Hubris and greed

With the arrest of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, the right wing is doing their level best to try to connect President-elect Barack Obama to him in a shameless attempt to do severe damage to his credibility even before he takes office in another few weeks. I've no doubt that the right wingnut radio hosts are foaming at the mouth, fomenting all kinds of negative attention on Obama out of bitterness that they've lost this election and that right wing extremism is on its way out. I'm quite sure that Karl Rove will pull some kind of dirty tricksterism behind the scenes of the outgoing Bush administration in order to stir up all kinds of resentment by Republicans and right wingers who don't like Obama on principle but will now find some other thing to dig up on him to try to discredit him and damage him as much as is within their capacity to do so. I don't trust these guys as far as I can throw them and they'll continue their old "divide and conquer" strategy in an effort to win back the White House in '12. They'll bring up fear and resentment and all kinds of crap that they spent months throwing at Obama during the ever so long Presidential campaign and Obama had better be prepared for even worse mudslinging and dirt digging now that he's about to become the Leader Of The Free World. It's bad enough that Blagojevich is a Democrat, which the right will use to paint Dems as corrupt and shameless, never mind that they broke every law in the book during their tenure in Washington. But the fact that this idiot tried to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder and regularly tried do business that way just defies logic. But then again, many of Blagojevich's predecessors in the Illinois State House have gone to prison in recent years over corruption charges, and most of these guys who run that state were the products of the ruthless Chicago political machine, where doing business regularly means money changing hands for political favors rendered. You have powerful Aldermen and precinct bosses who run their districts like a bunch of Al Capones. So it's no wonder that Illinoisans can't seem to elect a clean politician to their State House. They all learn their trade in the rough and tumble world of Chicago politics. So maybe it's time to find someone from down state who hasn't been exposed to those ways and who may just be innocent enough to turn things around and restore trust in the State House again. Until then, I don't envy the citizens of that state for the fact that they are once again going to send their governor to the Big House, and I don't mean the Governor's Mansion, if you know what I mean!

ANOTHER SENATOR KENNEDY?

Word has it that Caroline Kennedy is interested in the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton now that she's about to become Secretary of State. I think that would be just fabulous for her to hold the seat once held by her Uncle Robert. And it would be great to have a member of my generation of Kennedy's in the Senate as well to continue this remarkable family's tradition of public service going back well over 75 years. She strikes me as sensible, level headed, very smart and not someone to cause problems. She'd be an excellent choice for this position and I support it completely. Given that her Uncle Ted is gravely ill and that it's hard to know just how long he'll survive the brain cancer that he's battling, just to have one Kennedy in the Senate is fabulous but to have two would really be great, especially because they come from different generations and as a result, they come from different ideas and experiences. And yet, they're both Kennedy's and it would be a real plum for Obama to have two members of this family in the Senate to help further his agenda. I can't imagine the kind of personal pain she's had to endure through her life - the murders of her father and uncle at a very young age, the death of her brother and sister-in-law in a plane crash, the untimely deaths of several cousins - and yet she is the very picture of poise and grace and that is to be admired, given her difficult life in the public sphere. I do hope that she is appointed to this seat by Governor Paterson of New York. What a plum that would be for Democrats and for Obama. Let's hope that her appointment comes to pass, and that we can call her "Senator Kennedy" like her father and Uncle Robert once were, and that her Uncle Ted is now. I am personally rooting for this appointment and if I could make it happen, I would do so in a New York minute, but that's all up to the governor of New York to decide, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll make Caroline his choice and that he'll make it known soon in order to end the suspense.