The Taint of Corruption, Finally Noticed

To avoid being called a racist or cynic, please shout "Hope!" and "Change!" at this blog entry while you read it. Thank you.

And indeed, there are enough connections between the worlds of Blagojevich and Obama that the whole thing has the potential to grow beyond a colorful Chicago tale of corruption to entangle members of the Presidential transition team, to test Obama's carefully cultivated reformist image and to distract the President-elect just as he is preparing to take office.

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The Obama Senate seat scheme is only one of the allegations lodged against the two-term governor, whose administration has been under investigation for alleged "pay to play" patronage practices for years. The complaint claims Blagoevich tried to extort the owners of the Tribune company to fire editors at the Chicago Tribune, and to withhold $8 million of state funds to a children's hospital in hopes of extracting a $50,000 campaign contribution from one of its executives. Blagojevich, who came into office in 2002 with promises to clean up the state's culture of graft, made no comment Tuesday during a bail hearing where he was released on his own recognizance.

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The transition team will also, undoubtedly, try to distance Obama from a man whom he helped first elect back in 2002 and supported for reelection in 2006, as well as from a brand of corrupt Chicago politics that John McCain tried unsuccessfully to link him to during the presidential campaign.

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In a separate conversation the same day, he suggests that Obama and his associates "can get Warren Buffett and others to put $10, $12 or $15 million into the organization," and then suggests he could retire from the governorship to go over to the organization.

Time

Well, come on now. Connect the goddamned dots.

Obama rose in a corrupt political town by playing their game. He took favors and gave favors. He remained popular, and had the money to buy these people, even to buy loyalty from Blagojevich.

Then he had the most funds ever of any political candidate, even adjusted for inflation.

He has important backers, and that kind of money does not come from the common man. It comes from large corporations and rich oligarchs, including Hollywood masterminds who want to preserve and expand their empires.

The masses of distracted, neurotic, clueless and ineffective people, whipped into a frenzy of anger at the Bush presidency, did exactly as the oligarchs expected they would: they voted for anything but Bush, preferably someone who didn't even look remotely like him.

Hope and Change, dummies. Things are not what they promise to be, and you just elected the most corrupt political candidate in American history. Good thinking!