Waiting For It to Hit

I could have listened to my grandfather. He turned down the governorship of West Virginia in the 40s, retiring to Florida and to a second career in banking. He wanted me to go to Florida law school, marry one of his State Senate cronies’ granddaughters and become Governor of the Sunshine State. I went into broadcasting instead. Under the circumstances, I am beginning to think I really missed out on a lot – hookers, clothes and jail. Governors Eliot Spitzer, Sarah Palin and Rod Blagojevich, take a bow.

New York’s crime busting Spitzer at least had more class, if not gravitas, than to get busted in Trenton by undercover police busting “Johns” for soliciting sex from street walkers. It would have made better story. Right-wing radio ate it up anyway. A Democrat and a prostitute make a great daily double. Alaska’s “Bridge-to-Nowhere” Palin should be incarcerated for the attempted murder of a language. That she could not get her stories straight and helped John McCain lose the presidential election did not matter to right-wing radio. Being a Republican and a conservative babe made for another daily double.

However, Illinois’ crusading reformer Blagojevich (Bluh-GOY-uh-vich) succeeded Republican Governor George Ryan, who was sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison for racketeering and fraud. Few people outside of the Prairie State (also known as the Sucker State) care. The Democrat governor having been arrested on federal corruption charges for attempting to sell the president-elect’s senate seat for which he can go to jail gives the right-wing a trifecta. Rush must be in heaven. What could be better than graft, corruption and Obama-by-implication?

The Washington Post’s George Will cannot quit chewing on the Fairness Doctrine rag that right-wing radio named the “Hush Rush Bill.” Now that Blagojevich has hit the news, Will and the rest of conservative center-right broadcast and print punditry have a new rag to chew. Wait until the inauguration is over.

It is doubtful that main stream media will go easy on this story, especially since its subject seems oblivious to the size of the dung heap he has built for himself. What is significant to the Premise Loft is how the conservatives respond to the case. Kristol, Will, Krauthammer, Gerson and even Brooks are doubtless word processing as I post. Doubtless they are looking up “Sucker State.” We will get to see how they prepare for the moments when the ubiquitous It hits the Obama administration. And It will.