To Get Serious For A Moment

I have been distracted from dishing the dirt by a spate of work and an impending business trip. It will be interesting to be in Chicago for a few days while the Governor is publicly melting down. The news will make much of his foul-mouthed venality, but though I do not wish to interfere with anyone's enjoyment of his well-deserved discomfort, I have a quick thought that may take some of the fun out of it. It is dead easy to stand on an Olympian height and look down on a dolt like the populist Governor of Illinois, who has been revealed as a classic bag-man, rather in the tradition of the Tammany Hall era in New York City. It is roaring good fun to bring a small-time chisler to justice. But I have a caution for the smug observers of this side- show. The big fish are getting away with it, while the stooge is being chased by a pack of dogs.

There seems to be pretty good evidence, at least according to the GAO, that something on the order of nine BILLION dollars just sort of went missing in Iraq. Not one, not two, but nine billion. No one in the current administration seems remotely outraged by that event. Why would that be? If you had to place a bet, what do you think the odds are that the perps of this bold theft might just be (a) Republican loyalists, and (b) Friends of George and Dick. For some odd reason, when Republicans chase Congressional Pages or market defense contracts to the highest bribers, no one seems inclined to even look. When a Democrat tries such shenanigans, doing things like leaving $90,000 in his freezer, everyone is shocked, shocked! What effrontery that a Democrat would attempt to behave like a Republican! the nerve! But all the time, never forget that the really big crooks are salting away tens and hundreds of times as much hot money, and doing such a smarter job of it that the odds of them being caught is far less. Governor Rod Blagojevich comes across as one of the dumbest criminal minds on the block, which proves the old rule; dumb crooks get sent up, smart crooks get the Congressional Medal of Freedom. The "Freedom" in the award is presumably "freedom from want".

Yes it will be fun to be in Chicago while everyone is out in the streets kicking a mental midget, but let's keep perspective here. The really big crooks are going to be laughing all the way to their Swiss bank accounts. No one is going to call them out, no one is going to take them on, the odds of something going wrong for them are very, very small indeed.

Arthur