Devil's Advocate

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I recently read an opinion column in which the author, seeking to play devil's advocate, asked if what Governor Rod Blagojevich did in regards to trying to sell Senator Barack Obama's Senate seat was actually illegal.

I don't know all the ins and outs of the legality of such a move. If Blago can be busted for anything, I suppose it is for conspiring to sell a Senate seat, since he didn't actually make any transactions. But the author in this column said that politicians are always offering deals in exchange for campaign funds. I suppose that if all Blago had asked for was money for his next campaign, then what he was attempting may have fallen within the realm of legality, shady as it was and is. But he wasn't just hustling for campaign funds. He was also hustling for money in his own pocket, or money in his wife's pocket via an appointment to a board directorship. So that was definitely illegal.

However, for the sake of argument, let us assume that G-Rod was just trying to get campaign funds, and that he was offering a very sweet incentive for lots of cash in his campaign coffers. If that were true, then we could just all agree that he was being an idiot. And, if that is case, we can apply a quote from the movie Hancock:

"It isn't a crime to be an [idiot], but it is counter-productive."
~Jason Bateman, as Ray Embrey

Comments

The Margin Wight said…
Nice work-in of the Hancock quote. I didn't know that i-d-i-o-t was how you spelled the word I heard in the film. I guess this is a family blog.
December 20, 2008 at 12:25 AM
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