12.31.2008

The Ruprect of the States

As someone who came from Racine and lived in Milwaukee for a good while during the presidential race I was certain that some journalist somewhere would notice that the Democratic presidential nominee came from the state with probably the greatest possible embarrassment potential. For my entire life I heard stories of hilarious Chicago corruption from the corpse resurrection machine politics of “Da Mare” to the authoritarian antics of junior (shutting down Meigs fields with airplanes still in flight). Instead journalists were so enamored with Obama they failed to pay any mind to the banging of pots and pans in the guest house out back.

Now on the eve of the fanciest ball since Camelot, Blago the monkey boy is on the loose spitting applesauce and pissing his pants for the world to see. Eager to quiet this embarrassment and maintain the narrative that Blagojevich is some sort of unfortunate outlier unreflective of Obama and Illinois as a whole, stories proclaiming the futility of nominating Roland Burris abound. These stories hinge on the misinformed belief that the Illinois secretary of state can refuse to certify Blagojevich’s replacement, not understanding or choosing not to acknowledge that the secretary of state’s powers are merely ministerial. Unless the nomination happened counter to state statute, which no one is suggesting it did, the Illinois secretary of state must certify. Harry Reid’s insistence that the Senate can choose to not seat Burris due to Article 1 Section 5 is again is again, mistaken.

The net effect of all of this is that this controversy will go on long after Obama’s inauguration and the media’s attempts to staunch the resulting bleeding will be put to a Goebbels-like test. Their lack of integrity will be repeatedly demonstrated as one freakish product of the incestuous union of political power and special interests reveals itself after another.

Enjoy! I know I will.