First Principles

It’s easy.  The fact Roland Burris accepted the nomination proves it.

Burris had to know that anyone who Blagojevich nominated would be suspect.  If he merely wanted the publicity, he could have gave a public press conference announcing he’d been asked, and that he’d turned it down.

No one with any integrity would be willing to be so associated with a guy like Blago.

Just as telling is that the best argument he has for himself filling that seat is that he’s black, and apparently the Senate is off its quota.  Please.  Wasn’t this last election supposed to be the end of arguments like that?

I just hope the Senate keeps its promise to refuse to seat the man, and if he’s seated anyway because the Supreme Court decides they don’t have the power to refuse him, I hope he’s marginalized as much as possible.

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Blagojevich is right about one thing.  Illinois deserves to have its full compliment of representatives.  But there were other options for that, too.  He could have called for a special election, like the state Republicans are doing.  He could have resigned – he certainly has a right to his day in court on the corruption charges, but he doesn’t have the same right to be the Governor.  Or he could have announced that he would put his official stamp on whomever the lieutenant governor or some other person or body chose to nominate.

But those things all would have required some smidge of integrity or honor.

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It’s frightening that the new President comes from this same political cesspool.  I used to think that when Obama denied knowing anything about the corrupt, racist, violent, and/or criminality of his close friends and associates, he was necessarily either stupid or lying.

But I actually think now that, while him being a liar is still plenty probable, it’s more a profound naivete.  He’s not corrupt (even if he is, in part, a product of corruption), and so he can’t comprehend that anyone else is, either.  This is the same attitude that make him think he can just reason with guys like Ahmedinajahd, and all our differences can be resolved happily.

I actually think this naivete is more dangerous than him being corrupt himself.  The President has to deal with some prety bad characters, and he has to recognize the bad from the good.  One of the reasons Ronald Reagan was so successful in bringing about an end to the Cold War is that he recognized that Gorbechev was not the evil dictator that many of his predecessors were, and that he was someone he could talk to and work with.  That same strategy wouldn’t have worked with a Stalin or a Kruschev.

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In the meantime, back in Illinois, let’s hope Blagojevich is impeached quickly.  Fortunately, the election for that seat is only two years away.  Hopefully the Republicans in that state can make the most of this opportunity.