Dear Friend and Reader:
If I were to teach a political science class at a university one day, I would devote a good week or two to the history of famous political flame outs — that moment in a bad politician’s career when they’ve consciously decided to take a large plugged-in electrical appliance with them to their bathtub, put feet first into the hot water, and let the appliance join in the bath.В
President Richard Nixon had his big flameout moment in 1973 with his famous “I am not a crook” speech on national television, which not only showed him losing control of the Presidency, but also, some say, showed he had lost his mind.
In 2002, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott had his brush with career-immolation at the 100-year birthday celebration for Strom Thurmond who was still an active member of the Senate. Lott reminisced about the Senator’s presidential campaign, admitting unconsciously his preference for the segregationist days of the South when he said: “…when Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either”.
In the days of YouTube, Virginia Senator George Allen lost his bid for re-election with his “macaca” moment, while Senator Larry Craig from Idaho could not keep his feet still in the bathroom stall of the Minneapolis Airport.
But how can these moments compare with this jewel of an example of obliviousness while taking an acetylene torch to your political career? We present to you now former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich defending himself prior to his impeachment by the Illinois State Senate.
Illinois’ US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is no one to mess with. Before Blago was even elected, Fitzgerald had canned another Illinois Governor, George Ryan for corruption. He was successful in actually prosecuting a Bush White House official Scooter Libby, for perjury. That is something unheard of, given the former White House’s penchant for hiding the truth and bending the laws to suit them.
Blago can’t seem to accept the fact that Fitzgerald caught him red-handed, had it on tape, and has helped steer Blago’s career straight to a Chicago abattoir. So Blago does what we’ve come to expect Blago to do — unashamedly defend himself in as big and obtrusive a way as possible.
For my potential political science students, here’s your moment of utter political cluelessness, brought to you by the city with big shoulders. File it for your future enjoyment.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
Fe & victoria,
I saw in Blagojevich’s birth chart that his Mercury and Mars are squared. Who would have thought?
And that Mars is 2 degrees away from the Aries point. The political is indeed personal.
Hey Vic:
Yes I saw the Sarah and turkey show. Whoa.
I think both Ms. Palin and Mr. Blagojevich are in conflict with reality and are completely unaware of themselves and their actions. And even the context in which their actions take place–that seems to have no bearing on them whatsoever.
Its an obliviousness which I dare might say could include some Aquarian part of them. You can’t write better tv comedy than that.
Fe, “oddly enough”. Oh boy, I got company.
That aside. He has a quality not unlike ms palin. Did you catch her turkey talk at the turkey farm. The thing she read before relinquishing the tom from the turkey death chamber she was about to show us.
The words they speak strike me as odd, like they are in conflict with something else. I don’t get it, but it is almost kinduv tasty if I don’t let it freak me out.
Victoria:
Oddly enough, I am with you, and personally, like the game show players on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” we are going to miss Blagojevich when he finally leaves the scene.
There’s an almost mythic clownishness to him which is his downfall and his tragedy. But you can’t help enjoying the show, because he can’t help HIMSELF. He has to be who he is. When he compared himself to Nelson Mandela and MLK on the talk show circuit while the state Senate was meeting to impeach him, you couldn’t help but smile at the guy for his audacity. In fact, Blago takes audacity to stratospheric decibel levels.
He may have a life as a talk show host after this, who knows?
I knew blago would do great things. I had thought he would get the ball rolling on the insanity of all this wire tapping. (however, I think I saw a byline or something on the dismantling of the patriot act. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, blessed relief if that be true.)
All I got to say to blago is that illusions die hard. I mean, just suppose he was a clean cut kid on the road to someplace he gets hired to work in the politico world. He gets into the game and that becomes hs reality. (Please reference Chicago politics.)
Now , I do not like to face the idea that all politics involves corruption, but isn’t that built into the word politics as we understand it? So not only wuld he have bought into it, it became his reality. And everyone applauded his success. I bet his mom and dad were so proud of their boy. But sooner or later boys and girls get too big for their britches, and they start screwing up, and the law man has to step in.
I saw this at my last two jobs. The young workers “playing the game” to get “ahead” because that is what the system requires to get the applause and the pleasing paycheck. And isn’t that success? Isn’t that the american dream gone nightmare, getting ahead of the pack? Like the great and powerful oz, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
Now here’s wherer blago becomes my own personal hero. I cannot deny what he says goes on, goes on, and who should know better than he. He’s run the gammet. But I think he makes some points, and if you have ever fallen victim to the game, you understand. I thought of the Oyster Band’s song, The Oxford Girl.
You can hear the voices calling down the years
She says: I never had the chance to prove them wrong
My time was short. The story long.
No I never had a chance to prove them wrong
It’s always them that write the song.
A conversation happened last night about mother’s situation and the ones who did and do the endless hours of caretaking and the ones who are absent. I found out that the bio monster “has notes, notes on all of us, a big box of notes.” We mused on this awhile. All we are guilty of is taking care of Mother to meet the wishes the power of attorneys agreed to in writing. We stand on the simple record of the endless hours and the wellness of mother. Where was the bm while we were doing that? In another reality writing another story of something else. No wonder I never understand a word he is saying.
I returned to my cave and I started munching on a big bag of Nessus Pieces (am I pronouncing that right). Oh Mr Blago you do me great service in unwinding myself from years of abuse. You work in mysterious ways.
What is so simple you make so complex. I can stand by my work in good conscience, say what you may. Nobody can take that away. But I am keeping an eye on my britches.
So simple: a contract (both personal and legal, legal is key here), and the work toward carrying out that agreement. Where all the paranoia comes in I do not know.
This is not virgo morality at work. This is what is called virgo integrity in service.
AnnaT, I’d go back and look but I am on slow speed today. When I tapped fe’s link there was a (I think) CNN cast under the blago blah blah link that talked about the blago man briefly. Then the suited woman got onto the economy and the tax cuts. She was espousing the rich as the engine of the economy. Even if she’s not with that, she ain’t helpin matters.
mystes,
I agree; the current economic system is in the toilet and am wondering what led to your “the flushing will be in the next three months” conclusion. Please share!
be
Economy, economy… hmmm… here’s the thing: on one hand we have the ‘age of post-mechanical reproduction,’ in which worth has to be recalibrated for abundance/access/ease instead of scarcity/rarity/difficulty. On the other, there are the limits of the ecosystem and what it can be coaxed (not tortured) to provide. Tally up the value of the biosphere, divide by each human over say, 14 years of age (anyone below this is a dependent, for sure), give each an equivalent symbolic circulable stake (uh, money), but permit a fluctuating value to be posted on the ‘markets’ per the relative sustainability of how we invest that stake. Personal value is then tied to planetary health.
There’s no saving the current economic system. It is *already* in the crapper. The flushing will be in the next three months. Time to wise up.
Victoria – what adjoining newscast would that be? Also sounds more interesting to me!
AnnaT
It’s one of the many, many reasons we love her!
Victoria:
Somehow, the non-sequiter of your post is so hilariously appropriate!!
I;m more interested in the adjoining newscast talking about the “engine of the economy”. What the hell is she thinking? Who the hell does she think is doing the work out there and generating income? Oh that’s right, they got all the money now, so they can just sit on their pile of money with their shotguns to protect it. This is the one I am watching. That should raise the price of a good cookie to at least $500.
“Fear is their culture. Not fear of what the public might say, but fear of what their вЂ?bosses’ might say should any incompetence be traced back to them. (That in itself is so bizarre, because in this country at least, no-one gets fired in the civil service or public sector – it’s rarer than hens teeth!!!)”
Funny how there’s a plethora of un-parented kids masquerading as grown-ups in the public sector. I’ve seen alot of them go from new adult to middle-aged frump, collecting the paycheck and getting over with nothing more than mediocrity. They look at fast comers with disgust and jealousy, projecting their own inadequacies onto those who threaten their stasis, and would much rather stab others in the back who excel at their job versus their own brand of resistance to change in themselves.
“This failure to challenge authority – genuine or precieved – leads to them going along with ideas and programmes that they know will fail in order to please and avoid a beating (verbal or otherwise!!) and in the end, saying NOTHING that will seem like any kind of opposition or challenge to authority.”
Many people, including leaders in government–like our Republican (your Tory) party here in the US are adhering to the old tax cut mantra as if its the only way to resolve the budget crisis. It CREATED the budget crisis–that along with unregulated banks and financial institutions. My question is – WHO is their authority. There has to be a vested interest in keeping our nations and their leaders so much in ignorant lock step. Its like watching lemmings to the sea.
“It’s so sad that what starts at home and school with Dad or Mum or teacher, then follows them around to the office. And many of us, including them, suffer as a consequence…A lot of this behaviour, I have a hunch, led to much of the mess we are in globally. In combination with outright greed and lack of humanity and conscience too of course…:)”
Know this: A majority of neoconservatives were whiny babies when they were kids. SO much unresolved Mommy and Daddy stuff. Can’t begin to imagine the shrink bills. Unfortunately, these kids had their turn at the Big Wheel of the world, and we’re all paying a price for it while they are locked safely away in their gated “crib”.
Apologies for the spillneg mistakes. x
‘May the momentum on this kind of action increase…its scary for politicians to comprehend people are watching them. It makes them do things like become accountable to the public trust.’
Do you know that last comment made me laugh out loud – I work with what we call in the UK ‘local government’ from time to time, and it has never failed to amaze me just how much energy they put in to ‘NOT’ being accountable. It’s true – they spend more time worrying about being caught and coming up with stories for how to justify themselves (and dogde the blame) should they actually get caught, than they do in actually carrying out the programme they have been set up to do. If only that energy was put into delivering what they promise and holding their heads up – the difference in what our communities might benefit from would be immense.
Fear is their culture. Not fear of what the public might say, but fear of what their ‘bosses’ might say should any incompetence be traced back to them. (That in itself is so bizarre, because in this country at least, no-one gets fired in the civil service or public sector – it’s rarer than hens teeth!!!) This lfailure to challenge authority – genuine or precieved – eads to them going along with ideas and programmes that they know will fail in order to please and avoid a beating (verbal or otherwise!!) and in the end, saying NOTHING that will seem like any kind of opposition or challenge to authority.
It’s so sad that what starts at home and school with Dad or Mum or teacher, then follows them around to the office. And many of us, including them, suffer as a consequence.
A lot of this behaviour, I have a hunch, led to much of the mess we are in globally. In combination with outright greed and lack of humanity and conscience too of course…:)
paletiger:
I am hoping more and more people wake up. We’ve been conditioned to become non-involved in our environment through a complex network of lies, so we’ve become vagued-out about what is principled, what is moral, what is truth, what is good, bad, war, peace, etc. We ask constantly — where is the outrage? Gone with the last infomercial.
Blago is comic material compared to the true monsters out there that need to be flushed out and into the sewer system. But we do have to give the state of Illinois some kudos for cleaning this one up and not having to rely so heavily on the federal prosecutor’s office to do so.
May the momentum on this kind of action increase…its scary for politicians to comprehend people are watching them. It makes them do things like become accountable to the public trust.
Oh my.
Great piece Fe.
And the thing that strikes me about this story, and that of others through the years, is that one of the ways that people like Blagojevvich get as far as they do in the first place, is a reliance on everyone else seeing their strange, bizarre, behaviour and ignoring it, or disbelieving it. That no-on will call them on it, because somehow it is not really what it is. It just isn’t happening, because to say that it is so, will make it real and that in itself makes it incredibly hard to deal with – after all, people in such powerful leadership positions wouldn’t do that sort of thing? Would they?
But of course. They do.
In the same way that friends of couples and families where psychological and physical abuse takes place, can become complicit in the abuse, because they can’t believe their friends could be capable of such a thing, and it is just the ‘way they are’, it is just their way of relating to each other, and so they say and do nothing.
We have to wake up to what is going on in front of our eyes, take a risk and speak up.
I, for one, am very glad that this one got caught.