try "tragic" negro.
Labels: Barack Obama, Bobby Rush, Rod Blagojevich
Sunday, December 21, 2008
SCANDAL '08: Dems Strike Back
In Sunday's Post, I take a look at the year in scandal, noting that the Democrats sweep of Republicans extended to taking the corruption crown that the GOP had almost to itself over the previous election cycle.
(Click on the inset art, which is quite amusing, if I do say so myself).
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(Click on the inset art, which is quite amusing, if I do say so myself).
Labels: corruption, Democrats, Eliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojevich
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
No Sparing The Rod
In my previous post, I mentioned the abrupt end of the post-election Obama "era of good feeling." Several readers took that to mean that I think Blagojevich's indictment implicates Obama in the general graft that the governor was perpetrating. It doesn't directly. Indeed, Obama's best defense is Blago's profanity-laced tirade about the president-elect not willing to promise him any specific benefit for appointing Valerie Jarrett to the Senate seat.
Unfortunately, if the political-journalistic nexus worked in that logical manner, we wouldn't see half the political stories we see today (maybe that would be a good thing).
Just look at the Day Two headlines of the Blagojevich story:
GOP pressures Obama on Blagojevich
Big risks for Obama in Blago scandal
Will Obama confront scandals head on?
Obama's Answer on Blagojevich -- and the Questions It Raise
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Corruption Hangover Follows Election Night High
C'MON, BAM: GET MAD, NOT 'SAD' AT YOUR SLEAZY PAL
The implications in these headlines show the danger that this story has for Obama -- even if he's not a target of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation(s). When a political scandal starts spreading, even the completely innocent get tainted. And, unfortunately, politics is a profession where even the "completely innocent" -- aren't. "Completely," that is.
Because everyone in politics has something they want "keep close to their vests," an unwillingness to be -- in the parlance -- "completely forthcoming" makes even above-board people look suspicious. And so, Obama will undoubtedly have to put one of his trusted aides on "Blago response/damage control" just to deal with all the hordes of questions that are coming down from reporters wanting to know the history of the relationship. Republicans, of course, won't be able to refrain. It is in the nature of the opposition party to take advantage when the other party is facing a scandal, if nothing else but to undermine confidence that the public might have vested in a just-victorious new president and administration. Again, all of the above is true, working under the assumption that Obama has done nothing wrong with respect to his relationship with Blagojevich.
But, what if there is more? And, what if Blagojevich -- in a spiteful mood -- decides he wants to "smear" Obama? One reader brings up an interesting question: Did Blago -- or chief-of-staff John Harris or an unindicted flunky text Obama's Blackberry on Senate seat? The probe is still ongoing. Would Fitzgerald ever get to a point where he might consider subpoenaing either Obama or Emanuel's Blackberry? Oh, and Tony Rezko hasn't been sentenced yet? Is it because he's still cooperating on the Blagojevich take-down -- or is there more going on?
The point is that scandals take on lives of their own. Sometimes they ultimately amount to nothing, but a politician -- even those exonerated -- rarely ends up in a better place before scandal machinery starts getting revved up. For Obama in particular, this comes at a problematic point because he has taken on this pseudo-president/head cheerleader role, carefully rolling out new members of the Cabinet, using his political capital and moral authority wisely to project confidence for the public during the holiday season. The best he has to offer is the promise of something better, come January 20th. If his press conference start getting bogged down by questions on his Blagojevich relationship or, again, Rezko's relationship to Blago and the whole real-estate deal, the glow off the new administration will literally be turned off before the Obama has turned the lights on in the White House for the first time.
Barack Obama wants his administration to be a breath of fresh air in Washington. Instead the Blago scandal (still NOT the "Obama scandal" -- yet) looks like a movie we've all seen before. And it's a skunk that makes everyone end up smelling bad.
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Unfortunately, if the political-journalistic nexus worked in that logical manner, we wouldn't see half the political stories we see today (maybe that would be a good thing).
Just look at the Day Two headlines of the Blagojevich story:
GOP pressures Obama on Blagojevich
Big risks for Obama in Blago scandal
Will Obama confront scandals head on?
Obama's Answer on Blagojevich -- and the Questions It Raise
Union Official Allegedly Liaison Between Governor, Obama Team
Corruption Hangover Follows Election Night High
C'MON, BAM: GET MAD, NOT 'SAD' AT YOUR SLEAZY PAL
The implications in these headlines show the danger that this story has for Obama -- even if he's not a target of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation(s). When a political scandal starts spreading, even the completely innocent get tainted. And, unfortunately, politics is a profession where even the "completely innocent" -- aren't. "Completely," that is.
Because everyone in politics has something they want "keep close to their vests," an unwillingness to be -- in the parlance -- "completely forthcoming" makes even above-board people look suspicious. And so, Obama will undoubtedly have to put one of his trusted aides on "Blago response/damage control" just to deal with all the hordes of questions that are coming down from reporters wanting to know the history of the relationship. Republicans, of course, won't be able to refrain. It is in the nature of the opposition party to take advantage when the other party is facing a scandal, if nothing else but to undermine confidence that the public might have vested in a just-victorious new president and administration. Again, all of the above is true, working under the assumption that Obama has done nothing wrong with respect to his relationship with Blagojevich.
But, what if there is more? And, what if Blagojevich -- in a spiteful mood -- decides he wants to "smear" Obama? One reader brings up an interesting question: Did Blago -- or chief-of-staff John Harris or an unindicted flunky text Obama's Blackberry on Senate seat? The probe is still ongoing. Would Fitzgerald ever get to a point where he might consider subpoenaing either Obama or Emanuel's Blackberry? Oh, and Tony Rezko hasn't been sentenced yet? Is it because he's still cooperating on the Blagojevich take-down -- or is there more going on?
The point is that scandals take on lives of their own. Sometimes they ultimately amount to nothing, but a politician -- even those exonerated -- rarely ends up in a better place before scandal machinery starts getting revved up. For Obama in particular, this comes at a problematic point because he has taken on this pseudo-president/head cheerleader role, carefully rolling out new members of the Cabinet, using his political capital and moral authority wisely to project confidence for the public during the holiday season. The best he has to offer is the promise of something better, come January 20th. If his press conference start getting bogged down by questions on his Blagojevich relationship or, again, Rezko's relationship to Blago and the whole real-estate deal, the glow off the new administration will literally be turned off before the Obama has turned the lights on in the White House for the first time.
Barack Obama wants his administration to be a breath of fresh air in Washington. Instead the Blago scandal (still NOT the "Obama scandal" -- yet) looks like a movie we've all seen before. And it's a skunk that makes everyone end up smelling bad.
Labels: Barack Obama, corruption, Rod Blagojevich, scandal
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Blagoje-Yi-Yi-Yi!!
Wow. Talk about a nightmare story from hell coming from Obama's home state!!!
His governor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested for trying to sell the appointment to Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat!!! Amazingly, Blagojevich did this -- even as he (like his convicted Republican predecessor, George Ryan) has been the subject of corruption investigation for months -- by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (yep, that one)!!!
Nothing to suggest yet that Obama knew anything about this, but it is still nonetheless a huge embarassment to the president-elect, at a time when he has been getting huge plaudits for running a seamless transition.
On the other hand, considering New York's pending $14 billion deficit, perhaps this is something Gov. David Paterson should think about for Hillary's seat. Considering the full-court press that the Kennedys are putting out to get Caroline appointed, surely they can afford a few mil, right?
UPDATE: The indictment.
UPDATE II: Jim Pinkerton explains why -- following the special-election wins last week in Georgia and Illinois -- that the Blagojevich indictment is Part 2 of the "Republican Comeback."
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His governor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested for trying to sell the appointment to Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat!!! Amazingly, Blagojevich did this -- even as he (like his convicted Republican predecessor, George Ryan) has been the subject of corruption investigation for months -- by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (yep, that one)!!!
Nothing to suggest yet that Obama knew anything about this, but it is still nonetheless a huge embarassment to the president-elect, at a time when he has been getting huge plaudits for running a seamless transition.
On the other hand, considering New York's pending $14 billion deficit, perhaps this is something Gov. David Paterson should think about for Hillary's seat. Considering the full-court press that the Kennedys are putting out to get Caroline appointed, surely they can afford a few mil, right?
UPDATE: The indictment.
UPDATE II: Jim Pinkerton explains why -- following the special-election wins last week in Georgia and Illinois -- that the Blagojevich indictment is Part 2 of the "Republican Comeback."
Labels: Barack Obama, corruption, Rod Blagojevich
