Good one Phil.
The one problem with these independent counsels are, they're given an open ended budget, with no time limits. The dumb investigation can go on for years, tens of millions spent, or conceivably with zero conclusions.
Posted on 07/09/2006 9:35:01 PM PDT by RWR8189
President Bush faces a major test of his integrity when, or if, he ever gets around to reappointing Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney in Chicago.
The nation needs to know that Bush's failure to back Fitzgerald will betray a gapping hole in the conscience of the president. While most of America may think of Fitzgerald as the aggressive prosecutor in the Valerie Plame affair and the bombing of the World Trade Center, those of us in Chicago have a closer view of the man.
He is one of the few government officials left in Chicago and Illinois that loathes corruption, and who is in a position to do something about as the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois.
In that role, he has put away former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and a host of other grafters. He is scrutinizing current Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration for its hiring practices. And he is hot on the trail of the corruption that pervades Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall. Score another for Fitzgerald as a federal jury this week convicted Daley's patronage chief and three other men on charges that they engaged in an elaborate and long-running scheme to reward the mayor's campaign workers with choice jobs.
New York Times columnist David Brooks, among others, labors under the impression that this part of the city's Democratic "machine" was dead, but the scheme, which violated a federal court order, long has provided Daley and his allies with an army of faithful doorbell ringers on election day. Patronage is very much alive and is every bit an essential part of the Chicago machine as the more lucrative awarding of rich consulting, construction and franchise contracts to favored relatives and friends. In Chicago, many folks consider this "soft graft," which makes the "city that works" work.
And so, Daley, is named the nation's best mayor and dines with President George W. Bush the evening of his special 60th birthday. Bush and some urban observers dote on Daley as if he was the genius who almost single-handedly turned a stinking swamp into a city beautiful. Cities elsewhere would be making a huge mistake to think so, as incompetent no-shows, for example, fill jobs critically important to public safety. And citizens and taxpayers are cheated.
Which brings us back to Fitzgerald. Without him, who will be left to chase the snakes out of Chicago and into the federal pen? Certainly no one who is a part of the interlocking Republocratic party that runs most of what passes for government in Chicago and Illinois.
So at Bush's Friday press conference in Chicago, while other reporters were asking him weighty questions about global and national matters, he was surprised by a local reporter's question: Does he plan to reappoint Fitzgerald? According to the Chicago Tribune's Michael Tackett, Bush said he hadn't really thought about that, then "recovered by saying that the decision would fall to Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales." Then Bush made a startling admission: even though Fitzgerald's Chicago investigations have received national coverage, Bush, who said he wanted to get to Chicago to experience more of the "real" America, "allowed that he hadn't paid much attention to Fitzgerald's investigations...."
That should ferment some happy bubbles in the political cesspool that is Chicago. The president's inattention will be welcomed by the Chicago political establishment, which despises Fitzgerald and opposed him from the start, when he was nominated by former Illinois Sen. Peter (no relation) Fitzgerald, widely considered to be renegade (i.e., he refused to take orders from the goniffs). In a word, establishment Republicans and Democrats want him gone.
And there's good reason to think he might be, aside from the president's non-assurance. One of the chief practitioners of Illinois establishment politics is Republican operative Bob Kjellander, who brags (whether true or not) about his friendship with Bush chief political strategist, Karl Rove. Despite Kjellander's engineering Bush defeats in Illinois and other Midwest states, the White House (Rove?) thought he was pretty hot stuff and brought him to the Beltway where he is engineering who knows what political disaster.
Kjellander also will be credited with the coming GOP election disaster in Illinois, thanks to his help in selecting state Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka to run against incumbent Blagojevich. She's a dear lady, a treasured "moderate," but not a gusty independent willing to stand up to the political establishment.
The point is that Kjellander (pronounced Shelander), a Republican national committeeman who has received $800,000 in unexplained fees through a state bond-borrowing deal engineered by Democrat Blagojevich, is no fan of Fitzgerald's either. No one, in other words, in the political establishment in Chicago or Washington, is pushing for Fitzgerald's reappointment.
This is more than a parochial political battle. It bears watching by a nation that has become disgusted by corruption on the federal level. Chicago and Illinois have reached a critical stage. On one side are the co-joined interests of both political parties, and on the other is the much smaller group who value honesty and good government. Their only standard-bearer is Patrick Fitzgerald.
Bush's failure to reappoint Fitzgerald would tell the nation that he doesn't mind the kind of corruption that infects Chicago and Illinois. It will be the kind of surrender to the most destructive kind of politics that have disgusted so many Americans.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand
Why is there a need for re-appointment? Is there a term associated with these posts?
(Donning flame suit)
I agree 98% with this column. Chasing down corrupt pols is/was the perfect millieu for Fitz. He is an "untouchable", and he is tenacious. He has also had a fair amount of success in this, his area of expertise.
That said, he is in way over his head with the Plame/Libby stuff and he knows it. I am nearly certain that he would prefer that the whole thing just go away (Hello? Judge Reggie?) so he can get back to what he does best - - trying to clean up Chicago and Illinois.
You don't understand, Chicago is the place that invented vote fraud. Remember how in 2000, in Florida, there were counties that had twice the normal average of "overvotes", where one person "voted" for two or more candidates for the same office? I believe that the national average was one half percent, but in these Florida counties it was one percent. There was a freeper named Jason who did a very interesting analysis of this. Well, in Cook County(Chicago) in 2000, the percent of overvotes was seven percent!
Was there widespread vote fraud, or are Cook County votes just that stupid?
Well, there's an argument to be made for the latter. Last March, Cook County held its primary election for County Board President, in charge of a 2 billion dollar budget. In the Democratic primary, the current Board President is machine Democrat John Stroger. John Stroger suffered a massive stroke a few weeks before the primary, and as far as we know, is incapacitated. I say, "as far as we know", because since early March, no one has been allowed to see or hear John Stroger. (Remember how we used to speculate about the health of Soviet leaders when we hadn't seen them for a few weeks?)
Despite his incapacity, Democrats in Cook County voted for Stroger in the primary anyway over Forrest Claypool, a reform candidate who was also a Board member but who had the additional advantage of being a living, breathing person, with full control over his faculties. Why would the Democratic machine in Cook County encourage people to vote for an incapacitated person over another Democrat? Because, if the incapacited person wins, the local bosses get to decide who will replace him as Board President. So, in effect, Democrats in Cook County voted to let someone else decide who will be the County Board President.
So once again, my question is: "Is Chicago that corrupt, or are Chicago Democrats that stupid?"
What about Gerald Fitzpatrick? * rim shot *
The author of this piece offers only a false choice with a false predicate.....Fitzgerald is one of the few left in Chicago who hates the kind of corruption that infects Chicago.....I think that is bullshit. Many people hate that kind of corruption. Fitzgerald has shown his own partisan corruption whick strikes at the heart of the executive branch of government. To prosecute in Plame case needs certain criteria to be fulfilled. Once satisfied there was no fulfilled criteria, he should have closed the grand jury down and gone home. But he wanted to stay in the headlines, so he went after Libby. And so it goes with this man of great moral fiber
good point
Good one Phil.
The one problem with these independent counsels are, they're given an open ended budget, with no time limits. The dumb investigation can go on for years, tens of millions spent, or conceivably with zero conclusions.
This is some sort of joke right?
Please President Bush DO NOT RE-APPOINTMENT FITZ...HE'S NOTHING MORE THAN A LEFT WING POLITICAL HACK HACK HACK!!!
This isn't about his role as special prosecutor in the Plame case, its about his role as US Attorney in Illinois.
Woo Hoo Phil! You and I both like beanie caps and lots of color. Peter Max would have liked you!
Perhaps so. But the article's premise is highly questionable.
It assumes that Bush won't re-appoint Fitzgerald. Nobody knows that.
And, given that President Bush usually says exactly what he's thinking, I'm inclined to take his statement at face value: I.e., For understandable reasons, he really hasn't given the issue any thought.
Perhaps so. But the article's premise is highly questionable.
It assumes that Bush won't re-appoint Fitzgerald. Nobody knows that.
And, given that President Bush usually says exactly what he's thinking, I'm inclined to take his statement at face value: I.e., For understandable reasons, he really hasn't given the issue any thought.
And when did the Chicago Tribune start caring about putting Daley and his buddies butts in jail ??
Cripes what a position he puts Bush in. If he reappoints they'll say it's payback for not indicting Rove. If he doesn't, it will be payback because of Scooter.
Isn't this just special. (Thanks for the ping.)
Fitzgerald wants to replace political bosses with bureaucrats. That is not an improvement. It just replaces people who can be voted out of office with people who cannot. It just replaces people who steal millions with people who waste billions.
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