If Stupidity Were a Capital Offense

Did I miss the announcement? Is it National Cognitive Dissonance Day? Or is that every day these days? It certainly seems like it. Yesterday, Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, safely ensconced where no on would see it, the ever self-pitying Rod Blagojevich, the most recent but certainly not the last Illinois governor to crown his career with a prison term rather than the governorship, took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal with an op-ed, ghost-written and/or heavily edited no doubt, complains about his 17 convictions for corruption, a grave threat as he sees it to the rule of law:

The rule of law is under assault in America. It is being perverted and abused by the people sworn to enforce and uphold it. Some in the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation are abusing their power to criminalize the routine practices of politics and government.

I learned the hard way what happens when an investigation comes up empty after the government has invested time, resources and manpower. When they can’t prove a crime, they create one. Did you know that an elected official asking for a campaign contribution is the same as a dirty cop asking a motorist for a cash bribe to tear up a speeding ticket? I never did. Yet that’s what a federal prosecutor told the jury during my second trial on bribery and extortion charges in 2011.

Allow me to offer an alternative interpretation. Like his Republican predecessor, also-convicted George Ryan, Gov. Blagojevich did not realize that politics had changed and politics as he knew, always illegal, might actually get you thrown into jail today. Offering a quid pro quo was, is, and has always been illegal. Nonetheless Gov. Blagovjevich was captured on tape where any Tom, Dick, or juror could hear it doing just that. The problem is not some imagined threat to the rule of law but the enforcement of the law and that politics as he practiced it was illegal. When everyone carries a video camera and a microphone, assuming secrecy when you make those shady back office deals just isn’t as good an assumption as it used to be.

I don’t know whether to attribute Blagovjevich’s views to stupidity or arrogance or some combination of both. I do feel safe in saying that, if stupidity were a capital offense, he would have been hanged from a yardarm years ago.

10 comments… add one
  • Guarneri Link

    Hmmmm. When’s his parole hearing date?

  • In Illinois you’re eligible for parole after serving a third of your sentence. My calculations suggest that means he’s up some time this year.

    He’s unrepentant. He obviously continues to believe he did nothing wrong. He should stay in the nick until 2024.

  • steve Link

    Drew nailed it. Your point about finally getting arrested for stuff people were doing for years is also well made. Non-stupid politicians figure out sooner than the stupid ones that it is no longer OK to take a bribe, or to corner your aide and demand sex.

    Steve

  • PD Shaw Link

    He’s serving for federal offenses, so he’ll have to serve at least 85% of his time.

    There is a modicum of support for his whining because the “honest services” offenses have been successfully challenged in other circumstances for criminalizing politics. He’s trying to blur the lines so that he can claim to be on the other side of the line, but he’s not.

    He threatened to rescind $8 million the State paid to a Children’s hospital if its CEO didn’t donate $50,000 to his campaign. I don’t see a difference btw/ this and the crooked cop, other than in scale.

  • Andy Link

    Wow, what is in the water there that breeds such “special” politicians?

  • Breed is right. Blagojevich is Dick Mell’s son-in-law. Mell, one of Chicago’s Northwest Side bosses, was a member of the Chicago City Council representing the 33rd Ward for 38 years until he retired and was succeeded by his daughter, Deb. That’s just south and east of the ward in which I live. That’s represented by the daughter of the previous alderman, too.

  • Guarneri Link

    “Breed is right.”

    Que it up – Sly and the Family Stone. “It’s a family affair, it’s a family affair…”. 😈

    And if you don’t like that one, try what others are doing. “Jesus just left Chicago, and he’s bound for New Orleans….”.

  • Roy Lofquist Link

    “Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

    ― Robert A. Heinlein

  • The sentence of death falls on all of us, wise and foolish.

  • Roy Lofquist Link

    “The sentence of death falls on all of us, wise and foolish.”

    Sooner or later. Most prefer the latter.

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