We have the shoe, but who will we throw it at?
The devil always smiles. Just like Madoff after returning to "house arrest" in his $7 million apartment.
Madoff. Made-off. As in, he allegedly "made off with" $50 billion. The name should have been an alleged dead giveaway.
But I guess $50 billion buys you some perks.
Then there's Blago. Forget Blagojevich. He's just plain Blago. Another name that reveals. (Nomen est omen, in Latin). He's part Blago the Clown, part Blago that Joe Pesce-talking tough guy that teeters on the edge between funny-mad and funny-crazy.
But Blago may seems like an alleged bush league crook in comparison to the alleged Madoff. Who knows what Blago really meant when he said Obama's Senate seat "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing"?
Maybe the seat was simple a comfortable place for coitus, alleged or otherwise?
Would that Lucky Luciano should have had such a way with words. But he certainly understood--and wasn't afraid to exercise--the mechanisms of power like Blago.
Did Blago break the law? Or should I say, did he allegedly break the laws for he's been indicted? Did the Feds move in too quickly--having been tipped by the Chicago Tribune (whose editorial board Blago was allegedly trying to have fired in exchange for the Wrigley Field deal)?
You know Wrigley Field? That's the place where the Chicago Cubs have played baseball since 1916. The last time they won the World Series . . . that would be 1908.
But these are mere bagatelles (to borrow from Edward Doheny on his "gift" to Harding's Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall).
Mere allegations. Points of law.
Then we have the shoe-throwing incident.
An Iraqi journalist allegedly does what the American and rest of the world media failed to do for eight years. Hold Bush accountable for what he's saying. Or at least respond to the disconnect between reality and Bush-speak in an attention-getting, thought-provoking way.
Is there a law against it? Probably. There seems to be little doubt about the allegation that the Iraqi questioner threw the shoe. Or shoes.
Is there a victim?
Certainly Bush's gravitas--for what that's worth. And that of the American Presidency--but that's been on the skids for several decades. The shoe-tossing only revealed what 9-11 and two wars could not: the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
Power, Machiavelli might advise, relies not just on its exercise but on its assumption. You can't stomp on every shoe-tosser to keep them in line. But you've got to make them think you could and would.
I feel bad that Dana Perino got a black-eye from a microphone. (But if that's the worst thing she comes away from the Bush years she's not doing too badly.)
And the poor guys from the Secret Service were, well, "slow-footed" in their response to the alleged shoe-assault. They seemed as shocked as the rest of the world in this strangely inappropriate, yet appropriate action. I assume on some level, deep in their subconscious minds well below their training, they wanted to see the action fulfilled.
After his arrest, the Iraqi shoe-tosser didn't get an ankle-bracelet and house arrest. Seems like he "fell down" in custody and broke some ribs, etc., and could end up doing 15 years in Iraqi jail--while Madoff is smiling on his back to his millionaire lair and Blago is safely lawyered up and still calculating.
The Iraqi journalist, like Blago, saw the "fucking valuable thing" (i.e., shoe-tossing opportunity) to vent his nation's and the world's wrath at the futility of its actions in a world run by Bush and Blago and Madoff.
Who allegedly have "made-off" with free markets and democracy. And are still able to smile about it.
"Size 10," Bush joked.
But unlike Bush and Blajo and Madoff, nobody seems to know the Iraqi journalist's name. He has become what we are: a fate without a name.