Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - Posts
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TELL me that the Illinois governor's idiocy isn't entertaining. Melinda, please don't take this personally. How absolutely dumb and jaw-droppingly venal can you be? Openly selling a Senate seat? Shaking down the Chicago Tribune's editorial board: Did he really think the newspaper wouldn't expose him? You couldn't put this in a comic novel: It's too ridiculous for fiction.
Maybe I'm finding it hilarious because I just spent a week in bed with bronchitis, and I really needed to laugh out loud (albeit wheezing a bit). Maybe it's because I assume that politicians are often doing nasty things behind our backs, and I love to see them get their comeuppance. Or maybe it's because my very first political memory is of coming home eagerly every day from junior high school to watch the Watergate hearings. How much fun was that?! The evil henchmen Haldeman and Ehrlichman! The upright whistleblower John Dean! The irrepressible Martha Mitchell! The haplessly loyal Rosemary Woods! Oh golly, that was so much better than watching game shows or my mother's soap operas. And in Watergate the bad guys actually paid for their wrongdoing—unlike, say, the Reagan administration for its constitutional violations in Iran-Contra, or W.'s administration for eliminating habeas corpus, violating the Geneva Conventions, and lying to take us to war?
Come to think of it, maybe that's why I'm lapping this one up so happily: It sure looks like Blago will quickly go down, and other evildoers with him. And because it's so nice to have a good old-fashioned influence-peddling scandal to follow for awhile, something purely about self-interest and money—instead of a pointless sex scandal, where we have to debate Whether and Why We Care What He Does With His Zipper. (Boring!) The Blago cast of characters looks like it will be lovely as it unrolls in the weeks to come. The Upright Patrick Fitzgerald! The (so-far) Honorable President-elect Barack Obama, whose push for an ethics bill may have set the ball rolling! The Lady Macbeth, played by Patti Blagojevich! Who else will we meet in the weeks to come?
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In light of various conversations as of late regarding the sex lives of young women, I was amused to see Trend de la Creme's clever coolhunter take on the phenomenon. Pointing to an array of recent studies and stories on female sexuality gone wild, Jill Sherman spotlights the advent of one-night stand "kits" marketed to women. "[I]s this fem phenom behind the proliferation of one-night stand kits made specifically for the woman who wakes up in dire need of a fresh pair of panties? Or did women just get tired of gifting fruit baskets to their girlfriends, driving demand for something a little more interesting?" she wonders. From the "Just in Case" overnighter to the "Ho on the Go" set to the "Walk of Shame" kit, the results suggest there's a market in pandering to women with a morning-after guilt complex about casual sex.
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Moe,
I think your response was both perceptive and accurate. And you referenced freaking Fukuyama, which I just have to respect. If we weren't on the same page before, we are now. Except maybe about the whole we-drink-because-of-the-pill thing, 'cause, I mean, we get fat because of the pill, everyone around us wants to drink because of the pill; it doesn't usually drive me to bemoan my lack of social capital. Maybe the lack of chocolate chips in my belly... but not my lack of social capital.
No, no, I got your real point, and I deeefinitely found it a little sobering (or not! ha, ha?) that the only place where the Royal We can find trust these days is in the poorly lit, boozy confines of the last social institution standing. Or kind of standing, if you're frequenting the right bar.
After reading your post, a friend of mine raised a point I thought you'd find interesting: He said that the lack of trust in circulation these days is a result of the decline of our "stabilizing institutions" (his term) and the trust they once fostered. He came up with four institutions: the family, the community, the church, and the government, all four of which, he argued, were mindful of their proper roles and capable of serving humanity at some point and time.
Not recently, perhaps. Regardless, we don't trust those institutions any longer, and so we've withdrawn from them (possible explanation for the disappearance of the moral hazard?). We've gone in search of new communities and found them online—which is the other place, I'd argue, we go to find trust besides the bar. But when we sign off, you're right, we go where everybody knows your name/ and everybody's glad you came. And with a buzz and the hope of "getting out there and making some bad decisions" (great wisdom from the mouth of Vince Vaughn!), we find ... trust? Or ... something like it. I guess everything really does look better after a few drinks.
I suppose it'll have to do, anyway, until those old stabilizing institutions step up their game and figure out a way to regain a little trust themselves.
Until then, we'll be at the bar.
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We're pleased to announce that Jessica Grose is coming on board as the managing editor of Double X, Slate's new women's web magazine launching in the spring. Jessica comes to us from Jezebel, and before her stint there, Spin. Jessica, welcome—we're very glad to have you.
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Just finished reading the Blagojevich complaint, which I shouldn't have looked at so late at night, because it only woke me up and raised all kinds of perplexing questions. Like, did the man never see a single episode of The Sopranos? There he is, on his very own phone, endlessly babbling "me want payola'' (OK, that is a paraphrase). He even talks about news reports that the Federal investigators who've been after him for years are tapping his phones!
Love his wife's cameo, in which the first lady of Illinois is screaming so loudly while he's on the phone that the wiretap picks her up, too, raging that he should withhold state assistance for the Tribune Co.'s sale of Wrigley Field unless the Chicago Tribune fires its editorial writers for being so mean and critical of their fine governor. How was it Mrs. B so charmingly put it? Oh, yes, here it is: "Hold up that fucking Cubs shit ... fuck them." But this is exciting: Singled out for the ire of the Blagos was ... my son's lovely godfather, editorial writer John McCormick. According to the criminal complaint, "ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked HARRIS [his chief of staff] whether he told Deputy Governor A that 'McCormick is going to get bounced at the Tribune.' (McCormick is believed to be John P. McCormick, the Chicago Tribune's Deputy Editorial Page Editor) ... HARRIS stated, 'I had singled out McCormick as somebody who was the most biased and unfair.' " Later, the guv is mad when despite his machinations, John survives the latest round of cuts. (Dude, we knew you had role model potential!)
More than anything, though, Blagojevich just seems delusional, ranting that maybe that f'ing Obama can get Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to fund an "issue advocacy organization''—that advocates for his enrichment and deals solely with the heartbreaking issue of a certain corrupt governor who wants $$$. And here's clear thinking: He imagines that if all else fails, he can appoint himself to fill Obama's Senate seat and voilà, legal problems solved. At least when his predecessor George Ryan knew his days were numbered, he did one decent thing he'll be remembered for: He emptied the state's Death Row. Next to this guy, Ryan was a hero.
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