You’ll be a Man, Mr. Blagojevich

Oh boy, here we go again. Another disgraced politician and another feeding frenzy for the popular media. Governor Blagojevich has not been one to disappoint thus far either. It seems that every time the news is turned on he has done something new and even more reprehensible than that which preceded it. As if it wasn’t bad enough to be publically disgraced under accusations of corruption and misuse of a public office, Mr. Blagojevich displays an air of confidence that can only be described as sheer arrogance. He has continued to spit in the face of his accusers while at the same time alienating himself from even his own party. This is very impressive, especially when one considers other politicians who have weathered their downfalls much more gracefully (see: Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay, and more recently Sarah Palin).

Now, in the interest of fairness to Mr. Blagojevich I suppose we should look at it from his point of view as well. As of yet we have only heard sound bites of his alleged atrocities and nothing concrete has been brought forward to condemn the so clearly confident man. So to cast judgment upon this man at this time would only be a flaw in our own human nature, but hey, who can help it right? I myself was trying to stay as impartial as possible and wait for the trial that the news assured was coming his way. I was, until Mr. Blagojevich decided to break his silence and speak out on his own behalf (no one else would). It was not so much the general claims of innocence that bothered me as much as his quoting of Kipling’s famous “If”. He presented this lovely dictation but made the same mistake the district attorney’s office did, he didn’t really say anything at all. Maybe I am an idealist, but once again I felt compelled to give Mr. Blagojevich the benefit of the doubt, after all it goes innocent until proven guilty right?

Unfortunately for Mr. Blagojevich that little sound bite might not apply. In his most recent act of foolishness, besides going about his official duties as if nothing is wrong, he attempted to appoint a new member to the currently vacant Senate seat which Barack Obama used to hold. Normally this is the job of the Governor of a state; however, given the circumstances one would hope that if you are being charged with corruption of a public office, such as the Governor’s office, you would not want to make any decisions that would shake the public’s faith in you, because let’s face it eventually they are the people you are going to have to answer to.

When it comes right down to it there are only a very few people who know exactly what happened at this point, and neither side is giving up too much of their hands at this point. It just seems to me that one party’s perception of reality is a little more distorted than that of the other. Alas, after all that has happened I still have faith. Faith that people can generally be good, faith that public servants are there because of their want to change the world for the better, faith in mankind. So I wait for the trial I am assured will come, I wait for the media circus and the parade of witnesses and testimony, but most of all I wait for Mr. Blagojevich to pull out the glove which does not fit. I wait for the revelation which will justify his poetic use of Kipling’s fine work, because I believe that Mr. Blagojevich will be a man yet.