Today's Political News: December 9th, 2008 PART ONE

Editor's note: Today's list will be broken up given the big story. Consider this my version of making a headline take up half the screen (I'm talking to you Drudge and HuffingtonPost).

If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. -Lord Actum 1887

I'm sure you've seen this already but Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff have been taken into federal custody for corruption charges. Central to these charges are a scheme to make money off his authority to appoint Obama's vacated Senate seat. Proving again what Lord Actum said above.

Some highlights lowlights of the 12 page summary released from USA Patrick Fitzgerald's office (FYI: Fitzgerald was in charge of the Valerie Plame investigation):

• "I want to make money" - Blagojevich
  
• Blagojevich schemed with Rezko at one point
  
• Blagojevich was trying to make as much money by the end of the year because new stricter ethics reforms start next year.
• Blagojevich thought about appointing himself to the Senate seat. "If they're not going to offer anythign of any value, then I might just take it"
  
• He discussed with his advisers, trying a three-way deal with Obama and the SEIU, whereby Blagojevich would appoint Senate Candidate 1 (Valerie Jarret, alledgely Obama's preference) , Blagojevich would obtain a position as National Director of the Change to Win campagin (affiliated with SEIU), and the SEIU would get some sort of favorable treatment from Obama in the future. Important to note that as far as we know, Obama and his people had no idea these discussions took place.
  
• Blagojevich: "[Obama's camp] is not willing to give me anything except appreciation [for appointing Jarrett]. Fuck them." No... fuck you, Mr. Blagojevich.
  
• Blagojevich wanted members of the Chicago Tribune' editorial board fired in exchange for state financial assistance to the Tribune. The summary seems to suggest that Tribune owner Sam Zell was willing to play ball.

Blagojevich was the subject of many scandals, and talk had already escalated to a possible impeachment. What's striking is that, even with all that stuff going on, this guy was still trying new and more bold corruption schemes. And the sheer number of schemes is the most outlandish part of it. The summary really reads like brainstorming session of a racketeer think tank. I was half expecting to read that they were also going to try a Superman III/Office Space scheme.

I hope they put this guy away for decades. Political corruption to me is a shade below treason. I'm guessing there's no mandatory minimums for political corruption though is there?

It will be interesting to see how the "all Illinois politicians are corrupt" meme, which just got reinforced in a big way, affects public perception of our favorite Illinois politician and President-elect.

As for the Democratic Party, Blagojevich was a black sheep (blacksheepovich?) already, and like Louisiana congressman William Jefferson last week, no one in the party will be sad to see him gone. However, this is the 3rd Democratic governor in 2+ years to be indicted (AL's Don Siegelman and NY's Elliot Spitzer). That hurts the brand of the Democratic party, and especially blocks the high road the Dems were able to take during the Republican corruption scandals that in large part led to the resounding 2006 Democratic victories in Congress.