Blagojevich, Fitzgerald, And Real Political Corruption
By Christopher G. Adamo
December 11, 2008
For the moment, the abhorrent actions of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are admittedly making almost as many waves among the media elite as Idaho Senator Larry Craig playing "footsie" with an undercover agent in a Minneapolis Airport restroom. But while Craig's behavior was reprehensible and reflective of serious personal moral flaws, Blagojevich is accused of attempting to offer governance of the American people to the highest bidder.
In terms of its effects on America's ability to function as a representative republic, this crime ranks right up there with the infusion of Chinese campaign "contributions" during the Clinton years, or the massive voter fraud perpetrated by Obama's "community organizer" accomplices at ACORN. It is an affront to every decent citizen of Illinois, as well as the entirety of the United States of America.
Unfortunately, if the reactions of voters to the avalanche of similar such dealings throughout the past year's campaign cycle are any indication, not many people will be alarmed by this toxic encroachment on the nation's authority structure. Any shred of objectivity among the political class or the "mainstream" (read: liberal) media evaporated during the succession of real scandals and corruption of the Clinton years. As a result, those individuals who get their information and political direction from such sources as the "evening news" have become numb to the dangers of a thoroughly corrupted political system.
In the present political climate, malfeasance is either ignored or deemed significant, based not on its own merits or the impact it might have on real America, but overwhelmingly on whose party might reap political gain or negative fallout from the light of public scrutiny. So seriously has this situation degenerated that in the present, thoroughly partisan and poisoned climate, no room for real justice exists.
Consider, as a sterling example, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the principal law enforcement official in the unfolding Blagojevich scandal. His last big moment in the national spotlight was in 2005, when he concluded a two-year investigation involving high-level members of the Bush Administration over the supposed "outing" of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
Plame had become involved in a ruse to secure a role for her husband, Joe Wilson in an investigation of Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear material from Nigeria. Commenting on Wilson's actions, investigative pundit Robert Novak mentioned Plame's employment and relation to Wilson in a July 14, 2003 nationally syndicated column. Immediately, cries of "foul" were heard throughout the left-wing political realm, asserting that somebody high up in the Bush White House had deliberately revealed Plame's identity as retribution for Wilson's unsupportive assessment (depending on which "assessment" one might have read) of the Iraqi nuclear threat.
Conducting his absurdly lengthy investigation of anybody and everybody who had even the remotest link to the Plame situation, Prosecutor Fitzgerald finally handed down an indictment of perjury against Louis I. "Scooter" Libby, then Chief of Staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney. At worst, Libby did not correctly answer some questions of "he said/she said" from conversations that had occurred months earlier.
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