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Thread ID: 95600 2008-12-11 18:17:00 Another US Scandal! (Oh No! Say It Ain't True!) SurferJoe46 (51) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
727922 2008-12-11 18:17:00 Prez-elect Obama just had a nation-wide tv press conference about the Chicago politics seat-selling and corruption scandal .
Obama keeping distance from Blagojevich ( . latimes . com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama12-2008dec12,0,1937419 . story" target="_blank">www . latimes . com)

NOTE: "Blagojevich" is pronounced: Bluh-goy-a-vitch

It seems that Jesse Jackson's (huh? Who can that be?) son was vying for the power seat vacated by the Prez-elect and now Obama is trying to distance himself from potential simony by saying that he/his incoming administration had NO idea of the activity that was happening all around . What he ACTUALLY said was that HE was not in the loop anyway . (There may be a pending head rolling here) .

OK - maybe so - but he also ran his campaign proffering that he has a fully transparent administration and would never allow any darkroom politicizing to happen on his watch .

He's sounding like a cat covering poop in a litterbox as he tries to show that he is "lacking appreciation" for the "heritage" of the political machine(guns) in Chicago-type political halls .

Hmmm . . . Interesting as this is exactly where Bobby K (he was attorney general under his big brother's regime) got his basal temperature reduced to ambient level . You cannot be investigating and jailing the . . . uh . . . collusive agents . . . (wink-wink) and get away with it for long .

It's interesting that the Prez-elect had anything to say about this scandal so fast and so emphatically . Wonder why?

After Jan 20th (inauguration day) - watch to see that there's NO investigation or indicting of Blagojevich (or that this falls between the cracks) and he (Blagojevich) will be in a psych-ward padded cell under trance-inducing . . . er . . . "medical treatment" . . . . since he's really a megalomaniac .


Funny: Mayor Dailey (Chicago) has not been indicated in this scandal, and for some reason, even though this is typical Chicago politics and the mayor is INDEED involved in the . . . uh . . . collusive agencies . . . . and the "heritage" of Chicago politics has usually been motivated by clip-emptying of Thompson machine guns .

Interesting sidebar: The Eff-Bee-Eye prematurely jumped the gun and raided the offices of Blagojevich, thus averting allowing the . . . uh . . . collusive agencies being legally entwined with the incoming prez-elect .

You cannot legislate morality . . . . don't cha just love it?

News Flash: The Governator (Schwarzenegger) has just announced that Cahl-ee-fohr-nee-ah has entered financial Armageddon . Video at 10PM . 		SurferJoe46 (51)
727923 2008-12-11 18:53:00 Atlas Shrugged ( . wikipedia . org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org) now is called "Atlas Puked" or "Atlas Giggles" .

Rush ( . wikipedia . org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org) just said that the US is going to be led by the "mind of Barbra Streisand .

Francisco d'Anconia, where are ye?

Can anyone remember any prez-elect who had scandals break out BEFORE HIS INAUGURATION? 		SurferJoe46 (51)
727924 2008-12-11 20:15:00 Kicking the dog again? I have rights to C/P this as I pay for the service:


How [expletive] dumb can you get?

Very [expletive] dumb, to use the vernacular favored by newly indicted Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. With obscenity-laden bravado, Blagojevich continued to discuss new corruption schemes on his bugged phone long after receiving clear signs that he was under FBI investigation.

And how venal can you get? Apparently, very [expletive] venal. Telling cronies he was financially strapped and tired of being governor, Blagojevich allegedly sought to get a lucrative union sinecure created for himself in exchange for political favors, held up funds for a hospital to extract contributions from its executives, wondered if he could foist his equally foul-mouthed wife onto high-paying corporate boards and tried to sell to the highest bidder the Senate seat just vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Blagojevich's dramatic downfall is the first big Democratic scandal story of the Obama era. Granted, Obama has yet to set foot in the Oval Office (though right now he's probably wishing his transition headquarters wasn't in Chicago). But there was no way for Obama to completely avoid comment on a scandal involving the Democratic governor of his home state -- especially when Blagojevich's downfall was integrally related to his illegal efforts to profit from Obama's success.

That's not to say that the Blagojevich scandal will hurt Obama. Based on the documents released so far, Obama's looking better than ever. In fact, it was Blagojevich's inability to corrupt the Obama camp that drove the doomed and frustrated governor to a new obscenities-per-minute record. Blagojevich saw his gubernatorial right to appoint Obama's Senate successor as an opportunity that was "[expletive] golden": A Senate seat is "a [expletive] valuable thing," he explained to an advisor. And he was willing to appoint someone he imagined Obama might favor, but only if he got something lucrative in return. "I'm just not giving [the Senate seat] up for [expletive] nothing." Yet Obama, to Blagojevich's astonishment, expected him to do just that.

When Blagojevich realized that Obama wouldn't "pay to play," he told aides he wouldn't just "suck it up" and give this "mother-[expletive]" -- the president-elect -- "his senator. [Expletive] him. For nothing? "[Expletive] him."

Given the context, Obama should consider it something of an honor to be called an unprintable name by Blagojevich.

All the same, Blagojevich's downfall should be a cautionary tale for Democrats still basking in the reflected glory of Obama's win. It's a reminder that even at this magic moment of victory and party unity -- even as the Clinton lions are lying down with the Obama lambs, and as Democratic dreams of vast infrastructure investments and a renewed commitment to international diplomacy are coming true -- powerful Democrats aren't immune to human weaknesses.

Idiocy and greed aren't just for Republicans. For every Larry Craig, there's an Eliot Spitzer; for every Ted Stevens, there's a Rod Blagojevich.

In our heads, we Democrats know that. It's just that in our hearts, we don't want to believe it. Because we're the good guys, right? The ones who honed our progressive values during years in the political wilderness and who finally saw those values vindicated in November's electoral victories.

But it's precisely when a party achieves power that its members need to start worrying the most about idiocy and greed. When you're in the opposition, you're already down and out, so what difference does it make if your side's idiocy leaves you -- temporarily -- a little bit more down and out? And being in the opposition offers fewer patronage opportunities.

But power really does corrupt.

I'm not predicting a rash of new Blagojevich-type scandals plaguing the new administration. The Obama transition team has already issued unusually stringent ethics rules, and Obama's track record of supporting tough ethics legislation (including an Illinois state ethics law) suggests that he'll continue such efforts as president.

But illegal corruption isn't the only thing Democrats should be on guard against. Gaining political power also corrupts in far more subtle ways.

Members of political majorities succumb easily to smugness and complacency, to the conviction that explaining and justifying ideas is no longer necessary, to the temptation to dismiss critics as so many irrelevant cranks. "Groupthink" is mainly a disease of the powerful and complacent, not the fractious opposition.

Never mind Blagojevich. Majorities can get very dumb indeed -- and what the new Democratic majority most needs to resist are those more subtle forms of intellectual and moral laziness and corruption. For in the end, arrogance and groupthink can prove far more lethal than even the most scandalous financial shenanigans.

Just ask the thousands dead in Iraq. 		SurferJoe46 (51)
727925 2008-12-11 21:40:00 The real arnie would just terminate them :lol: rob_on_guitar (4196)
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