Orange County Owl Wrote:My mom was an employee for the State of Illinois for over 30 years (southern Illinois/St. Louis suburbs). I didn't think that anything could surprise her any more re: Illinois politics - but this one seems to have really set her off. Blagjufvhjkch ran on a "clean house/anti-corruption" platform - following George Ryan, who is in jail for selling drivers licenses for cash.

His other, lesser known campaign platform - criticizing Ryan for being penny wise, pounds foolish, should have tipped off more people.

A Chicago TV station is now reporting that, prior to entering politics, Blago was a bookie in the Chicago suburbs - regularly paying a "street tax" to the mob.

Unreal.


http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section...id=6559104

And what does it take for media to look for this stuff before they are elected?

gsloth Wrote:And what does it take for media to look for this stuff before they are elected?

Maybe some corruption for politicians is "par for the course" in Illinois, as is in Louisiana.

A Democrat friend of mine pointed out tonight at dinner that payoffs, kickbacks, sex scandals, drug scandals, gambling, and connections to sleezy labor union bosses do not disqualify a Democrat candidate.

"It's not like they killed anyone"....

gsloth Wrote:And what does it take for media to look for this stuff before they are elected?

Depends on who the media wants to see elected.

CTRice10 Wrote:

texd Wrote:

illiniowl Wrote:The funny thing is, calling him stupid isn't just hyperbole: the man literally got an 18 on his ACT - the equivalent of an 870 on the SAT. For letting this idiot in (even as a transfer student), Northwestern ought never to be ranked above Rice again.

Well, we've got our own shining example of idiocy in the former Atty General, but since most of his major gaffes can be plausibly covered up by memory lapses he could always claim it was his college pursuits (and thus the brain cells he left behind at Rice) that was the culprit, thus taking the Rice admissions office off the hook (and yes, I'm sure he had a stellar resume including starting the knitting club at his high school or whatever).

I dunno how Gonzales got in to Rice, but I know it was after he washed out of the Air Force (I think he did two years at the Academy, then two years at Rice).

Just let it be noted for the record that according to the Sallyport, Gonzales was an honor student in high school, enlisted in the Air Force, earned an appointment to the USAFA, made the dean's list each semester, and then transferred to Rice (and went on to Harvard Law - as compared to Pepperdine Law for Blagojevich). Say what you will about his post-Rice career, but I don't think Rice compromised any of its standards in letting Gonzales in, whereas Northwestern had no business ever admitting someone of Blagojevich's average-to-below-average intelligence and achievement.

Admittedly, I just like sticking it to Northwestern whenever I can, probably because I've met a lot of alums here in Chicago. They're all basically fine people, but I'll forever be jealous that they got to go to a Rose Bowl in their lifetime while we missed the Cotton Bowl on a stupid tiebreaker rule.

OptimisticOwl Wrote:I just saw a poll that said 79% (of 500 likely Illinois voters) think the Gov. should go to jail.

I wonder what the other 21% are thinking.

They were thinking... "Hey, the check cleared"

Like I said, he could always blame Rice for loss of brain cells. That's what I do.

I think this SNL Weekend Update summarizes many of the Blago jokes pretty well.

The mistake that Gonzales made was going along to find a way to do what Bush wanted instead of telling him why that was not the best course of action. Also, he did not take into account how the move from White House counsel (Bush was the client) to Attorney General (client is the United States) affected his duty. Gonzales had a fine career until he became United States AG. He left the Academy after two years because he realized he was no longer interested in a military career and the service commitment begins when they report for the junior year. Gonzales was selected for the Academy after he had served as an enlisted man.

(12-18-2008 01:52 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

CTRice10 Wrote:

texd Wrote:

illiniowl Wrote:The funny thing is, calling him stupid isn't just hyperbole: the man literally got an 18 on his ACT - the equivalent of an 870 on the SAT. For letting this idiot in (even as a transfer student), Northwestern ought never to be ranked above Rice again.

Well, we've got our own shining example of idiocy in the former Atty General, but since most of his major gaffes can be plausibly covered up by memory lapses he could always claim it was his college pursuits (and thus the brain cells he left behind at Rice) that was the culprit, thus taking the Rice admissions office off the hook (and yes, I'm sure he had a stellar resume including starting the knitting club at his high school or whatever).

I dunno how Gonzales got in to Rice, but I know it was after he washed out of the Air Force (I think he did two years at the Academy, then two years at Rice).

Just let it be noted for the record that according to the Sallyport, Gonzales was an honor student in high school, enlisted in the Air Force, earned an appointment to the USAFA, made the dean's list each semester, and then transferred to Rice (and went on to Harvard Law - as compared to Pepperdine Law for Blagojevich). Say what you will about his post-Rice career, but I don't think Rice compromised any of its standards in letting Gonzales in, whereas Northwestern had no business ever admitting someone of Blagojevich's average-to-below-average intelligence and achievement.

Admittedly, I just like sticking it to Northwestern whenever I can, probably because I've met a lot of alums here in Chicago. They're all basically fine people, but I'll forever be jealous that they got to go to a Rose Bowl in their lifetime while we missed the Cotton Bowl on a stupid tiebreaker rule.

I apologize if it seemed like I was questioning Gonzales' intelligence or whether it was right for Rice to accept his application. I was just trying to provide some information and was going from memory from the research I did when I wrote a column about Gonzales for the Thresher a year or two ago. Maybe "washed out" was the wrong phrase as well. My bad.