Team Obama ‘Clintonesque’ on Blagojevich
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on December 18th, 2008 5:28 am by HL
Team Obama ‘Clintonesque’ on Blagojevich
SAN DIEGO — It may be that neither President-elect Barack Obama nor anyone else on his staff has anything to hide regarding the pay-to-play scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Then, by all means, Obama and his team should stop acting as if they do have something to hide. The loudest voices in politics and the media are coming from the critics and the cheerleaders. One camp is sure that Obama and his inner circle are guilty by association, and the other is sure they’re totally innocent. I’ll put myself in a third camp — of those who think Obama and his advisers may well be in the clear, but that they sure do a convincing job of suggesting otherwise.
Obama vs. Machine Politics
Ah, what a gift the media give us to see ourselves as others see us. With President-elect Barack Obama’s victory, Chicago was portrayed as a world-class model of political enlightenment. Then our governor got arrested. Among other outrages, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested for allegedly putting Obama’s Senate seat up for auction and a new debate was launched: Is the Land of Lincoln the country’s most corrupt state? Or is it merely more colorfully corrupt than, say, New Jersey or Louisiana?
Shock-and-Awe Easing
In a monetary version of shock-and-awe, the Federal Reserve unleashed a massive easing move with its FOMC policy announcement Tuesday — one that represents a sea change in central-bank operations. For starters, Bernanke & Co. established a new target range for the federal funds rate of zero-to-one-quarter percent. That’s right: zero-to-one-quarter percent. In doing so, the Fed is abandoning its fed funds target and essentially following Treasury bill rates in the open market, which have been trading close to zero for many weeks. The Fed also signaled the near-zero funds rate could last for “some time.”
Postponing Reality
Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed. Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it “compassion,” so as not to hurt their “self-esteem.” Can’t meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.
The Scandal is What’s Legal
Righteous indignation over allegations about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s “pay to play” brazenness camouflages the corruption inherent in all government. After all, what does it mean to be a politician if not that you promise favors — coerced from the taxpayers — in return for support from key constituencies? Ted Stevens, William Jefferson and Randy “Duke” Cunningham behaved egregiously enough to be convicted, but their actions didn’t cost taxpayers nearly as much as what their colleagues did supposedly acting in the “public interest.”
I Don’t Trust You People
Unlike many of my more tolerant fellow citizens, I possess no confidence in the ability of the American electorate to make sensible decisions. I have reached this conclusion based on an incontrovertible truth: You people will believe anything. This reality confronts me daily, as I am bombarded with fiercely stupid conspiracy theories from the exceptionally unwell. Worse, even people I once respected — folks with intellects and accomplishments that soar above my own — confidently will explain that the economy actually is controlled by a half-dozen shadowy individuals and Barack Obama has a birth certificate from Bangladesh stuffed in a bedside Quran.
Beyond Senator Caroline
WASHINGTON — Caroline Kennedy — or Caroline Kennedy’s political consultant — might like to read some of my e-mail. Usually, I know when I’m about to step on a hornet’s nest of unhappy readers. Last week, when I described my head vs. heart ambivalence about Kennedy’s interest in the New York Senate seat, I plunged heedlessly into the thicket. And boy, did I get some stinging comments, some expressed with, shall we say, Blagojevichian pungency. Caroline, brace yourself. “Much like you writing for the (Washington) Post, Caroline Kennedy is not qualified,” one reader wrote in one of the more family-friendly responses.
Myths of the Assembly Line
A famous news photo from the late ’30s shows toughs employed by the Ford Motor Co. beating up Richard Frankensteen, a United Auto Workers official, during the so-called Battle of the Overpass at Ford’s Rouge River plant in Dearborn. UAW chief Walter Reuther, walking with Frankensteen, got the same treatment. “Seven times they raised me off the concrete and slammed me down on it,” he later wrote. ” I was punched and kicked and dragged by my feet to the stairways, thrown the first flight of steps . and kicked down the second flight.”
