The erosion of standards in modern times extends in all
directions, with Americans now witnessing one more distressing
cultural indicator: a sharp decline in the cleverness of the
country’s crooks. Not even corruption is performed competently
anymore.
Pols in Louisiana and Chicago once prided themselves on the
effortlessness of their graft. The foul-mouthed frenzy of
Governor Rod Blagojevich would have left them deeply
disappointed. That’s no way to abuse your office. And they
certainly wouldn’t be so gauche as to hoard $90,000, à
la ousted New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson, in
their freezer.
Earl Long, Huey Long’s brother, issued an authoritative dictum on
minimalist communication for crooked pols that the Blagojevichs
and Jeffersons were too sloppy to study: “Don’t write anything
you can phone. Don’t phone anything you can talk. Don’t talk
anything you can whisper. Don’t whisper anything you can smile.
Don’t smile anything you can nod. Don’t nod anything you can
wink.”
Blagojevich’s idea of a suave aside was to inform an aide that
his list of demands to bidders for the sale of Obama’s Senate
seat “can’t be in writing.” Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said
even his most cynical investigators were “shocked” by
Blagojevich, though he didn’t spell out the source of their
shock: whether it was the extent of Blagojevich’s corruption, the
depth of his stupidity, or both.
Fitzgerald’s wiretappers had a fairly easy assignment. They were
dealing with a pol, after all, who had made news in 2006 by
failing to notice that The Daily Show was interviewing
him for a story. “It was going to be an interview on
contraceptives…that’s all I knew about it,” Blagojevich explained
to the press afterwards. “I had no idea I was going to be asked
if I was ‘the gay governor.’”
What Democratic pols say about each other is always interesting
to hear, and Fitzgerald’s wiretaps contribute helpfully to the
genre. Blagojevich now joins Jesse Jackson in his high,
off-camera esteem for Obama, having called him an expletive that
Bill Clinton once used to describe Michael Dukakis.
Obama lucks out with that one, even though he is on record having
praised Blagojevich for “delivering” for Illinois. From this
cradle of corruption Obama comes and many of those around him
differ from Blagojevich not by kind but by degree. They just
weren’t stupid enough to get caught, doing covertly what
Blagojevich has done openly.
According to press accounts, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley once
called Blagojevich “cuckoo” during a dispute. Blagojevich’s
rejoinder: “I don’t think I’m cuckoo.” But perhaps one public
benefit from Blagojevich’s cuckoo corruption is that liberal
special-interest politics is exposed once again for the utter
sham that it is.
The indictment has him saying at one point as he scrambles for
bids that he wants an arrangement that delivers “good stuff for
the people of Illinois” and would be “good for me.” Amongst
Democratic pols, the two are usually inseparable.
Blagojevich had all the usual PC demagoguery down, which is the
last refuge of corrupt pols, referring to himself as Illinois’
first black governor. That he is fishing around (recorded on the
wiretaps) for a lucrative job at the “Red Cross” and a six-figure
salary for his wife at a “non-profit” is a nice touch.
Liberal special-interest pols are dedicated to “public service.”
But according to the wiretaps, Blagojevich hated public service.
Liberal pols are dedicated to press freedom; according to the
wiretaps, Blagojevich wanted editors at the Chicago
Tribune fired. Liberal pols itch to solve the problem of
poverty; on the wiretaps Blagojevich is only interested in
solving his own.
The party has descended from the Long brothers and the Daleys to
the Blagojevichs, Jeffersons, and Rangels — a change not in the
quality of corruption but in the confidence of its execution.
