While I often write here of things monetary, of BailOuts, economic freefalls and the current recession that is trying all of our patience this Holiday season, I could not resist this headline-hijacking story breaking early this week. Perhaps it might even cheer up somebody somewhere struggling with this economic crisis to know that somebody else is having a harder time of it, all self-induced and due entirely to his own human foibles. Bring on the circular firing squads!
The Gods of Felony Dumbness and Arrogance met, mated and had a bouncing baby boy whose name is hard to spell, but whose hairdo, for a 52-year old, is truly awe-inspiring, and who just happened to become the current Governor of the Great State of Illinois, Land of Lincoln.
And boy, does he have a deal for you! Better than all the Bridges, swampland in Florida, Nigerian email schemes, and other investment scams – you can now, for a limited time only, buy your very own Senate seat – only slightly used by a Senator who spent much of his freshman term jetting about the country in a nearly two-year long, and ultimately successful campaign, to become our next President.
And, if you act now, we will throw in these handy kitchen towels and this steak knife.
Never mind that over the last three decades three prior Illinois Governors have warmed a seat in the Hoosegow, the Big House, gone Up The River, and that this hirsute Governor seems now headed there; maybe they’ll build a special Governor’s Wing up at the Joliet Prison (made famous by the BluesBrothers’ movies) – but, can you believe the sheer Chutzpah of this guy?
The televised news conference with the US Attorneys, including Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame, was a gem worth archiving. Fitzgerald read some much “bleeped” quotes from this Governor, first dissing the Obama group (for which they undoubtedly send a warm: thanks!) for not wanting to pay-to-play. Then Fitzgerald took out the big guns and made it very clear, in nice, jury-sized soundbites, that this Governor (with the 1970’s hairdo of the kid who showed up at your door to take your daughter to the Prom), fervently believes that the sale of this Senate seat is both the key to his and his wife’s Golden Years, and, like in the New York Life commercial where the guy runs for economic security through the football field goalposts, the road to his economic freedom and a life of ease. Astounding.
Now I grew up in Boston, where the notorious, but much-beloved, Mayor James Michael Curley (1874- 1958), was re-elected one time virtually from a jail cell – this machine political world of everyday graft and corruption in the style of Tammany Hall was an institution there and in Chicago, among other places, back when. “Curley Gets Things Done,” was the slogan that won Mayor Curley an unprecedented fourth term as mayor of Boston in 1945, and, even though a federal jury proceeded to convict him of felony ‘influence peddling,’ Curley remained mayor even after he entered federal prison in 1947 and actually served as Mayor until 1949. But, we are no longer living in “back when” and, like so many other things, it had seemed that our society had finally grown out of this kind of thing. Not so in Illinois apparently.
Talking Heads TV commentators are already on to what 50’s quiz shows used to call the “64 Thousand Dollar Question” – how close to this conflagration was President-Elect Obama, despite heroically distancing himself from this Toxic Governor at every turn? And, will this Governor, showing little grace or class, now, like Obama’s former Pastor, try to smear and drag the President-Elect into his tawdry world? Film at 11.
Somewhere up there where loveable rogues go after leaving this mortal coil, the Ghost of Mayor Curley is laughing hysterically, telling the Ghosts of Boss Tweed and Aaron Burr, “Even I wouldn’t have tried that stunt!”