Michelle Malkin » Boomerang: The Democrat culture of corruption

Boomerang: The Democrat culture of corruption

By Michelle Malkin • December 10, 2008 08:42 AM

My syndicated column today looks at how the Democrat “culture of corruption” boomerang has returned to smack the donkeys right back in the face.

Snort-worthy: Guess what big national event is taking place in Chicago this week? The 30th annual COGEL (Council on Governmental Ethics Laws) Conference.

The wheels on the bus go thump-thump-thump.

***

The Democrat culture of corruption
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi can stop clucking now. For the last three years, Democratic leaders cheered GOP ethics woes. Dean accused Republicans of making “their culture of corruption the norm.” Pelosi touted cleanliness as a liberal virtue. But with the eye-popping pay-for-play and bribery case against Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich topping a year of nationwide Democratic scandals, the corruption chickens are coming home to roost.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called the breadth and depth of charges against Blagojevich and his Democratic Chief of Staff John Harris “staggering.” That’s an understatement. Anything that breathed was a potential shakedown target. It’s the Chicago way. Democrat Blago’s so dirty he’d hit up a children’s hospital for money. Oh, wait. He’s accused of doing that, too.

Democrat Blago allegedly conspired to use his power to appoint President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat as a bargaining chip for financial payment. He explored trading on that authority for an appointment as Health and Human Services secretary or as an ambassador or for installment in a cushy union position. (He discussed his trading scheme with an unnamed “SEIU (Service Employees International Union) official” and unnamed “various consultants” in Washington.)

According to the criminal complaint released yesterday, he also tried to leverage his influence over the sale of Wrigley Field (owned by Tribune media company) in an attempt to get Chicago Tribune editorial writers who called for his impeachment fired — which illustrates the very perils of media/government entanglements I warned about in my newspaper bailout column last week. His wife, Patricia Blagojevich, was apparently in on the thuggery, too. Taking a break from her first lady duties advocating “on behalf of women and children,” she is heard in taped discussions about the Chicago Tribune/Wrigley Field deal telling a governor’s aide “to hold up that f**king Cubs sh*t. … F**k them.”

Pelosi, champion of women as political cleaner-uppers, was unavailable for comment.

Fitzgerald says President-elect Obama was not implicated in the plethora of charges against Democrats Blago and Harris. The national media went out of their way to absolve him, too. But declaring Team Obama’s hands clean — especially with Blago crony and indicted Obama donor Tony Rezko in the middle of it all — is premature. (And if you’re wondering why I keep putting “Democrat” in front of the accused corruptocrats, it’s because the mainstream newspapers can’t seem to remember to identify their party prominently the way they do when Republicans are nabbed.)

Chicago’s Fox affiliate reports that Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago hometown heavy Rahm Emanuel was the catalyst for the Blago takedown and suggests Rahm-bo tipped off the feds. If so, this raises more questions than it answers about who on the transition team may have talked to Blago and his shakedown artists about what and when. Needless to say, if it were the Republican Bush administration tied to the Blago bust, the White House press corps would be frothing like a pack of Michael Vick’s pit bulls.

Democrats and the media can no longer rest on the old rationalization that Blago is an exception to the “we’re cleaner than thou” rule. 2008 was the year of Democratic Reps. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, Charlie “Sweetheart Deals” Rangel, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame “Text Me” Kilpatrick. It was the year Democratic Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson got caught stuffing bribes from an FBI informant down her shirt. It was the year 12 Democratic leaders and staffers in Pennsylvania’s state Capitol were stung in a massive corruption scandal involving cash, sex and abuse of public office. And it was the year of multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandals at Democratic satellite offices of ACORN and the SEIU.

The Democrats have met the culture of corruption, and it looks like it ain’t just elephants among the jackasses soiling public office.

***

Reader k. e-mails: “How could you leave out Elliot Spitzer from your blog of Democratic scandals in 2008?” Ah, yes! Client Number 9 is in a category all his own.

Posted in: Corruption

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#568754

On December 10th, 2008 at 10:58 pm, bear1909 said:

What this Country doesn’t need is its Presdent-elect caught in a major corruption scandal, before he is even sworn in. There are too many on both sides of the aisle salivating for the next big scandal. I have scandal fatigue already; just f***ing sick of all the negativity in our politics of the day. As conservatives, we should not play down to the base level of Dems and root against our own Country. Hoping that there is a connection between Obama and this Governor mess, before a connection is established, is rooting against our Country. Like it or not, Obama is going to be sworn in as OUR next President of the United States. Do we really want to see him disgraced? How will that help this Country deal with the tough issues that we face, militarily or economically?

“AUNTIE EM! AUNTIE EM!!!!”

Give me a flippin break! This President-Elect is as sleazy as the inside of an oil drum floating in a river of KY Jelly.

Rooting against our country?!?!??!?!??!?!

These bilge pumps in Congress with a D after their names have been doing their level best for 8 straight years and 8 before that to sell this country down the river.

I find it inexcusable for adult citizens of this country to accept whole cloth that this election WAS NOT BOUGHT FOR 1 BILLION DOLLARS.

And that this narcissistic drug addicted melon head that got elected can have it go his way without submitting an official birth certificate that proves his citizenship beyond a shadow of a doubt…..while these nincompoop liberal loons call anybody taking exception “TIN FOIL HAT WEARING TRUTHERS”….that bakes my cake.

YES! I am ranting.

Get ready for more sewer slime politics because without a legitimate mainstream press holding elected officials accountable (who are not Pubbies) these jerks are going to act as though they are above the law.

Who needs law when the public mass herd has George “Bugsy” Stephanopolous spinning reality for them?

Obingo will go down in history as the biggest scumbag in electoral politics. Dubya mighta been a clueless bozo in some respects—- but we never got attacked again.

What will the Liar Obingo do when that happens? And it will happen as sure as Michelle Obingo looks like a fraud and an impostor who worries about being found out that she is exactly that.

Liar Obingo will huff and puff and lie about what he knew, what he did, what he said, and what he thinks.

The American Electorate that voted for this puke makes me sick.

Hold onto your butts. He isnt even in office.

Bear1909 out.
#568756

On December 10th, 2008 at 10:59 pm, faraway said:

Palin is getting ready.

She has now formed the Office of the Next President
#568758

On December 10th, 2008 at 11:04 pm, Speakup said:

The Democrats have met the culture of corruption

They have met the enemy..and its them!

The blatant corruption displayed by Gov. Blagojevich is nothing new but Democrats ethical condemning of one of their own is.

Perhaps its the embarrassment factor that makes it an ethics issue or maybe the FBI has a certain morals enhancement benefit, or, Obama wants a second term that has no holds barred.
#568759

On December 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pm, fulldroolcup said:

Commenters here understand who and what lgm is, and they are now shunning him.

It’s no more than he deserves. Over the past four years I’ve never seen him offer a real argument, just unsubstantiated assertions, off-point maunderings, attempted diversions, and shite-stirring.

We used to say “Don’t feed the troll”

Now We say “Let’s starve the troll to death. Deprive him of oxygen.”

It’s finally working.