With all the stink has been hovering around Illinois lately, the question of American justice is once again at the forefront of political thought. Blagojevich has committed an egregious violation of the unwritten rules of American politics. Unlike many of his predecessors and colleagues, he has been caught red handed. It is not that other politicians do not leverage, or strong arm, or bribe or succumb to bribes, or buy or sell seats or offices, or use their position of power to attain a personal goal at the expense of the country, it's that they do it in a manner that protects them from justice. For example, they might be appointed to head the Department of Justice.
Indeed, American politics do not demand that you not be corrupt or incompetent because let's face it, if you're a Republican in our government, odds are you are either too stupid to hold the position you do or too corrupt to hold the position you do, or both. No they merely demand that you understand exactly what you can get away with and how to get away with it. If you can break the law and even commit treason to advance your political goals without having to answer for it, then do so.
If you don't want to break the law you can simply use your position in the government to just re-interpret what the law means or how it applies to you personally, and you will never have to answer for it.
Maybe you have a genuine belief that your decisions are ultimately helping this country instead of hurting it, and you are so stubborn in this belief that you forgo the advice of the very people whose very lives depend on those decisions. Costing American lives with incompetence is not prosecutable by law, is it?
No, in America being morally corrupt or incompetent does not impede your political career. Hell, if you're lucky enough you might even be appointed the presidency. And you can use your newly found and grossly undeserved position of power to succeed in waging an unnecessary war, ruining the economy, destroying our reputation, disobeying the Geneva convention and international law, ignoring the plight of our fellow citizens during time of catastrophe, illegally invading the privacy of genuine Americans, increasing corporate influence in government, propagating some of the biggest and most outlandish lies to the American people, enriching your friends by destroying the earth, and politicizing and corrupting justice itself! You can also fail at every other aspect of your job, including failing to prevent 9-11 by completely ignoring a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack within the United States". You can even fail to capture the culprit after the most heinous act of terrorism in human history despite having the most powerful military apparatus in the history of the world at your disposal for seven years. And you will never have to answer for it.
American justice is not blind. It discriminates. Thus, the most important proficiency in being a criminal in America is realizing this fact and understanding exactly how justice will be applied to you. This is precisely the reason why Blagojevich is such a circus clown, he just doesn't understand the rules.
cross-posted from Progressive Junction.