The Illinois Gubner who tried to sell President Elect Obama's Senate seat is indicative of what I've tried to tell you folks.
Kennedy came from corruption, too, Boston corruption instead of Chicago, but still. And he's been virtually canonized along with his slightly less successful brother (Bobby) and entirely useless brother (Ted), but all JFK really amounted to was a gangster with good manners.
To take an HST line, the scum also rises.
Anyway, I wasn't surprised Blagojevich was brazenly trying to trade Obama's vacated Senate seat for favors & money. What surprised me was he got busted for it. If he forgot what he was doing was flat-out illegal, I did too.
So what Blagojevich is really going to prison for is saying out loud (and into bugged phone lines) what is always true when a politician is making an appointment.
While Obama will likely steer well clear of the damage in this particular outrage, don't pretend he's any less ruthless in his use of patronage.
What Obama is probably to smart to do, though, is cite what I think of as the Nixon Doctrine. Blagojevich's comment that you can record him if you want, but whatever he says is legal.
I think, too, that maybe for a lot of politicos the corruption of the system is so pervasive and constant, it's easy to forget what's illegal and what's simply unethical.
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