The nation's newest senators or near-senators are making news: Everybody is telling Roland Burris to leave, Kirsten Gilibrand has moved the guns she keeps under her bed and Al Franken is rehearsing his role back in Minnesota while the recount court fight goes on.
*After what is described as the fifth version of his contacts with associates of Rod Blagojevich and first admission of trying to raise money for the former governor, editorial calls for Burris to resign his seat are coming from the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and elsewhere. (He may soon have an asterisk to add to the newest title chiseled into granite in the Chicago cemetery that lists his firsts as a "Trail Blazer.")
*New York's new Senator Gilibrand, appointed to replace Hillary Clinton, told a reporter about two guns under her bed last week and, after a publicity firestorm, has decided to relocate them.
"Given that the location of the guns has been disclosed," her spokesman explains, "they have been moved for security reasons."
*Al Franken, with a 225-vote recount lead over Norm Coleman, has met with Minnesota mayors to discuss the national economic crisis and "learn what Minnesota's cities need most from Washington." At the rate the November results are being adjudicated, Franken may still be rehearsing for the part during the Senate's Easter break.
Nobody said 2009 would be dull.
Showing posts with label Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Buffoonery, Blago's and Boehner's
On subjects both sublime and ridiculous--the nation's economy to catching a small-time crook in high office--the media are once again showing helplessness in the face of idiocy spouted by people in official positions.
For an hour with Larry King after a blitz of other TV outlets, Rod Blagojevich keeps repeating his mantra of Fitzgerald's tapes as "out of context" and his "innocent until proved guilty" grievances against the Illinois legislature, where the only vote not to impeach him was cast by his sister-in-law.
Much more serious is the constant tanned presence of John Boehner (does the man sleep under a sun lamp?), telling us that the answer to a deepening depression is tax cuts and more tax cuts.
There are many ways to dispose of such nonsense, but Paul Krugman's will suffice:
"Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets--and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens."
Yet Boehner's brainlessness keeps being used by the media as "balance" to the Obama Administration's efforts to get a stimulus bill through Congress. There are serious objections that can be made to portions of the bill that can't be reduced to sound bites, but we don't hear them.
It all recalls the time when a US Senator kept waving pieces of blank paper as lists of Communists in the State Department and the media felt helpless not to report Joe McCarthy's lies with a straight face.
We haven't progressed much in half a century.
For an hour with Larry King after a blitz of other TV outlets, Rod Blagojevich keeps repeating his mantra of Fitzgerald's tapes as "out of context" and his "innocent until proved guilty" grievances against the Illinois legislature, where the only vote not to impeach him was cast by his sister-in-law.
Much more serious is the constant tanned presence of John Boehner (does the man sleep under a sun lamp?), telling us that the answer to a deepening depression is tax cuts and more tax cuts.
There are many ways to dispose of such nonsense, but Paul Krugman's will suffice:
"Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets--and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens."
Yet Boehner's brainlessness keeps being used by the media as "balance" to the Obama Administration's efforts to get a stimulus bill through Congress. There are serious objections that can be made to portions of the bill that can't be reduced to sound bites, but we don't hear them.
It all recalls the time when a US Senator kept waving pieces of blank paper as lists of Communists in the State Department and the media felt helpless not to report Joe McCarthy's lies with a straight face.
We haven't progressed much in half a century.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Hillibrand and Burris, Hillary and Obama
A year ago, Americans were excited by the breakthrough of electing a woman or an African-American for president. Now, after the euphoria of Obama's inauguration, we have the sad spectacle of selecting a woman and an African-American senator for all the wrong reasons.
Turning back the demographic clock, here is the peerless Rod Blagojevich in the media spotlight, after choosing Roland Burris for racial reasons alone, bragging that he had considered Oprah for the spot.
And here we have Kirsten Hillibrand, with all of two years in Washington, chosen by Governor David Paterson for being a woman and living in upstate New York, lunching at the Waldorf with Hillary Clinton and burbling, “It’s thrilling. You will see me everywhere in the state. You will see me wherever you want to see me.”
In November 2010, voters in Illinois and New York will pick the person to represent them in the US Senate (and govern their states as well). Until then, they will have to live with the choices of a future felon and an accidental chief executive who got his job because a predecessor failed to keep his fly zipped.
Is this a great country or what?
Turning back the demographic clock, here is the peerless Rod Blagojevich in the media spotlight, after choosing Roland Burris for racial reasons alone, bragging that he had considered Oprah for the spot.
And here we have Kirsten Hillibrand, with all of two years in Washington, chosen by Governor David Paterson for being a woman and living in upstate New York, lunching at the Waldorf with Hillary Clinton and burbling, “It’s thrilling. You will see me everywhere in the state. You will see me wherever you want to see me.”
In November 2010, voters in Illinois and New York will pick the person to represent them in the US Senate (and govern their states as well). Until then, they will have to live with the choices of a future felon and an accidental chief executive who got his job because a predecessor failed to keep his fly zipped.
Is this a great country or what?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Kennedy, Burris and Identity Politics
The withdrawal of JFK's daughter as a replacement for Hillary Clinton leads to questions about gender and race in national politics in what we all celebrated as the Age of Obama this week.
In Illinois, the future felon Rod Blagojevich appoints Roland Burris amid calls to retain the President's seat for an African-American and now, with Caroline Kennedy gone, New York's governor speaks publicly and privately about "the importance of selecting a woman to replace Mrs. Clinton."
With the critical questions facing the Senate, when and how did substantive qualifications fall behind demographics in making choices for such high office?
Blagojevich was trying to save his skin in the face of impeachment and/or indictment. Now David Paterson, an accidental governor who came to office less than a year ago when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sexual scandal, seems to be calculating his chances for election in 2010.
Elective politics can be messy, but calculated, self-interested appointments to represent two of the largest states in the Union are clearly worse.
Roland Burris will be a caretaker choice for the next two years, and Governor Paterson would be well-advised to do the same for New York, albeit for more honorable reasons.
At the risk of being repetitive, there is an appointee who could bring wisdom and experience to the Senate until voters make their choice in 2010. His name is Mario Cuomo, and it would reflect well on New York's governor if he could rise above identity politics and name him to Hillary Clinton's seat.
In Illinois, the future felon Rod Blagojevich appoints Roland Burris amid calls to retain the President's seat for an African-American and now, with Caroline Kennedy gone, New York's governor speaks publicly and privately about "the importance of selecting a woman to replace Mrs. Clinton."
With the critical questions facing the Senate, when and how did substantive qualifications fall behind demographics in making choices for such high office?
Blagojevich was trying to save his skin in the face of impeachment and/or indictment. Now David Paterson, an accidental governor who came to office less than a year ago when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sexual scandal, seems to be calculating his chances for election in 2010.
Elective politics can be messy, but calculated, self-interested appointments to represent two of the largest states in the Union are clearly worse.
Roland Burris will be a caretaker choice for the next two years, and Governor Paterson would be well-advised to do the same for New York, albeit for more honorable reasons.
At the risk of being repetitive, there is an appointee who could bring wisdom and experience to the Senate until voters make their choice in 2010. His name is Mario Cuomo, and it would reflect well on New York's governor if he could rise above identity politics and name him to Hillary Clinton's seat.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Blagojevich, Muddled Movie Maven
The ethically deprived Illinois governor is a trifle short of smarts about pop culture as well.
Reacting to his impeachment today by the legislature, Rod Blagojevich said, "I feel like the old Alan Sillitoe short story 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.' ... And that's what this is by the way, a long-distance run."
If he ever read the story or saw the 1962 movie, Blagojevich might recall it's all about a petty thief with swift feet and serious psychological problems who, in a key scene, stuffs his loot into a drainpipe, only to have a rainstorm wash it down at his feet while being questioned by a detective.
Even the ending should be no consolation, as the rebellious hero, well ahead in the race, stops short of the finish line with a defiant sneer on his face, the last gesture of a loser.
Patrick Fitzgerald may have seen the movie, too.
Reacting to his impeachment today by the legislature, Rod Blagojevich said, "I feel like the old Alan Sillitoe short story 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.' ... And that's what this is by the way, a long-distance run."
If he ever read the story or saw the 1962 movie, Blagojevich might recall it's all about a petty thief with swift feet and serious psychological problems who, in a key scene, stuffs his loot into a drainpipe, only to have a rainstorm wash it down at his feet while being questioned by a detective.
Even the ending should be no consolation, as the rebellious hero, well ahead in the race, stops short of the finish line with a defiant sneer on his face, the last gesture of a loser.
Patrick Fitzgerald may have seen the movie, too.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Hamas and Blagojevich
The headlines about Gaza and the US Senate keep recalling the folk wisdom about never getting into pissing contests with skunks, as Hamas and Rod Bagojevich wreak havoc with efforts of those who oppose them to act rationally.
In Gaza, innocent people keep dying at their hands as Israelis solemnly tell us they are only doing what they have to do and, in Washington, American legislators tie themselves into legal knots to keep an implacable crook from naming a new member to their body.
In between are women and children on both sides of the border in the Middle East and Americans who urgently need the president and Congress they have just elected to get moving to save their economy.
Illinois' governor has lobbed Roland Burris at the US Senate with the same intention as Hamas' rockets--to pressure and intimidate their opposition into making concessions--and the responses are, perhaps unavoidably, ugly.
As Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House promising to bring people together in civilized responses to problem-solving, we keep being reminded that the world doesn't usually work that way.
In Gaza, innocent people keep dying at their hands as Israelis solemnly tell us they are only doing what they have to do and, in Washington, American legislators tie themselves into legal knots to keep an implacable crook from naming a new member to their body.
In between are women and children on both sides of the border in the Middle East and Americans who urgently need the president and Congress they have just elected to get moving to save their economy.
Illinois' governor has lobbed Roland Burris at the US Senate with the same intention as Hamas' rockets--to pressure and intimidate their opposition into making concessions--and the responses are, perhaps unavoidably, ugly.
As Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House promising to bring people together in civilized responses to problem-solving, we keep being reminded that the world doesn't usually work that way.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
For Harry Reid, a George Wallace Moment
Loathsome as he is, Rod Blagojevich, in his shrewd maneuvering to escape Patrick Fitzgerald's clutches, has put Harry Reid in a position reminiscent of the Alabama governor 45 years ago illegally standing in a doorway to block African-American students from entering.
When the Senate reconvenes Tuesday, if Blagojevich's appointee Roland Burris is there to claim his seat, the legal basis for denying him is shaky and the political consequences of a confrontation extremely unappealing in the new no-drama era of an Obama administration.
One possible scenario that could appeal to the Illinois governor and Fox News is to have Blagojevich himself accompany Burris into the building, just as federal officials brushed aside George Wallace to escort two African-American students into a University of Alabama building in 1963.
Blagojevich has been trying to blackmail national Democrats with the prospect of just such a symbolic confrontation by narrowing his choice to a black candidate, offering the position to Burris after being turned down by Rep. Danny K. Davis, as Lynn Sweet reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.
In a mausoleum of Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery, Burris, 71, under the seal of the state of Illinois and the words "Trail Blazer," has chiseled his many firsts in granite, including being the state's first African-American attorney general and the state's first African-American comptroller.
Whether or not he gets to add US Senator to the list is an open question, but meanwhile his sponsor is doing his best to bury Harry Reid and the Democratic Party in his name.
When the Senate reconvenes Tuesday, if Blagojevich's appointee Roland Burris is there to claim his seat, the legal basis for denying him is shaky and the political consequences of a confrontation extremely unappealing in the new no-drama era of an Obama administration.
One possible scenario that could appeal to the Illinois governor and Fox News is to have Blagojevich himself accompany Burris into the building, just as federal officials brushed aside George Wallace to escort two African-American students into a University of Alabama building in 1963.
Blagojevich has been trying to blackmail national Democrats with the prospect of just such a symbolic confrontation by narrowing his choice to a black candidate, offering the position to Burris after being turned down by Rep. Danny K. Davis, as Lynn Sweet reports in the Chicago Sun-Times.
In a mausoleum of Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery, Burris, 71, under the seal of the state of Illinois and the words "Trail Blazer," has chiseled his many firsts in granite, including being the state's first African-American attorney general and the state's first African-American comptroller.
Whether or not he gets to add US Senator to the list is an open question, but meanwhile his sponsor is doing his best to bury Harry Reid and the Democratic Party in his name.
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