What Was He Thinking?

Ahh, winter. The time when a major state's governor turns to thoughts of how to ruin themselves spectacularly.

It was about a year ago that New York Governor Elliot Spitzer imploded in what has to be one of the most incredible sex scandals in U.S. history, ending his reign in the Empire State. Not to be outdone, the Land of Lincoln has produced a pretty incredible political flop in its own right. Apparently, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was trying to sell Obama's seat in the senate. In Illinois, as in New York, when there is a vacancy in the Senate, the governor has the sole discretion to appoint a successor. Kind of like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Apparently, Blagojevich is on tape saying at one point, "I’ve got this thing and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I’m not going to do it." Incredible.

The question that jumps immediately to mind is: how did you think you were going to get away with this? What sort of crazed egotism must you be suffering from to think, "You know, I'll bet no one will catch me if I try to sell the senate seat of the president-elect to forward my own personal fortune." Moron. Keep in mind, this guy was the subject of a New York Times profile on November 13th under the headline Picking Obama Successor Puts Spotlight on Governor. The New York Times (kind of a well-known paper) is saying that there's a spotlight on you and you're engaging in blatant corruption? How dumb can you be?

As you can tell, I don't really have much to say about this other than that Governor Bonehead is dumber than I can fathom and that I can't imagine his successor won't be better. Of course, that may be what they said in Illinois last time.