Blagojevich Should Have Gone To Corruption School In Louisiana

Today we have all amusingly chuckled when Illinois Gov. Blagojevich got arrested for auctioning a Senate seat to whomever could muster the cushiest post-Gov position. Of course, the biggest consequence of this is the local pride the arrest stirred within those from the area, which could only be expressed in gleeful status updates and away messages proclaiming "home of the dirtiest politics!" or something to that effect. However, an honest appraisal of the skill of corruption is needed. Blagojegish did the deed himself, on the phone. Any bright-eyed, bushy-tailed grad student with copies of The Wire and The Shield knows that corruption is best administered low-key, in person and through trusted intermediaries.


Take "Dollar" Bill Jefferson for instance -- he accepted bribes from corporations in order to steer government contracts to them. The quid pro-quo was filtered through a shell company controlled by his progeny. So far, so good. He got busted by personally accepting a suitcase full of marked bills and then storing it in his freezer. Vic Mackey knows that dirty money should be kept in a storage facility under a fake name.

Edwin Edwards solicited bribes for casino licenses, using family and close associates to do the preliminary negotiations while referring to him only by nicknames. These solid tactics had allowed him to avoid convictions on two prior indictments and still be viewed as a sympathetic character deserving of presidential pardon. The Greek certainly approves! Edwards was done in by a massive betrayal of underlings and convicted only on circumstantial evidence.

So, to recap, Gov. Dasblagoblag would have been much better off taking cues from the Louisiana school of corruption. A Senate seat may have been "a fucking valuable thing", certainly worthy of a board appointment or two, but if he had just sat back and let the cronies come to him, negotiated by proxy, he might still be a Governor with the worst approval ratings ever. Instead he personally solicited bribes on a tapped phone line from the very political rivals that would benefit from turning him in. That is about as smart as setting up shop half a block from a Stanfield corner.