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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 12/11/08

Re: Fitzgerald and Blagojevich

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Message Lawrence Velvel

            Now, there are millions of us -- probably scores of millions of us, by now maybe close to hundreds of millions of us -- who deplore and excoriate this kind of selling of political office. But does this constitute crime if it hasn't reached the stage of offers given or received? e.g., if it hasn't reached the stage where Blagojevich or an adviser says to or makes it known to, e.g., Jesse Jackson or one of his advisors that "We will appoint you [Jackson] to the Senate in return for one million dollars"?  I really don't know the answer to this question.  While I personally think matters should not have to come to this stage before a crime is committed, it is my bet that, except possibly for a conspiracy charge, the semi-intellectually-corrupt federal courts look at it differently than I do. 

            Involved here is a question which I have so far not seen mentioned or discussed anywhere, with the exception of one article in the NYT.  (Have I missed such  discussions?)  Isn't it true that politicians at every level -- local, state, national and, we have been finding out, international -- trade office for money every day, literally every day?  For scores of years it has been a standing farce that ambassadorships are in effect sold to the rich for campaign contributions.  Membership on state boards or commissions is traded for campaign contributions.  It has for many decades been a standing practice for politicians to cast their votes in Congress in favor of positions desired by industries that give them money for their campaigns.  (Elizabeth Warren tells a remarkable story about Saint Hillary and the banking industry in this regard.) Some Senators have been bought, paid for and owned by particular companies or industries.  Wasn't a guy named Nelson Aldrich known as the Senator from the New York Central 110 years ago?  Was Robert Kerr, as a Senator, anti the oil industry in which he was a very wealthy man?  Perhaps you've heard of Kerr Magee -- wasn't that his company if I'm not mistaken?  Why did Billy Tauzin land a multimillion dollar per year job when he left Congress?  Why do lobbyists raise millions for politicians?  And has everyone forgotten about the Lincoln Bedroom business in the Clinton Administration?  What was the Lincoln Bedroom business all about, if not all-important access and proximity in return for campaign money.

            From the time when railroads used to give stock to federal and state legislators in return for favorable laws until today, giving money and economic position in return for political favors from politicians has been the way of life in American politics, the crooked but permissible way of life.  In the last few decades, the Supreme Court has generally called it free speech.

            As near as I can see, all or nearly all that Fitzgerald seems to have given us to date are quotations and paraphrases of Blagojevich and company planning to do what all or nearly all American politicians -- crooks, the lot of 'em -- have been doing for scores of years.  They've caught Blagojevich discussing what should be received in return for a political favor, here the favor of appointment to the Senate.  So, if this case goes to a trial, don't be surprised to see a parade of defense witnesses, who are highly knowledgeable about history and current practice, who will say that what Blagojevich was caught doing is simply typical of how politics has been practiced in this country since at least the Gilded Age, if not the Age of Jackson.  A trial, if there is one, thus has the potential to blow up the American political system.  It is impossible to see how the pols can let a trial take place.  It is equally impossible to see how they can stop one unless Blagojevich decides to cop a plea in return for a very light sentence and avoidance of any risk of a severe sentence.  (And in return for a large under the table payment from pols?  Or is this joke only a joke?) 

            Given that the crookedness Blagojevich is accused of has been an everyday matter in American politics for scores upon scores of years, why did Fitzgerald bring a case?  Well, there are lots of possibilities, including one I shall ignore but not everyone has ignored:  self aggrandizement (once again, as in his initial Libby press conference).  Another is failure by Fitzgerald, his staff and the FBI to appreciate or care about the fact that our political system works this way.  A third is something of the opposite of the second:  knowledge that the system does work this way and a hope that they can strike a blow that could lead to change (which has not yet occurred despite many efforts to clean up the system over the decades).

            But it is the fourth and fifth possible reasons that strike me as the most plausible, even if the fifth will strike others as bizarre. 

            The fourth reason is a desire that Obama's seat not be, and a fear that it imminently might be, sold to the highest bidder unless Fitzgerald acted immediately.  Fitzgerald and company did not want to wait until the seat was sold, when they would have evidence of the completed purchase, and evidence of the participation of the other side to the transaction.  Such evidence would have made the case more likely to succeed in court, but waiting for the sale was fraught with difficulties, including that there would be very strident accusations that Fitzgerald was acting because of some sort of antipathy to the particular buyer.

            The fifth reason, the one that has struck some of my colleagues as bizarre, perhaps because they have never lived in Chicago, where I grew up, is this:  I suggest that Fitzgerald and the FBI agents were really outraged by the language they heard (just as a lot of people, even Republicans, were outraged by the language they heard Nixon use on the Watergate tapes).  Bleep this and bleep that obviously means "f*ck this" and "f*ck that."  Around the country, most people don't punctuate every other sentence with f*ck this, f*ck that, f*ck him, he's a fuckin' a**hole, etc., etc.  Nor do they like it when they hear people talk like that.  But in Chicago that is how a lot of people regularly talk.  (Not everyone in Chicago speaks like Obama, you know.)  Many of us who grew up there learned to talk like that, and, when we've lived elsewhere, have learned that people elsewhere dislike and won't listen to the views (no matter how intelligent) of someone who speaks in a way that is par for the course in Chicago.  (You may remember that people used to react badly to a southern accent (which they considered a sign of stupidity) or to a Brooklyn accent or speech.  The same is true of the Chicago style of speaking that I am discussing here.) 

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Lawrence R. Velvel is a cofounder and the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, and is the founder of the American College of History and Legal Studies.
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