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Joining the elite means never having to say you're sorry.
Feb. 26, 2009 8:12pm - In Extremis
I tend to see our ruling class as a huge fornicating mass covered up by a beautiful blanket. Most of us, most of the time, are quite content to look at the lovely blanket and more than willing to ignore all the writhing and bestial grunting that's going on underneath.

It's a big blanket. It has to be to cover up all the naughty shenanigans our leaders--elected and unelected--get up to. But occasionally a little piggy will come wriggling out. Like poor old congressman Larry Craig, who actually did no wrong. He saw a copper he fancied, he made a play. Is it now illegal to try and have sex with policemen? Isn't there something in the Constitution about it?

But I digress. This week's wriggly little piggy is Democratic Senator Roland Burris, who allegedly has Rod Blagojevich's sticky little paw prints all over him and has been asked to resign by (among others) Republican Senator David Vitter, who was himself implicated in the DC Madam prostitution scandal of 2007.

How marvelously saucy. Of course, for ordinary folks like us, the real sport in all this is seeing how the wriggly piggies react when their fellow piggies kick them out into the sunlight.

There are several possible responses.

There's the wife-clutching denial that one has never had any thoughts whatsoever about cop knob except perhaps in the most abstract way possible.

There's the wife and kid clutching heartfelt apology where you beg forgiveness and promise never to do it again.

And then there's brazening up to the camera, jam smeared all around your grinning mouth, your hand still stuck in the jam jar, saying: "What?"

When Rod 'The Mod' Blagojevich was doing his who-me? routine for the cameras a few weeks back--parading the orphans, kittens and widows he'd personally hauled out of burning buildings, all the while wearing the dazed expression of a man who'd just been given a damn good whack between the eyes with a professionally wielded slaughterhouse cow hammer--I laughed, as you did.

It was a dog and pony show where the dogs were off humping each other in the corner and the ponies all wore clown noses, there's not much that's funnier than a stupid con man.

But hang on a second. What if Blagojevich's claims of innocence were genuine? Or rather--what if he genuinely believed that he's done nothing wrong?

For simple folk like you and me the rules are simple. Stealing from your family, co-workers or from poor people is wrong. Stealing from banks, however, is okay, but only if you get away with it. And you won't get away with it. They will shoot your sorry ass. And if you do get away with it, the bank you rob will almost certainly turn out to be a mafia bank. And the mafia will hunt you down like a dog, shoot your sorry ass and then piss on your body after torturing you for a bit. And then kill your family and make you watch. Even though you're already dead. They're crazy like that.

Nice clear simple rules.

Blagojevich came from a humble background. And then he became a politician. Which means he met the rich. The rules for the rich are also very simple.
1)    Everything is permissible, if you can get away with it.
2)    You almost certainly will get away it.
3)    Because we make the rules. HUZZAH!
4)    And if you do get caught, don't worry. We've got special tennis prisons for the rich where hardly anybody ever gets raped.
You can imagine the young Blagojevich's pulse racing, his eyes bulging, his hands shaking with excitement. You did what to them? You took how much? And all this is legal?

And of course most of the time it's totally legal. Take for instance Philadelphia's own Grand Poobah of the printing press Brian Tierney who, as you know, had his pockets crammed full of greenbacks shortly before the grand ship he steers crashed into rocks of bankruptcy.

Was there anything illegal about that? Of course not! But was it right? Was it decent? Was it Christian? Was it good? Did the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus looking down from heaven (Mr. Tierney is a Catholic in good standing) smile when they saw what he was doing? Now multiply such actions by the tens of thousands and you have the moral swamp in which guiltless rich swim. This is how business is done--never apologize, never explain, fuck the workers, and always look to the bottom line.

I'm guessing that Blagojevich's real crime will turn out to be not that he was a crook but that he's an idiot. Coming to political maturity in one of the most historically corrupt states in what has arguably been the most morally bankrupt decade in American post-war history, maybe Blagojevich's real mistake was failing to learn where the subtly marked tripwires were. You know, like the one painted with "don't talk about selling the President Elect's senate seat over the phone" in foot-tall letters of flame.

There are far, far bigger crooks than Blagojevich still strutting around Wall Street or relaxing in Preston Hollow, Dallas.

We should go easy on Rod Blagojevich. He's just an 'umble lad wot fell in wiv a rotten crowd, is all. ]]> http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/?inc=article&id=1142&x=making-all-the-rules&_c=a-e--in-extremis