Illinois politicians! One in prison, one on the way, and one heading soon to a White House near you!!
My Reader has been busy today and a majority of the posts coming in have been about the arrest of IL Governor Rod Blagojevich. Illinoisans were dumb enough to elect this guy twice, but then, they’ve kept Daley in office for nearly 20 years now, along with all the other corrupt officials they keep putting back in office. I saw an interesting bit of information on another blog today:
This makes for the fourth out of the last seven elected Illinois governors to be indicted since 1960 (Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich) … since 1972, 28 Chicago alderman have been convicted of crimes. If this number was extrapolated to the US House, it would be as if over 240 congressman had been indicted in the same period.
(The link at the Tribune does not include the last two Chicago alderman to be convicted, Arenda Troutman and "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak.)[link from Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, Chief of Staff, Arrested from The New Editor]
My husband made an interesting observation this afternoon. “The last honest politician from Illinois was originally from Kentucky, and they ended up killing him.” It certainly feels as though Lincoln was the last decent politician we had. It just boggles the mind sometimes to think about how bad it is here, and that nothing ever gets done. Yes, Blago was arrested today, but the only way things are really going to change around here is if the voters of this state decide once and for all to clean house, and vote out every single IL pol we have currently in office, both down in Springfield and Chicago. Let’s face it, 10m of the 13m IL residents live in and around Chicago, so most of the crap is up here – we just send it down to Springfield. Now, 2 governors in a row have been arrested. When are the people of IL going to wake up and smell the corruption here?
I was going to put in most of the links I’ve had come through my Reader today but decided against it. You’ve probably seen enough today to fill you to puking about IL politics. [Imagine how it feels to live in it!] I will however, leave you with the words of John Kass, one of the few conservative columnists at the Chicago Tribune. He’s worth the read. Governor has one choice left: Sing?
What did you say?