Redundancy is... (Blagojevich did business as usual, the wrong way)

Today's edition of the News & Record (the big newspaper in Greensboro) has a front-page story - like most other papers across the country this morning - about Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich getting arrested for corruption regarding the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

The headline in the News & Record reads: "Senate seat alleged for sale"

So when was the last time a Senate seat wasn't for sale in this country?

If he did this, then Blagojevich should be thrown in, no... under the jailhouse and left to rot. But let's get real folks: politics in the United States has become a high-stakes poker game with a buy-in that drastically exceeds the means of the average citizen. Unless you are filthy rich or otherwise have socially astute connections, you have no chance of running for high office.

Hell, it takes a fortune just to hire enough lawyers who will be able to go through all the legalities that are now on the books for a candidate to adhere to.

And it is precisely the mechanisms of modern American politics that not only allow, but even encourage the sort of corruption that we are seeing (again) happen around Chicago.

When the common man and his virtues are shut out of the process, then where will those virtues be found at all?

Categories: government, illinois, moral rot, politics, rod blagojevich, united states