“I come out of the alleys of Chicago politics,” said Mr. Blagojevich, 52, who entered Democratic politics in 1992, first as a state representative, then a United States representative. “That’s a tough place. The politics there is not motivated by idealism or high purpose. It’s nuts and bolts, and you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I came up that way.”
An honest statement, for a change. And what of that kind of politics – secretive, tit-for-tat, backscratching, extortion, pay to play, corruption, that kind of stuff? What about, "the politics there [the alleys of Chicago] is not motivated by idealism or high purpose"? Well, we’re kind of tired of that kind of politics. It would be naive to suggest it will disappear, but it’s certainly neither an ideal nor an excuse. Political Power cannot be allowed to be an end unto itself. The old saying, "absolute power corrupts, absolutely," is true. The Republican Party is in the process of proving that as I write. Their focus is clearly on regaining and exerting power, not the dire straits we’re in right now. And I’m beginning to think that they’re not going to change that stance. My hope, our hope, is not that they will be vanquished by a superior power. It’s that they crow for a while, and then get down to the actual business of helping the country. Barring that outcome, they will either destroy our chances at preventing or at least softening a disaster, or they will become a dwindling irrelevant chorus of grumblers. "idealism or high purpose" are in vogue right now. Frankly, it’s not for us to decide what the Republican Congressmen do, any more than it was in our hands to decide Rod Blagojevich’s fate. That was his call…
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