From the moment he intruded upon the national awareness last week, Rod Blagojevich has prompted a sort of Monty Python response. Whenever I see him — and I see him too often — I think, "How’d you get to be governor, then? I didn’t vote for ya…"
Those of you who are literal-minded are thinking, "Of course you didn’t vote for him; you don’t live in Illinois," but don’t spoil my fun. What I’m saying is that when I look upon this guy, I am as mystified by the radical peasants in the mud contemplating the king: I can’t imagine anyone voting for him, so I imagine he must have come into office in some bizarre manner involved strange women distributing scimitars or some such. A "farcical aquatic ceremony" seems more likely than his winning an election.
This is a first-impression thing for me. I look at the guy, and I think, "Yeah, I believe he did all that stuff they’re saying he did." And that’s saying something, because what they say he did is probably a national record-setter for being simultaneously crooked, brazen and stupid all at the same time.
But I look at this guy, and I think, yeah, I can see him doing all that. I don’t even have to see video, or hear his voice. A still photograph is enough.
And what gets me is that he has apparently always looked just like this. So I find myself wondering, who would have voted for a guy who looks like this guy? I mean, look at him — he just drips sleaze.
The only explanation I can imagine is that whoever he was running against looked worse. But if that’s the case, I don’t want to see the person he beat.
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What I’m saying is that when I look upon this guy, I am as mystified by the radical peasants in the mud contemplating the king: I can’t imagine anyone voting for him, so I imagine he must have come into office in some bizarre manner involved strange women distributing scimitars or some such.
-Brad
That’s EXACTLY the way I felt about George W. Bush after the 2004 election. (I didn’t feel that way in 2000)
ANSWER: The same people who voted for Obama.
Blagojevich was just operating the way all Chicago politicians do.
Blagojevich’s 2002 campaign was managaged by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel.
Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel held the same Congressional seat.
Blagojevich was trying to get his wife a pie job at the Children’s Hospital – just like Barack Obama got Michelle a $336,000 job on the board of the hospital in return for his getting them federal money.
Obama’s choice for his Senate seat was the bag man for Mayor Daley.
Are you beginning to notice that all of Obama’s close associates are slimy?
* Bill Ayers – socialist mentor of BHO
* Beranadine Dorn – terrorist buddy of BHO and Michelle
* David Axelrod – Daley machine
* Tony Rezko – BHO got him $18,000,000 federal money for “urban renewal”
* Mrs. Rezko – helped BHO buy his mansion
* Louis Farakan – neighbor of BHO, endorsed BHO
* Rev. Jeremiah Wright – racist mentor of BHO
* Rahm Emanuel – arm twister for vote count for Nancy Pelosi
*
Sarah Palin’s church was burned down by arsonists last week, without notice from the Democrat-controlled media.
Do you think there would be such a news blackout if Obama’s cult church was torched?
This Blogo incident underscores the difference between Democrats and Republican. Whenever a Republican commits crimes the GOP immediately defends him and tries to keep him in power. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon, Scooter Libby, David Vitter, Mark Foley and Oliver North. But when a Democrat strays other Democrats, embarrassed that someone calling themselves a Democrat acts like a Republican, immediately call for his ouster. Same thing happened with William Jefferson. He is also gone, thanks to voter sensibility.
There is no doubt that the Democratic party has a few bad apples. But when they misbehave the are soon gone. Just ask Blogo.
A few bad apples?!!!?
Chicago is a barrel of rotten apples, and Obama is one of them.
Maybe the difference is the Republicans are often not guilty of a real crime, but merely of opposing the Democrats, who happen to control the news media.
This Blogo incident underscores the difference between Democrats and Republican.
Let me just stop you right there and say there is virtually no difference between these two parties. I will never understand why people will rationally decide to stand behind one party and criticize the other as corrupt or power-hungry or whatever term is chosen.
Hell, there are even fewer and fewer differences between the two on the biggest (my opinion) issues of today (war/counter-terrorism, the budget/spending).
But, I have already come to the conclusion that nothing will change. The two parties have done one hell of a job convincing people that Dems vs. Pubs is a black and white issue and one and only one has the right plan for America if you only give them your vote (“because the past was the other party’s fault and we’re here to clean it up”).
So enjoy the ride; I’m getting off.
Nah, William Jefferson left office because of the 22nd Amendment. You did mean William Jefferson Clinton, right?
If you meant that Louisiana guy, I wouldn’t be bragging on Democrats — or on voters in general — there. I was just reading this today in the Economist:
Blagojevich is the prototypical liberal in power:
– Completely uninhibited by any law or authority
– Absolutely in it for personal gain and self aggrandizement
– No sense whatsoever of morality, propriety or the dignity of office.
Blagojevich is the latest in a looonng line of liberal thugs, criminals and thieves. Remember Jefferson from New Orleans, Dodd, Fort Worth Jim Wright, Bill Clinton, Al Franken, and on and on.
Liberals suck. And they are shameless.
It’s just that simple.
Dave
Dave, Blago is not a typical liberal or a typical conservative. He’s a crook, and an amazingly brazen and stupid and crass one.
Until we get past the point that we equate those who merely disagree with us to the level of this creep, we’ll never be able to engage in constructive political dialogue.
In his comments today, Obama seemed a little desperate. He paused and repeated more than usual. You know he does not speak as well as President Bush does. Also I think Obama is covering for someone in his organization. He may end up with the same kind of problems President Nixon had. If so we will make sure he is treated the same way.
– Completely uninhibited by any law or authority
– Absolutely in it for personal gain and self aggrandizement
– No sense whatsoever of morality, propriety or the dignity of office.
Oh, Dave, Dave, Dave, that’s the Clinton rulebook. And Obama is re-appointing his administration. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will be trillionaires by the time Obama leaves office.
While I dislike most online abbreviations, Ish’s assertion that Obama “does not speak as well as President Bush does” brought one to mind: LOL.
Obama without a script is reduced to mumbling incomplete sentences. GW Bush is far more articulate, and I am LMAO at the media silence over their dunce-elect and his slimy trail of corruption.
Just look at a verbatim transcript of Obama hemming and hawing about Blagojevich or his secret “economic plan”. It is mostly, “uh”, “ah”, “you know”, pauses, incomplete sentences running onto the next incomplete sentence.
His dishonesty is probably the source of of lot of this verbal stumbing. Maybe if Obama gets a subject where he knows something and has nothing to hide, he can be more articulate.
Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama managed the 2002 campaign of Rob Blagojevich
Rahm Emanuel Met With Blagojevich on Multiple Occasions Since the 2008 Election
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/12/12/rahm-emanuel-met-with-blagojevich-on-multiple-occassions/
Posted by: Lee Muller | Dec 12, 2008 9:26:15 PM
Connect the dots:
* This investigation began 2 years ago over state and city corruption.
* Tony Rezko has already been convicted, and has turned state’s evidence on Blagojevich and others close to him.
* Barack and Michelle Obama could not earn $50,000 between them as lawyers until Abner Mikva of the Daley machine put Obama on an $8,000 a month retainer and introduced him to Tony Rezko.
* Obama was the lawyer for Tony Rezko in real estate deals where he defrauded the federal government out of $18,000,000 in Community Development funds.
* Michele Obama instantly got a position on a hospital board making $120,000 a year
* Michelle got a raise to $360,000 when Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate
* Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel managed Blagojevich’s campaign
* Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel held the same Congressional seat.
* Blagojevich is caught on wiretaps demanding a job for his wife on the board of the Childrens’ Hospital, just like Michele Obama had.
More dots:
* Mrs. Tony Rezko is a real estate agent who handled lots of deals for the City of Chicago, and especially for her husband, Tony Rezko, Barack Obama, and Rob Blagojevich.
* Barack and Michelle Obama bought a mansion near Louis Farakan for $300,000 below the asking price. Tony Rezko arranged the financing, which the Obamas could not get, even with their now $480,000 income from government jobs.
* Mrs. Tony Rezko bought the vacant lot next door to the Obamas, and sold half of it to the Obamas the same day, rendering the remainder of her lot useless because it is too small to build on, so this amounted to a gift to the Obamas.
lThe Men that don’t fit in. A peom by Robert Service.The Men That Don’t Fit In
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t fit in.
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Random QuoteThe same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut… Read the complete article Main MenuHome Contact Archives Forums Downloads FAQ News Sitemap Store Web Links In the Spotlight ! The Face On The Barroom Floor This poem is often wrongly thought to be by Robert W Service. It is published here to the memory of Hugh Antoine D’Arcy, it’s rightful father. Read more… Evening With The Bard An Evening with the Bard of the Yukon, July 18 th 2003 at 20.30pm in the Town-Hall of Lancieux, Brittany. Read more… Archive All Entries 1997 – 2002 Read more… Archive 1 All Entries 2002 Read more… Did You Know? Odds and Ends, Other Items Of Interest About Robert Read more…Who’s Online4 user(s) are online (4 user(s) are browsing Archives)Members: 0Guests: 4more… Archives > Books and Poetry > Poetry > The Spell Of The Yukon > The Men That Don’t Fit In The Men That Don’t Fit InPublished by Webmaster on 2003/7/19 (38184 reads) There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t stay still;So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain’s crest;Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don’t know how to rest.If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true;But they’re always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new.They say: “Could I find my proper groove, What a deep mark I would make!”So they chop and change, and each fresh move Is only a fresh mistake.And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace,It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race.And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past,Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead, In the glare of the truth at last.He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance; He has just done things by half.Life’s been a jolly good joke on him, And now is the time to laugh.Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win;He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone; He’s a man who won’t fit in.
RobertWService.Com © 1996-2008
Brad, do you think if you kept to SC issues the conversation would improve? After all, the paper is The State?
In that vein, why is there no mention of SC Unemployment Compensation Commission needing a line of credit from the Feds because they are going to be out of money in a few weeks? saw it in NYTimes yesterday. Many states are having worse problems than we are.
States with even worse legislatures than South Carolina? Hard to imagine.
Don’t worry. Obama and Pelosi are promising over $1.0 TRILLION in deficit spending to bail out unions, Democrat governors and Democrat mayors, in the first hundred days, so the pork can continue to flow.
Who cares if inflation goes back to Carter levels? Paul Volker, Obama’s advisor, was in charge then, too. The Obama professors on campus can rewrite history, just like they did to pretend Carter and FDR solved economic problems.
Martin, try this for conversation:
Let’s all get up and dance to a song
That was a hit before your mother was born.
Though she was a born a long, long time ago
Ah ah
Your mother should know
Ah ah ah ah
Your mother should know
Ah ah
Your mother should know.
In reference to state issues, Alaska had proposed a bridge to nowhere. We have a proposal here in SC by Rep. Clyburn for a bridge from nowhere to nowhere. Does anyone know the status of “our” bridge? The State had a short comment this week saying $16 million had been earmarked for something. Is Rep. Clyburn still pushing for this bridge in these lean times? The areas at each end of the proposed bridge have close access to major highways and the interstate. Why don’t we take a very small portion of the cost to build a bridge, build some type of facility for about 25 employees in Rimini, and another facility for about 25 employees in Lone Star? That would take care of the area’s economic problems if that is the reason for the bridge in the first place. But my friends in Sumter tell me that the original reason for the bridge was that the constituents could travel more freely between Sumter and Orangeburg for fund raiser and other social activities. We really need to leave that beautiful Upper Santee Area as is.
Martin makes an excellent point about the journalistic mission of the State newspaper. Our Columbia-based “state” newspaper is at its best dealing with local news and South Carolina politics and culture. If I want to know what’s going on in the world, I read the NYT (which I do, daily). But if I want news, analysis, and understanding closer to home, then the State newspaper is indispensable.
The State has a storied muck-raking history in S.C., going back to the time of Gonzalez who died on behalf of this state and The State to protect and advance the first-amendment freedom of the press. S.C. has always been conformist in its collective thinking and usually on the wrong side of history. Slavery, secession, Jim Crow, cheap cotton-mill labor, the regressive Tillman Constitution, the Redeemers, etc., right through video-poker and our current, self-imposed fiscal crisis–all these things bespeak backwardness, ignorance, and racism.
Yet, through it all, S.C. is almost a paradigm of the American struggle against itself for its true soul. Do we break the old ways and realize the Founding Fathers’ radical promise of political equality in a state devoted to the cultivation of the good of the commonwealth, the happiness of the people? Or do we instead enshrine privilege, hierarchy, unearned wealth, and festering social inequality.
South Carolina has been one of America’s laboratories of freedom. If you’re from New England–never slave, always free, educated, prosperous, smug–it’s easy to condemn the people of a state who have been through so much.
Our people must daily negotiate through close social contact differences of race, religion, culture–even preference in barbecue–such as one can only find in the Deep South of the states of the old Confederacy. It’s easy to be liberal in the North. In the South, progressive politics can cost you your life. Yet many Southerners–natives and transplants–have worked hard to create a new South where racism has been sharply diminished and where people have learned to get along and respect both their similarities and their differences.
I see it in the one social studies class I teach for 45 minutes a day. Diverse religiously, politically, racially, and economically, this group of kids happily chatters along amongst themselves about sports, relationships, college plans, social gatherings, and school events as if people of their diverse backgrounds just always got along. If I leave the room for a moment, I know that they won’t turn on one another over religion, politics, or race. No, instead they cheerfully deal with their mundane, everyday teenage concerns.
And that is how it should be. This is why we’re so different from Iraq. South Carolina has been tested, and it is coming through the fire, I believe, in the current generation of young people. I have been teaching for 26 years, and either we’re just doing a fabulous job here in the World-class Richland Two schools, or our kids and S.C. generally are learning to live, to love, and to be with one another–not merely to tolerate or accept one another, but to cherish the differences.
One of my black students, L. was fixing the blond hair of one of my white male hunters the other day. She announced to the class how wonderful this young man’s hair was, and he played along like a good sport. Difference, rather than being a source of hate and mistrust as in the past, is becoming something to admire, to explore, to marvel at, and to cherish.
Maybe it’s just the Christmas spirit invading my soul. But I say “three cheers” for South Carolina and the tremendous progress our small, crazy republic has made and, I believe, will continue to make.
If S.C. wants to remain a red state, that’s fine, provided that our state be Republican in the sense that we support a Lincolnesque view of civil rights and a commitment to genuine fiscal conservatism.
The Democracy is going to need a balance, and the current Republican Party is just not going to provide it.
Good post Rich. It actually got me thinking. The GOP can be a force for positive change both nationally and in South Carolina. But they need to discover a sense of tolerance for people who are different, whether they are gay, atheist, speak a different language or have a different heritage from what is normally considered “normal”. Frankly, they have a long way to go. The racist faction of the GOP revealed itself in an ugly way during the presidential election. It was subtle to be sure but it is undeniable that the GOP used racial queues to scare voters away from Obama. The result was a landslide victory for McCain among southern whites, particularly in areas that tend to have large populations of white evangelicals. Just about everywhere else white voters choose the candidates based on merit. Folks need to get over this backward thinking that is holding us down in the south. The GOP needs to change with the times are it will go the way of the home-delivered newspaper.
Elections are about marketing, pop culture, and emotional appeal now. Please see:
howobamagotelected.com
Rod is kinda cute, and his wife is HOT.
haskell, that is just hillarious. To imply that Obama voters are stupid while McCain voters are intelligent is nothing but sour grapes. Fact is the media gave McCain far more credit than he deserved. There was very little discussion of his Keating 5 involvement. Even though McCain claimed, ad nauseum, that he was a “changed man” because of his experience in the Hanoi Hilton his adulterous behavior was rarely cited as evidence to refute that claim. Obama’s lack of experience was blasted constantly but McCain’s age and health issues were virutually ignored. The whole Rev. Wright nonsense was blasted over the media airwaves constantly yet there was relatively little about McCain’s wayward ministers. And Sarah Palin did herself in, not the media. She did in fact say that you could see Russia from an island in Alaska. That was properly ridiculed by Tina Fey as just plain dumb. The press was more than fair to McCain and in fact carried his political water by NEVER challenging his phony maverick personna. Get over it Republicans.
Obama won by 7% in spite of a huge racial backlash in the deep south that undoubtably cost Obama hundreds of thousands of votes who overwise would have voted for a white Democrat. The election was won fair and square. Don’t blame the media, it makes you look like a bunch of whiners.
The GOP can be a force for positive change both nationally and in South Carolina. But they need to discover a sense of tolerance for people who are different, whether they are gay, atheist, speak a different language or have a different heritage from what is normally considered “normal”. Frankly, they have a long way to go. The racist faction of the GOP revealed itself in an ugly way during the presidential election.
If the GOP is racist, then it is manifesting itself in the form of ignorance and fear directed at Hispanic immigrants and Arabs and Muslims. Racism against blacks does not affect the party very much at the national level.
There was no “huge racist backlash” against Obama. And if there were hundreds of thousands “who overwise would have voted for a white Democrat” but not Obama, then these are not racist Republicans, these are racist Democrats or independents. Republicans wouldn’t have been voting for a Democrat, white or black and therefore had nothing to do with it.
I do agree that the GOP needs to drop it’s blatant evangelical-influenced agenda and leave religion up to each individual’s personal choices in life. Fiscal responisbility and small government is being tossed to the side in favor of social conservatism and government intrusion into the individual’s personal life.
Most of the low-level Obama voters (know nothing about his real platform, biography, beliefs or associates) voted for him solely because they expect him to transfer wealth to them from the wealth creators.
A good example is the huge number of Obama voters who plan to drop their health insurance in 2009 because they think the federal government will give them free medical care. I have CPA friends who tell me how many of their clients’ employees are dropping medical insurance coverage.
Bud, somebody burned down Sarah Palin’s church last weekend. Heard much about it?
Wright made a complete fool of himself equating Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima? Hear anything about that?
Would you swear on a stack of Bibles Palin ever sais anything about being able to see Alaska? If she did, do you think it might have been tongue in cheek?
As to how bright Obama voters are, try howobamagotelected.com. I bet you most of Obama’s supporters don’t even know the name of the fellow Joe Biden will replace.
The only reason Obama was elected because of racial voting. Most of his black supporters openly proclaim that they voted for him because he is only half-white.
Many whites voted for Obama because they wanted a non-white president, and didn’t care about his lack of qualifications, his sleazy associates, socialist resume, or his blatant demagogery of promising to tax whites and Jews in order to “spread the wealth around” to people who haven’t earned it.