I live in Chicago and the trial of our famous governor, Rod Blagojevich, has begun. Rod’s lawyers tried to subpoena Obama but the judge said no. They did successfully subpoena Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarret, two key members of Obama’s inner circle and fellow Chicagoan’s. This trial could get ugly, or juicy, depending on your perspective.
I can’t begin to describe Chicago politics. It’s funny, insane, mind-boggling, dirty, but never dull. It is corrupt beyond anything you could imagine. It is an enterprise owned entirely by the democrat party. The “Chicago Machine” is historic and the current CEO is Mayor Daley.
Obama’s current little scandal of offering Joe Sestak a position to keep him from running against Arlen Spector is so Chicago. Everything is about controlling the machine and the money. Obama learned well.
The rewards of being a part of the machine are wonderful. It is daily news in Chicago about family or friends of people in the machine getting jobs, contracts, bags of cash, government positions, and even scholarships at the University of Illinois. When Obama became President and vacated his Illinois senate seat, Gov. Blago stood to make a bundle on that seat. According to Illinois law it was his decision alone to name a replacement. Jesse Jackson Jr. was one of many who placed a bid.
Blago’s trial is not about one corrupt man. It is about the machine. Both Obama and Blago were groomed as young men and progressed through the ranks with the help of the machine. Everything stays in the machine family. Another example is Rahm Emanuel. When he left the Clinton White House he made over $25 million in two years. He then took over Blago’s U.S. House seat when Blago left to be governor. It goes on and on.
From the perspective of an outsider, it appears that Blago somehow lost favor with the machine. That’s what makes this trial so juicy to me. Blago is a big talker. Will he spill the beans on the machine? Oh, I hope so! My fear is that, still being a young man, the machine will promise to take care of him and make him rich for the rest of his life if he just takes the fall. Could any of us blame him.
This is happening at a time when the American people are putting more trust in government than ever before. This past month the government hired over 500,000 people and the private sector less than 50,000. Tea Party or not, big government is on us. I hope the Blago trial will remind us that government can be just as greedy and just as corrupt as any Wall Street financier. Worse, government is almost always an empty promise. This is not “change we can believe in.”
The ultimate question is what this trial will mean for Obama. Will the media protect him? What all was said on those 300 hours of wiretaps? This will be interesting.
Tags: barack obama, big government, corruption trial, Politics, Rod Blagojevich