Outside views: Absolute corruption
Illinois governor abused the power and trust he was given
Washington Post, Dec. 12: The conduct of which Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been accused is malodorous. A jury will ultimately decide whether he is guilty of trying to sell the Senate seat once occupied by President-elect Barack Obama. For now, though, he retains the power to appoint someone to fill that vacant seat. We hope he listens to the advice of elected officials, including his lieutenant governor, the entire Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate and Obama himself and chooses not to exercise that power. No self-respecting politician would accept such a tainted prize from Blagojevich.
Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11: Barack Obama became a U.S. senator because 3,597,456 Illinoisans voted for him in the 2004 election. His successor needs only one vote – from the man who has been accused of trying to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder.
According to federal prosecutors, Blagojevich saw this appointment as a great opportunity for himself. “I’ve got this thing, and it’s (expletive) golden, and, uh, uh, I’m not just giving it up for (expletive) nothing,” the governor said, according to a government affidavit.
Most Illinoisans wouldn’t trust Blagojevich to select a parking space in an empty lot. But it’s pretty clear now that Blagojevich is not going to cash in on this and he’s not going to name the next senator. Anyone who accepted an offer from him would be crazy. And Senate leaders have made it clear they won’t seat a Blagojevich pick anyway.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 11: In March 2005, a month after Alberto Gonzales became U.S. attorney general, Justice Department staffers sent to the White House a chart ranking all 93 U.S. attorneys in terms of their allegiance to President George W. Bush and his administration.
On that chart, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for Northern Illinois, was ranked somewhere in the middle.
Two U.S. attorneys who got the same ranking as Fitzgerald later were fired in a White House political purge of nine federal prosecutors. Fitzgerald, who was serving a dual role at the time as special counsel into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, was insulated from the firings.
That proved to be a bad break for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for his role in outing Plame, and for then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald’s single-minded pursuit of the truth.
On Tuesday, it also became a bad break for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whom Fitzgerald charged with conspiracy and corruption for acts that reek of sleaze and stupidity.
That Fitzgerald survived the Bush administration’s attempts to politicize the Justice Department turned out to be a break for the people of Illinois.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 10: U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, an intrepid prosecutor, made a name by securing a conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, in the Plamegate scandal. This arrest shows that Fitzgerald’s reputation as a no-nonsense prosecutor with a commitment to combating public corruption is well-deserved. He also successfully prosecuted Blagojevich’s predecessor, GOP Gov. George Ryan, on influence-peddling charges.
Fitzgerald said he ordered the arrest to stop what he described as a “political corruption crime spree.”
The complaint offers ample evidence of this, including the charge that Blagojevich threatened to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field unless certain members of the paper’s editorial board were fired. The company filed for bankruptcy protection last Monday.
If Tribune management was playing ball with Blagojevich, it will be a black mark on the record of Sam Zell, the real estate magnate who has owned the newspaper for the past year. But it seems clear that the newspaper’s editorial board pulled no punches. The board suggested that the Legislature investigate impeaching Blagojevich over an unrelated matter in September, one of several editorials that prosecutors say enraged the governor.
Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 9: Like millions of Americans, President-elect Obama knows how hard it is to quit an addiction – in his case, cigarettes – and break the habit for good.
The temptation to backslide is strong, particularly in stressful times such as these.
On “Meet the Press” on Sunday (Dec. 7), Obama acknowledged that he had “fallen off the wagon” in his effort to beat a reported two-decade smoking habit. But he vowed that in the White House, he would not violate its no-smoking rules. Still, that is no guarantee he might not find himself sneaking into the Rose Garden from time to time for a puff or two.
Smoking is blamed for one in five deaths in this country and costs billions in health care. While millions quit annually, Big Tobacco, in particular, targets minorities and teens to replace them.
Look no further than the late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings to see the deadly pull of cigarettes.
Jennings had quit smoking for 20 years when, under the stress of covering the 9/11 attacks, he lit up again. Just months after announcing he had lung cancer, Jennings died in August 2005.
With New Year’s almost upon us, and quitting bound to top many a resolution list, the nation’s smokers – and possibly future ones – might be expected to turn their eyes to Obama.
And here, we hope, the president-elect will – with the loving encouragement of his wife and daughters, no doubt – set an example that will lead him and other Americans to healthier living.