View Comments |  Print This Post |

Roland Burris is Governor Blagojevich's post-deposition, cruise missile launch against an empty aspirin factory.

We all have our guilty pleasures in life.  For some it's that extra scoop of Rocky Road on top of an already piled-high ice cream cone.  Others wait breathlessly for the next season of American Idol to begin, or indulge vicariously in Jack Bauer's growing body count.

For me, my guilty pleasure has always been to watch Liberals squirm when hoisted by their own petard.  I still have no idea exactly what that phrase means, but in political terms it has something to do with exploding self-inflicted bombs, and then watching your Reverend Wright chickens coming home to roost.

Liberals and Democrats by no means have cornered the market on hypocrisy, but they have raised it to a political art form.  And it's this acknowledgment that drives my latest guilty pleasure, watching Harry Reid — the modern day incarnation of George Wallace (who by the way, was also a Democrat) — get pulled into ideologically-confused contortions by a corrupt Illinois Governor (is that a redundancy?) so as to stand on the proverbial courthouse steps to block the only black US Senator from taking his rightful oath of office.

Now, to fully appreciate this moment in history, let's back up for a second and put the entire Blago-Burris controversy in perspective.  My growing admiration for Governor Blagojevich has nothing to do with a growing admiration for Governor Blagojevich.  Rather, my admiration is based solely on accepting Blago for what he is, and reveling in the way he uses his God-given, Democrat-machine honed talents to express his policies and opinions. 

I can watch a spider devour a helpless fly and admire the spider for who and what it is, without glorifying the act of death and destruction.  I can look at history's most famous Left-wing leaders — Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro to name a few (well, they're certainly not small government, anti-abortion, free market Conservatives) — and marvel at the ruthless efficiency with which they consolidated and exercised their power, without aspiring to emulate them.  And, in the post-Bill Clinton era, I can certainly give Governor Blagojevich his due for out-Clintoning Clinton by turning a slam dunk case of political corruption into high theater.  The victimizer has now become the victim, at least in the eyes of the victimizer.  Or, in the immortal words of Darth Vader, the student has become the master.

Bill Clinton is the guy we have most to thank for setting all this in motion, and far be it from me not to give the man his proper recognition.  When Senator Packwood, a Republican, was caught serial-kissing his female associates in the mid-1990s, he resigned amid allegations of sexual impropriety.  Mind you, his crime was to kiss women against their will, then stop after they said "no", because, well, no means no.  Bill Clinton had the same philosophy when he copped a feel from Kathleen Willey in the Oval Office a few years later.  Unlike Packwood, which the NOW gang vilified for his actions, NOW publicly applauded Clinton's progressive view of male-female relations since he immediately stopped when Willey asked him to do so (er, demanded that he did).  This has given rise to the "one free feel" rule, whereby NOW officially endorses grabbing women's breasts until they ask you to stop, at which point you do and all is forgiven because you've demonstrated your respect for women by releasing said breast. 

A note of caution to those reading this article, though.  In actual practice, this kind of thing still gets you arrested.  So, unless you're a Liberal Democrat that NOW supports politically, the old rules still apply.     

Packwood believed that cold-kissing women until they said no was acceptable behavior, since his hands (and other important body appendages) still remained in his pocket.  But until they said no, their lips were fair game. Unfortunately for Packwood (see note above), this reasoning didn't hold up in practice.  The fact that he was a Liberal Republican wasn't enough to spare him the wrath of the National Organization for Women and the mainstream press, who did everything but actually accuse him of rape.  Liberal or not, he was still a Republican, and he did what all "guilty" politicians did at that time.  He resigned.

The same with Bob Livingston, another Republican who was supposed to be the post-Newt Speaker of the House.  Having vehemently denounced President Clinton for his extra-marital affairs, it was learned that Livingston had a similar problem keeping it in his pants.  Confronted with this obvious hypocrisy, Livingston resigned.  No crime was committed, no allegation was made that he forced himself on an unwilling partner.  He wasn't impeached or removed from office.  It was simply the hypocrisy of the situation that drove him from office of his own accord.

But things forever changed when Bill Clinton faced his own moment of truth in 1998.  Forget about allegations of a long-standing affair when he was Governor of Arkansas (Gennifer Flowers).  Forget about allegations of dropping his pants and improper sexual advances (Paula Jones).  Forget about allegations of rape (Juanita Broddrick).  Forget about "not having sex with that woman" and lying under oath about it.  Forget about all the charges of graft and corruption that swirled around the Clinton Administration (misuse of FBI files, Ron Brown's questionable fundraising activities, technology transfers to China, selling overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions, and so on, and so on). There was nothing Clinton could do that would force him to voluntarily resign from office, and thus the predicate for Blago's continued stewardship of Illinois was laid.

Clinton, Blagojevich, Congressman Jefferson (D-LA), and a legion of others on the Left haven't gotten the same message any longer that Republicans still embrace.  Text suggestive emails to a former intern of legal age (Mark Foley, Republican), and you're a gay pervert who resigns at the media's and Democrat Party's insistence.  Actually have sex with an existing underage male intern (Gary Studds, Democrat), or run a homosexual prostitution ring out of your home (Barney Franks, Democrat), and you're hailed as a leader and innovator in the fight for Gay Rights.

This is the culture Blago (Democrat, Illinois) has openly embraced, much to the chagrin of his fellow "D's" who want him gone because, well, just why do they want him gone?  

Is it because he's a crook?  This is Illinois, remember.  Being a crook is a qualification for office.  I once hosted an event as part of a series on local Chicago politics for Alderman "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak.  Forget about the fact that only in Chicago do Aldermen (i.e. City Council members) and Mafia Crime Bosses have readily-identifiable nicknames, Fast Eddie was asked to justify why he used his council position to condemn the alley way behind his home. 

Alleys in Chicago are where the garbage trucks travel, and on Fast Eddie's block they now had to go down the alley till they hit a brick wall, then back out of the alley, then go around the block, and then go down the other side of the alley, and then back out of that one, and then go on their way.  It was a lot of seemingly unnecessary trouble, so again the question was "axed", why did Fast Eddie have the alley way behind his home condemned?  The answer was simple. He had the power to do it.  He determined it was in the public interest, and was the right thing to do.  And besides, without the extra space, there was no room to put in his swimming pool.

Fast Eddie is a convicted felon today, so there is some justice.  But it was good old fashioned wire fraud that got him, not any of this political abuse of power nonsense.  I say nonsense, because we must again resist the temptation to impose our moral values on the spiders eating the flies, and again judge their actions for what they are under God's creation.  At least, when they're Democrats. 

There's another great, possibly apocryphal tale in this vein about the first Mayor Daley who called a press conference to defend himself against charges that his office had helped one of his sons pass a real estate exam.  The Daley boy (not the present mayor, but another son of his) wasn't trying to get a job with the local Century 21 selling houses in Bridgeport.  A big company wanted to hire him in anticipation of doing a lot of Chicago city business, and without the real estate license, Daley junior couldn't help grease the skids with Daley senior. 

Well, as things would have it, after four of five unsuccessful attempts the Daley boy passed his licensing exam — but when the press wanted to see the test results, they were nowhere to be found.  Several days passed and the mayor's political enemies thought they finally had him.  The press and his political opponents were gunning for his head when Mayor Daley finally took the podium and answered the charge with a simple, direct, succinct reply.  "It's a sad day in America when a father can't help his own son."

And just as quickly, the controversy ended.  Daley practiced what Clinton perfected and Blagojevich has learned all too well.  When a crisis hits — even one of your own making — survive the first week, then instead of addressing the substance of the charges, change the subject.  Daley's alleged corruption was transformed into an embrace of the most basic of American values.  Clinton's infidelity became a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to railroad him out of office without any "proof."  When proof showed up in the form of dried DNA on a woman's dress, lying under oath became a struggle for "fairness" (after all, the lie was just about sex).  And now that Clinton has left office, any allegations of wrongdoing against present day Democrats are the product of a Fox News witch hunt aided by a twice illegitimately elected Bush Administration.

It's the Democrat-on-Democrat nature of the Blagojevich controversy that gives it its present legs, and therefore keeps the story alive.  The objection to Blago isn't that he's a crook.  It's that he's a crook who got caught on tape being a crook.  And on tape with him is Rahm Emanuel, who in order to preserve his pristine reputation (and by extension, that of the guy he reports to) must see to it that Blago takes the fall.  So all those who support Rahm and his boss have closed ranks around the incoming president and in the great new tradition of throwing one of their own under the bus, have nominated Blago to take the fall.

The problem is, Blago didn't get the memo.  As nice as it would be to exonerate the Democrat party by falling on his own sword and making his crimes appear as just one of another series of supposedly isolated Democrat scandals, Blago has no intention of eating stale baloney sandwiches for the next fifteen years while sharing a cell with some guy named "Crusher." 

Therefore, despite Harry Reid's and the press' wishes, Blago isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  To stay in office he's using the same Democrat logic on his fellow Dems that they've used on our side these past many years.  Where's the courtroom-quality proof?  And if it's there, it wasn't collected legally, so it never really happened.  And even if it did, it's just about "money" (everyone in Illinois and the Democrat Party embraces pay for play, so why is Blago being singled out?).  Like it or not, Blago is still the President — er, I mean Governor — and he'll continue to act on the people's behalf while his political enemies spread their lies and untruths, which they can't prove, and even if they could it wouldn't matter anyway because that's how things are really done and everyone knows it.

Roland Burris is Blago's post-deposition cruise missile launch against an empty aspirin factory.  Don't judge my boy Blago for his political chutzpah.  Just admire it for what it is.  He's following in a great tradition of Democrat leaders who are helping to chart new ways to screw the American public, whose only questions of late are how far to bend over.