by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Like some of you, I had the following reactions reading the transcripts of Illinois\u2019s Governor Blagojevich:<\/p>\n 1) Here in the 21st-century are we back to the 1860s of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall, or the cesspool Chicago of Mayor Big Bill Thompson in the 1920s? All our moral claims about cleaning up government, all our postmodern sophisticated ethics, our vaunted notions of \u2018transparency\u2019 are reduced to a two-bit thug in the governorship of a large state like Illinois? For all our high-tech gadgetry, or our angst about situational morality, or self-help pop therapy, we revert to a foul-mouthed, profanity-spouting wretch, trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat the way a corrupt 4th-century AD emperor auctioned off proconsulships in the twilight of the Empire?<\/p>\n 2) There are two types of felonious actors caught on tape: the first is the ambivalent Hamlet-type crook who frets about the honesty of it all, and confesses out loud that to take a bribe or offer one would be wrong, but\u00a0in extremis<\/em>\u00a0one is forced to\u2026 Or couches his corruption in coded terms, or is remotely aware he has sold his immortal soul for money or power.<\/p>\n And then there is the Mafioso braggadocio of pure, unadulterated crudity: four-letter words, pomposity, no inhibition about admitting lust for money, gratuitous slurs about everything and everybody, constant threats, an entire family to dine at the table of greed. Blagojevich is something out of Dante\u2019s Eighth Circle of Hell, a modern-day Malacoda in the 5th bolgia. One must resort either to Al Capone\u2019s Chicago or the villains of classical literature to match these transcripts.<\/p>\n 3) I was puzzled by Obama\u2019s almost immediate denials that he had been in any way in contact with the Governor\u2019s office. Why? Because for the last month it was simply understood, both by his own admission and by David Axelrod\u2019s interviews, that his own preference for his Senate replacement was probably made known to the Governor. And fittingly so. Of course, there would be nothing wrong about Obama simply saying, \u201cI am surprised as the next person, since I have discussed my replacement as would be natural with a governor of my own party responsible for the appointment, and I never detected anything out of the ordinary on his part.\u201d Why instead the unbelievable denial of any communications that in turn earns the more unbelievable \u201cmisspoke\u201d on the part of Axelrod? All that brings us back to the now familiar territory of \u201conly a neighborhood acquaintance\u201d and \u201cnot the (fill in the blanks) I once knew\u201d and \u201cI was only (fill in the appropriate adolescent age) when I was supposed to have (fill in the blanks).\u201d<\/p>\n The problem with Obama is that any one \u201cpal\u201d (to use that now taboo word) from the past in and of itself is no problem. But each one thrown under the bus \u2014 a Rev. Wright, a Tony Rezko, a Bill Ayers, a Father Pfleger, a Governor Blagojevich, a Rashid Khalidi, et al. \u2014 serve to expand the possibilities that any one of them might come clean (or come dirty) and give us a very different picture at just the time Obama needs unity to govern the country. E.g. A Rev. Wright memoir will come out with perhaps different memories of Obama\u2019s attendance; a Tony Rezko plea bargain might reinterpret the Obama land deal; a creepy and conniving Blagojevich might have evidence of conversations that supposedly never occurred; and so on. The problem is twofold: Obama\u2019s Chicago past was considered embedded within race and off-limits and thus never thoroughly investigated by a fawning media who did us all a disservice; and, two, the American public is not fully aware just how corrupt Illinois politics are, and thus how Obama is probably unusual by not being much more thoroughly tainted. (cf. The Blagojevich\u2019s apparent anger that Team Obama is quite lawfully dictating a choice without ponying up any cash). I wish Obama well in governing us in times of peril, but I also wish he would just stop the stuttering in\u00a0ex tempore<\/em>\u00a0settings, and come clean the first time.<\/p>\n 4) On Monday the air waves were full of the Dan Rathers and Chris Matthewses lamenting the Constitution\u2019s unfortunate rules of succession \u2014 why could not President-elect Obama save us even earlier by assuming office right now in December? Or why could not Bush resign now and allow our salvation to commence a month earlier?<\/p>\n Then suddenly on Tuesday morning, all such talk disappeared and instead the news was \u2014 \u201cOf course, President-elect Obama did not\u2026 could not\u2026 would not\u2026(fill in the blanks with the appropriate tense of the appropriate verb: know, communicate, hear, etc.). At least the Governor did us a favor by ending talk about amending the Constitution. (As a footnote: One wonders if Obama is less than successful, and, say, a Sarah Palin is elected in 2012, would a Chris Matthews ponder allowing her to assume office early in December? And, of course, it was never suggested of the once impeached, but not convicted yet ostracized, Clinton in 2000 that he should step aside earlier than January 20. He did not, and should not have \u2014 and thereby on January 19 (or was it the very early morning of the 20th?) pardoned fugitive felon Marc Rich, who, via his ex-wife, had amply funded the Clinton library, furniture fund, Hillary\u2019s exploratory campaign fund, the Democratic Party, etc. to the tune in aggregate of $1 million.<\/p>\n 5) We don\u2019t need this cloud over our next President. Everyone from financial speculators and Iranian mullahs to Big Three exec and Russian oligarchs are watching our POTUS for any crack in the up-to-now remarkable calm fa\u00e7ade. I think Obama did nothing at all out of the ordinary, so he should frankly admit he talked with members of the Governor\u2019s staff the last few years, and then say that one in politics regrettably gets exposed to such people \u2014 and quit the implausible denials and get on with the transition.<\/p>\n \u00a92008 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Like some of you, I had the following reactions reading the transcripts of Illinois\u2019s Governor Blagojevich:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[736],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Pm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6268,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/back-to-our-20th-century-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":3184,"position":0},"title":"Back to our 20th-century future","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0Tribune Media Services We may be in the era of\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and fracking. 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