Frank Rich: Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich (Wow)

[Faygo Kid]

ROD BLAGOJEVICH is the perfect holiday treat for a country fighting off depression. He gift-wraps the ugliness of corruption in the mirthful garb of farce. From a safe distance outside Illinois, it’s hard not to laugh at the “culture of Chicago,” where even the president-elect’s Senate seat is just another commodity to be bought and sold.

But the entertainment is escapist only up to a point. What went down in the Land of Lincoln is just the reductio ad absurdum of an American era where both entitlement and corruption have been the calling cards of power. Blagojevich’s alleged crimes pale next to the larger scandals of Washington and Wall Street. Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=opinion

Frank is on fire here.

[midnight]

1. Well said....

"Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. . ."

[stillcool]

2. ain't that the truth...

Blago is a small fish in a small pond. The outrage is kind of funny...considering.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. Kind of the reverse aspect of the Big Lie.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Another jewel from Rich. He always seems to be able to cut through

the malarkey, and get straight to the larger point. This is Clinton redux, and there will be media driven scandal after scandal surrounding PE Obama because he sells their rotten newspapers. The ill-advised Iraq war wasn't a big enough scandal, the outing of a CIA agent wasn't big enough, etc.

I hope the American people, who are really hurting, won't let the media distract from PE Obama's legislative agenda. There's a lot of work to be done, and a scandal plagued administration would hamper that work.

[bbgrunt]

4. outrage is contageous. Faux knows this.

[mopinko]

5. why, this man is an apologist for corruption!!

:sarcasm:

[bertman]

6. Recced. The tiller has to be wrested from the grip of the ruling classes. They control

the shots. There is no democracy in America. We must take it back for ourselves and future generations.

[theoldman]

7. I don't always agree with Rich but he is right on this one.

Blago is an idiot, not a big time crook. Rove and Chaney are big time crooks. Remember when getting a BJ was a crime? This is the direction we are heading again.

[JDPriestly]

11. My view precisely, theoldman.

The Blagojevich scandal is a distraction from the real horror that is the Bush administration.

Blagojevich did not succeed in selling the Senate seat. He probably pulled many smaller corrupt deals in his career, but this one failed. So he is being accused of attempting to do something, not really doing it. While the Bush administration has not only done worse, much of it costing lives or causing injuries to innocent people, but much more successfully and without the shocked reaction of the nation.

I expect more evidence to be produce regarding Blagojevich, but until then, he is really a blustering idiot. Who in the world would have been stupid enough to actually promise him anything considering how blatant his disregard was for process and law.

[Metta]

8. He tells it like it is.

kudos.

[leftstreet]

9. K&R

[pacalo]

10. Bookmarking for tomorrow! K&R.

[stevedeshazer]

12. Excellent. Recommended.

[bahrbearian]

13. Hey look over there, there he is BLAGOJEVICH, lets get him.

Great read.

[MsLeopard]

14. Frank Rich Rocks!

He nails it. Massive corruption and greed thrives at the highest levels, goes unreported to the American citizenry footing the bill (and supplying the credit card), and those responsible for the outright fraud and crimes most likely will walk. Yet, let's pile on Blago - not that he doesn't deserve it, he does - but our public face to Wall Street pillaging and Ponzi schemes reeks of hypocracy compared to the current Blagofest.

The media frenzy over Blagovejich reminds me of nearly 8 years ago, when Gary Condit served as the whipping boy of our corporate masters. Gary Condit had to be the second happiest guy on the planet on 9/11. BushCo was first. But the point is that the non-stop media circus ended abruptly and never returned when something way bigger happened. How could it be so important one day and never mentioned again the next? It made me see how the media manipulates us, focusing on the little things while the real catastrophes occur without notice.

[Faygo Kid]

15. It reminds me of Condit in 2001, too.

Don't get me wrong - Blagovejich is scum. But Frank is right on here; his crimes pale next to Bush's, and what's happening to our economy is the final hammer blow he is attacking us with.

Unless he attacks Iran. But the military has to go along, and a lot of them have had it with Bush/Cheney as well.

[truth2power]

16. Bush was "the Forest Gump of his own White House"...

Great stuff! Rich points out that Blagojevich, "the punk" as he calls him, is just another example of same ol', same ol' where money drives everything. I agree.

I've been thinking ever since this thing started about a week ago, that no one is talking about the larger picture. That is, that we have to get the money out of the system, at least to the level as is humanly possible. :think:

[otohara]

18. Great Name For A Book About Bush

and his disastrous presidency - too bad he too will go on to make millions, being rewarded like those criminals he rewarded.

[live love laugh]

19. This was obvious to me all along. nt

[nichomachus]

20. The big thieves hang the little thieves n/t

[followthemoney]

21. U.S. politics is based on corruption...

and its not illegal till the boss says it is.

[MasonJar]

22. Nails it in his own inimitable way.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Kicked.

[Vattel]

24. Frank Rich should take responsibility

for being part of the smear campaign against Gore that gave us Bush for eight years. He also trashed Gore when Gore warned against invading Iraq. What a hypocrit.

[Career Prole]

25. "...a tragedy we don’t have similar audio records..."

"The surveillance tapes of Blagojevich are so fabulous it seems a tragedy we don’t have similar audio records of the bigger fish who have wrecked the country.

Perhaps (only perhaps) there were no audio records such as the tapes kept by the paranoid Nixon, but communications among the key players existed.

The real tragedy is that between Cheney declaring himself exempt from the Executive Records Act and Rove and Co. scrambling behind the scenes to disappear large amounts of e-mail archives, etc. and the inaction of those timid Congressional souls who were supposed to provide the constitutional check on these monsters' actions those communications will most likely never see the light of day.