Yes, I’ve read about New York’s Democratic Governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, and their involvement with prostitution and other forms of sleaze.
I’ve also read the 2006 NY Times’ editorials enthusiastically endorsing both men.
But frankly, my dear readers, I don’t know a thing about New York’s Gubernatorial crime rate.
What about Illinois?
That’s different.
From Rick Moran at American Spectator :
…No fewer than 3 of the last 7 governors of Illinois have gone to jail for corruption. The most recent inmate being previous governor George Ryan [,a Republican,] who pressured state workers to raise money for his campaigns when Secretary of State, while overseeing a "pay for play" scheme at drivers license bureaus where unqualified truck drivers bribed state employees to get licenses.Moran’s entire post is here.
One such driver was involved in a horrific accident that killed 6 children. The resulting investigation into that crash unmasked the conspiracy. More than 70 lobbyists, state employees, and government officials have been convicted in connection with the scheme.
And to list the corruption associated with Mayor Daley's Chicago Democratic Machine would require an encyclopedia-length dissertation. The most recent example of Machine sleaze was the conviction of one of the Mayor's closest aides in a city hall patronage scandal that had Barack Obama praising hizzoner for beginning to "clean up" city hall.
Frankly, I believe the Augean Stables would be an easier place to start cleaning up. Might as well start with something less taxing than trying to clean up Chicago politics.
The sleaze is not limited to Chicago -- not by any means. The sad fact is, the entire state is in some ways a gigantic cesspool of bid rigging, kickback schemes, cronyism, and outright bribery greased by campaign contributions, and where the businessman, the criminal, and the politician merge into a seamless, corrupt beast that greedily feeds at the public trough.
The beast survives due to an apathetic public and, despite some noble exceptions, a curiously quiescent press who seem to have adopted the blasé attitude in some cases that everyone does it so what's new?...
Folks, this time two years ago we were reading and hearing so much in MSM about what then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called “a culture of corruption.”
The malfactors Pelosi and the Dem/MSM called out certainly deserved to be punished.
But why aren’t Pelosi and her Dem/MSM flacks speaking up now?
Why aren’t they urging Sen. Barack Obama to speak out and condemn the political corruption in his home state?
Why isn’t Obama telling us what he’s done to CHANGE “the culture of corruption” there?
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