The bar for embarrassment is so high now it's almost out of sight for celebrities who do things that would make the rest of us die of shame.
Tom DeLay, who left Congress under a cloud of Jack Abramoff corruption, is ready to sashay in sequins on "Dancing With the Stars."
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York for caucusing with call girls, shows up on Bill Maher's show, pontificating about the economy alongside Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and defending capitalism against Michael Moore.
Rod Blagojevich, under indictment for (in David Remnick's words) trying to sell Obama's Senate seat "as if it were a used Barcalounger on eBay," is doing TV shows (including Jon Stewart's) to plug his new book and making himself available to lecture at universities and corporate meetings and, from the evidence of his website, would no doubt be happy to do his Elvis impersonation for a price at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.
Mark Foley, who bowed out of the House for hitting on teen-age pages with sexually explicit e-mails, is back as the host of his own radio talk show.
But being disgraced and bouncing back, according to a New York Times media critic, is no longer enough. The fallen have to be outrageous enough to warrant a second chance in the spotlight.
"Politicians," writes Alessandra Stanley, "can no longer talk their way out of trouble, they have to shake it off by revealing their inner dancing fool. Celebrities can’t just write a tell-all biography and earn a coveted appearance on 'Oprah,' they must disclose a horrifying secret"--such as Mackenzie Phillips' nostalgia about sharing drugs and having sex with her father.
Yet someone is trying to draw a line. Eugene Robinson, as a columnist and commentator who "used to like John Edwards a lot," has now decided that the former presidential candidate is irredeemable--"a bad cad."
What tore it?
"Edwards is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign-finance violations, though I think it will be hard for the law to lay a glove on him.
"But looking forward, with his mistress, to the day when Elizabeth would die? Planning a post-funeral wedding? Choosing the rock band? Even if all this was just a fairy tale meant to reassure Hunter and keep her quiet, I can't have any 'like' for John Edwards anymore."
Robinson's disgust is refreshing as is Elizabeth Edwards' reported angry blogging but, if and when the $400 haircut man eventually shows up with an oily memoir, any bets on whether most of the media will welcome him back to make a case for his oh-so-sincere rehabilitation?
Showing posts with label Rod Blagojevich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rod Blagojevich. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, April 03, 2009
Guilty Prosecutors?
This has been a dizzying week for deciding who is above the law or below it, with figures from Ted Stevens and Rod Blagojevich to the AIG bonus recipients parading before the public bench for reappraisal.
*The former Republican senator from Alaska gets a pass from a Democratic Attorney General on the grounds of bad behavior by prosecutors from the Bush Justice Department, which still faces unresolved accusations of firing eight federal prosecutors for not being political enough.
(Sarah Palin wants the Democrat who defeated Stevens to resign, but that idea has as much chance as the moose she shoots from airplanes.)
*The Disney World vacation of the impeached former Illinois governor is interrupted by news he has been charged with numerous counts of fraud and corruption, but only after successfully naming Barack Obama's successor to the US Senate.
His indictment raises again questions about the part played in his case by the universally sainted prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who went public with an inflammatory attack on Blagojevich in December but failed to charge him then. Was Fitzgerald's move, an obvious attempt to keep the governor from selling the seat, proper behavior for a federal prosecutor? Does it open the door to others hounding elected officials in less cut-and-dried cases?
*From, of all people, Fox News' usually rabidly wrong Glenn Beck comes a scathing interview with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal pressuring him for legal reasons for his public hounding of AIG bonus recipients, laying bare blatant political grandstanding by Blumenthal and, to a lesser degree, New York's Andrew Cuomo for political gain rather than duties of office. Beck wins that argument handily. Political piling on by officers of the law is an ugly sight, no matter who is at the bottom.
Eric Holder's action in the Stevens case is an encouraging sign that we are moving back to the traditional norms of rule by law but a New York Times editorial suggests more:
"He should not stop with this case. Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi trial lawyer, have charged that Justice Department prosecutors engaged in unethical behavior in cases that led to their convictions. Both men claim that they were singled out for prosecution because of their affiliation with the Democratic Party.
"Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both."
It's time to reaffirm that, while nobody is above the law, neither is anyone below it.
*The former Republican senator from Alaska gets a pass from a Democratic Attorney General on the grounds of bad behavior by prosecutors from the Bush Justice Department, which still faces unresolved accusations of firing eight federal prosecutors for not being political enough.
(Sarah Palin wants the Democrat who defeated Stevens to resign, but that idea has as much chance as the moose she shoots from airplanes.)
*The Disney World vacation of the impeached former Illinois governor is interrupted by news he has been charged with numerous counts of fraud and corruption, but only after successfully naming Barack Obama's successor to the US Senate.
His indictment raises again questions about the part played in his case by the universally sainted prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who went public with an inflammatory attack on Blagojevich in December but failed to charge him then. Was Fitzgerald's move, an obvious attempt to keep the governor from selling the seat, proper behavior for a federal prosecutor? Does it open the door to others hounding elected officials in less cut-and-dried cases?
*From, of all people, Fox News' usually rabidly wrong Glenn Beck comes a scathing interview with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal pressuring him for legal reasons for his public hounding of AIG bonus recipients, laying bare blatant political grandstanding by Blumenthal and, to a lesser degree, New York's Andrew Cuomo for political gain rather than duties of office. Beck wins that argument handily. Political piling on by officers of the law is an ugly sight, no matter who is at the bottom.
Eric Holder's action in the Stevens case is an encouraging sign that we are moving back to the traditional norms of rule by law but a New York Times editorial suggests more:
"He should not stop with this case. Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi trial lawyer, have charged that Justice Department prosecutors engaged in unethical behavior in cases that led to their convictions. Both men claim that they were singled out for prosecution because of their affiliation with the Democratic Party.
"Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both."
It's time to reaffirm that, while nobody is above the law, neither is anyone below it.
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