The Blago Book Club

The Chicago Sun-Times "opinion writers", under the
heading of "Blago Book Club", are having a discussion
with readers of the 78 page indictment of Illinois
Governor Rod Blagojevich. What did you like best
about it? Which part is most interesting?

in a related matter, Barack Obama's senate seat is for
sale on eBay, not by the Illinois Governor, who was
doing his best to auction it off, but by a college student
who will send the winner a before-and-after picture of
the supposed seat and by a pair of young men pictured
holding the "seat" aloft and promising a free domain
name to the winner.

Blagojevich is probably kicking himself for not having
thought of eBay, he must have forgotten Sarah Palin's
example. Too bad there isn't a Nobel Prize for
corruption. Blagojevich would surely win it this year.
He has even shocked the citizens of Chicago, that city
where offices and whole wards have been for sale,
where the dead rise from the graveyards and march
to the polls.

But one Chicago woman, after reading about
Blagojevich said: "We might as well open up the
jail house and turn those people out to run the
government.

Welfare Queens

The top dogs of the Big Three automakers zoomed
into Washington, tin cups in hand, seeking handouts
of taxpayers' money. They came in their three
separate corporate jets, flights costing thousands of
dollars, couldn't even jet pool.

GM's president didn't like the idea of being asked if
he was willing to give up his $22-million salary.
Ford's Alan Mulally made slightly less last year- only
$21.6-million.

The American Insurance Group (AIG), shortly after
a multi-billion handout financed by taxpayers,
treated four executives and friends to a pheasant
hunt in England. Total cost: $86,000. AIG had, a
month or so before, provided a $500,000 retreat at
a fancy California spa for its top dogs. After sipping
fine wines and shooting pheasants, its hand was out
again for a few more billions.

Remember when Ronald Reagan created the myth of
the Welfare Queen? This was supposedly a brazen
creature who showed up in a Cadillac to collect
welfare checks, several of them. The effort to portray
as rich cheats those forced to subsist on welfare
continued for another decade or so. Too bad Reagan
isn't around to see these real live Welfare Queens.