Rezko Sleaze Engulfs Governor of Illinois
Maybe it’s something in the water. Or perhaps it’s a virus that only infects politicians and their cronies in the state in which Barack Obama chose to build his political base.
No less than 3 of the last 7 governors of Illinois have gone to jail for corruption. The most recent inmate being previous governor George Ryan who pressured state workers to raise money for his campaigns when Secretary of State, while overseeing a “pay for play” scheme at drivers license bureaus where unqualified truck drivers bribed state employees to get licenses. One such driver was involved in a horrific accident that killed 6 children. The resulting investigation into that crash unmasked the conspiracy. More than 70 lobbyists, state employees, and government officials have been convicted in connection with the scheme.
And to list the corruption associated with Mayor Daley’s Chicago Democratic Machine would require an encyclopedia-length dissertation. The most recent example of Machine sleaze was the conviction of one of the Mayor’s closest aides in a city hall patronage scandal that had Barack Obama praising hizzoner for beginning to “clean up” city hall.
Obama may not be an intimate part of all this corruption. But it is equally clear that he has benefited politically from his association with the sleaze artists like Rezko. He has also eschewed attaching himself too closely to the reform movement in Cook County politics by endorsing for office not only Mayor Daley, but the notorious former Cook County Board Chairman John Stroger and the equally corrupt Alderman Dorothy Tillman.
It appears that when principle collides with political expediency, Obama has chosen to ally himself with those who can do his career the most good - even at the expense, as Commissioner Peraica says of “principles and morals and good government.”
Obama as an “agent of change?” As they say in Chicago, “Not hardly.”