Blagojevich: Everyone Should Consider Saying "THANK YOU!"

I have a natural tendency to take a somewhat longer view than most people I know. It's just the way I'm wired. So, while I share everyone's current outrage at his conduct and am just as ticked off at the way the media is desperately trying to associate Obama with it in any way they can dream up... all in all I'm actually extremely happy all of this happened. Because when I look forward to the next 4 to 8 years taken all together, there was one worry that was up near the very top of my list.

Power corrupts.

We got the House. We got the Senate. We got the White House. And now it was only going to be a matter of time before certain Democratic representatives started getting progressively more cocky, and more sloppy, and thinking that since they were running things now they could get away with things until there was finally an implosion and a backlash and the Republicans grabbed everything back. I'm not suggesting the whole party would have gone to hell or anything, but the weak links in the chain would have started corroding and ruining it for everyone else.

They still will, never doubt it... but I think we just got a golden opportunity to delay it. A lot. If this had just been another low key "so and so is suspected of unethical behavior" story it would have dragged on, and festered, and would have continually gnawed away at the credibility of the Democratic party the longer it was periodically inserted into the narrative as a kind of constant background noise. But what we got instead was a great big nasty public object lesson to every single member of the party that they better watch their asses... and to the leadership that they better keep a damn tight reign on people. And that's only going to be good for us in the long run, especially if we hammer home the point, starting immediately, by making it clear that our people had damn well better engage in the most draconian ethics policing of our own camp they ever dreamed of starting right freaking now.

Yes, it's a short term image hit for the party. But the very fact that it's such a spectacularly obvious offense means it's unlikely to drag on very long in relative terms. and if something like this had to happen we couldn't have asked for better timing and circumstances frankly.

First, Obama hasn't even taken office yet. So it's not on his watch, and will likely fade from the public consciousness before the next round of elections.
Second, the indictment contains specific wiretap data that actually shows the Obama team being explicitly uninvolved with anything Blagojevich was trying to pull. It practically reads like a testimonial to the uprightness of the Obama transition team... something the media may not want to focus on but we sure as hell can spread the word and raise awareness of that fact.
Third, it's so high profile and so dramatic that it's almost got to force any Congress critters or Senators who might have a questionable grasp on ethical principles to draw themselves up short and give their plans a good, hard think.

And hopefully, we'll add a Fourth: Obama's team making a few moves at Justice to not-so-subtly communicate that everyone can expect a lot more of this type of scrutiny from that corner for the rest of this administration. Use this as a bludgeon to make people toe the line.

So, there you have it. You can still get all pissed off about the short term headache this is going to cause... but I'd suggest a longer view. We can use this.

...and I am hoping that Illinois DUers will step up and fill the spots in the party that are left vacant after Blago takes down a few cronies with him in order to shorten his sentence.

he's clean. There's no connection between him and Bloggo, or any of the Illinois shenanigans that went on, and the rightwingnuts - and even the others - are going to turn themselves inside out trying to establish what doesn't exist.

He'll stay above it, and then they will shut up, because they've got nothing.

I don't know that I agree with your theory that any of this might cause those given to corruption to be more law-abiding, but it would be nice to think so.

In the meantime, Jack Abramoff continues to sing, and I can't wait to see the list of pardons that will emanate from this fetid squatter in the Oval Office.

How many more days?