So, anyhooo...

On that Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, a question was asked as to why the Politics conference had become so boring post-election. After letting the question sit for about a week (taking a break from the place for Christmas), I posted the following....

Oh, I am far from bored. In fact, I can hardly keep myself in my bunker, clinging bitterly to that to which I bitterly cling.

This thing has become such fun entertainment that I am surprised that I did not send money earlier to The Prophet Obama (PBUH). Its like your first trip to see the Three Ringed Circus...you're enjoying everything you see, and its hard to keep your eye on it all.

But to recap...

As [redacted] mentioned, in one ring we have The One's Appointments. We've got Zero's vanquished opponent (who kindly introduced us to Tony Rezko) now named as Secretary of State. Lost in the circus are the questions of how a SecState will represent this country when her husband's "...organization [has] accepted multimillion-dollar gifts from a variety of foreign governments, companies and individuals who might have an interest in United States foreign policy." Our interest then shifts to his choice for Secretary of Commerce--Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson, as it turns out, is about to be embroiled in his own "Pay to Play" scheme. [Noooo. Say it ain't so!] And then, we see O's nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder. Holder, you may remember, was up to his eyeballs in the Marc Rich pardon scandal. A Congressional investigation found that Holder had "played a major role, [in] steering Mr. Rich’s lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel.". The confirmation hearings for The One's Cabinet promise further entertainment.

And in the other ring, there is the magic act using a version of Three Card Monte entitled "Obama's Change From The Change That I Promised". Watch him shuffle the cards labelled "A Betrayal on FISA", "I Won't End The War That I Promised I'd End", and (by extension) Guantanamo Policy. Try to keep your eyes on the cards, as the Change has a habit of Changing, if you know what I mean.

But then in the center ring, we see the continuing saga of "Who to pick for the vacant Senate Seats?" The Delaware vacancy, open due to Joe Biden's new role as Vice-President Elect, will go to--get this--Biden's Chief of Staff. He, however, will only act in that position until Biden's son will return from Iraq. [Is there no one in Delaware not named Biden qualified for that seat?] But a larger drama is found (naturally) on Broadway, or, if you must be precise, on the Upper East Side. There, we find one Caroline Kennedy asking to be named to the soon-to-be vacated Clinton seat based on no qualifications what-so-ever beyond having a va-jay-jay (Stranger things have happened. Look what happened with Zero.). The woman frequently has not voted, and despite her wealth, has a very meager history of political donations. She has never been elected to anything and has a habit of losing articles of clothing while in public. The poor woman can barely complete a sentence without interrupting herself. [The Mainstream Media, exhausted as they are after searching All of Alaska for everything Palin (including, if you can believe it, 1.9 million stories on "Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother".) cannot manage to ask the last vestige of Camelot "What ever happened to that Schlossberg guy?"]

However, the star of the center ring is none other than "HotRod" Rod Blagojevich. He, of course, has been accused of blatantly attempting to sell the Senate seat that The One is vacating. The alleged buyer of this seat was none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr., he of the Chicago Jackson's. But the bartering for the naming rights to this seat went through PEBO's Chief of Staff, Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel. After an indepth look at what went on, PEBO's White House Counsel, Greg Craig (Yes. There is a reason you recognize that name.) adopts a version of The Jedi Mind Trick to proclaim "There is nothing to see here. Move along." (Why didn't Scooter Libby try this?) This announcement comes on the afternoon of Dec. 23, whereupon Obama and Emanuel are immediately available for questions, if the questioner wants to go to Hawaii and Africa--but whatever you do, don't question the timing. While the Illinois legislature is still working up the nerve to impeach the scoundrel, Dingy Harry Reid has announced (in tandem with The Messiah) that the Senate will not seat whomever Blago appoints. [Stand by for a Constitutional Crisis, folks. They don't have that power.]

Oh. And as if this weren't enough, Rep. Bobby Rush--he the former Black Panther--pronounced the Obama Senate seat as "The Black Seat" in a defense of Blago's appointment of Burris.

And just who is this Roland Burris character anyway? Turns out, he, like the Chicago-based Rep. Rush, Rev. Jackson and Rev. Wright is racist too (What is it about Chicago and racists?). He's also a former lobbyist [Gasp!] and--this is delicious--once "headed a commercial group that covered government guaranteed loans and minority business banking" and is a former "National Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer for Operation PUSH" (same citation). He named both of his children--a son and a daughter--after himself. And he has erected this crypt as his entryway into the Hereafter. My, oh my. What a guy.

So, to sum up, a white governor is going to be impeached (but may not be convicted and removed from office) and probably is going to jail because he tried to sell a Senate appointment. The Democratic Senate leadership (and the half-black President) is put in the position of refusing to seat the black appointee. The Democrat-led Illinois legislature desperately wants Blago to resign so as to avoid impeachment and the exposure of all the political skeletons. Blago, absolutely the dumbest, slimiest politcian from that cesspool that is Chicago has outsmarted the whole lot of the others--his appointment will stand on his terms. And out of this whorehouse, we're lead to believe that arose one virgin. Identity politics, anyone?

No. I am not bored. The Messiah has not yet even taken office yet, and already I've had more entertainment out of this whole thing than I could have had in ten movies. I'm making popcorn.

An update to my "Center Ring": I had forgotten that the "legitimate" contender to the Clinton Senate seat was none other than Andrew Cuomo--another pol's son--who comes complete with his own Kennedy-fueled drama.

But what really is the attention-getter, and what prompted this update, is this little nugget of sunshine.

Better than a Three-Ringed Circus!

/Update.

Another Update: I oughta sue. P.J. O'Rourke steals my meme. Of course, he does it far better than I did, but that's beside the point.

/Another Update.

Jennifer Rubin asks...

...A number of good questions, the answers to which ought to bring more questions, but My Cynicism tells me that none of these questions will be asked, so as to keep The Unicorns Flying. PBUH.



h/t Glenn.

I hate to break it to you folks, but....

If " [m]ore than nine out of ten people in Illinois think that Gov. Rod Blagojevich should resign", then that majority is going to be disappointed.

While Blago may be an obvious criminal, he is also arrogant and thinks he can beat this. But neither of these explain why he won't resign.

Blago won't resign because doing so will be to admit that the charges against him are correct. His lawyer won't let him resign. The correct thing to do will be for the Illinois legislature to impeach him. He'll be able so say that he did not quit on his own, and will then be able to fight his criminal charges as well as he can.

And one other thing...

Not surprisingly, they're now calling for Blogo to resign. That would be the right thing to do, and there is a Lt. Governor there who could immediately step in, but the original question still remains: Who will be Illinois' junior Senator?

They're talking about having some sort of special election to fill this seat. The problem I have here is that there is already a process for filling that seat, and a special election isn't part of that. The Governor appoints the new Senator. The thinking is that whoever takes that seat would be tainted by this scandal, so who wants it?

I say that if the IL System is corrupt, then they should sleep in the bed that they have made. Don't make shit up just to keep from further embarrassing the Party.

I may have been born at night....

....But not last night.

Obama's Campaign Manager, David Axelrod, on Obama and Blagojevich and the question of who ought to be appointed as his successor.....

"I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."

Now that would make emminent sense.... I don't care if it is corrupt Cook County, or a bunch of Mormoms from Utah: A senator ought to have an opinion on who ought to be appointed to the office to which he was elected but has now moved on from, and he ought to share those thoughts with his state's governor.

But that was way back on November 23. Today, after Blagojevich's scandal broke, the Axe and O show are singing a completely different tune. Axe....

"I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the
President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate
vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject."

I don't know whether Obama or any of his team knew of the shakedown that Blago was attempting to run. It would be somewhat naive to think that an Illinois politician might have never heard of such a thing, but at this point there is no evidence to believe that O was part of the (alleged) corruption. But The One has a history of blaming staffers, or saying he or others had mispoke when their previously-uncontroversial statements came up to bite them. And when you couple this with the thing that is really, REALLY grating on me--that the YouTube of the Axe interview is now no longer available (thrown down the Memory Hole, no doubt)--you'll pardon me if my Suspicious Spidey-Sense is tingling.

There is something else going on here. Something that the O-bots, the Chicago Machine, and the press don't want us to dig into. The thinking now is that "Senate Candidate Number 5" is none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr (which would explain Jesse Jackson's tears in Grant Park). I also can't help but remember that Rahm ("Rahmbo") Emanuel is also a Chicago politician of some note. I can only speculate that Emanuel was offended at the depth of Blago's corruption and set up the governor for the fall he deserved to take.

The players here are too close for me to believe that Blago's indiscreet corruption was not known among them.