Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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Illinois and Iraq

Rich Galen

Friday January 230, 2009

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This was the lead in yesterday afternoon's Chicago Tribune story, following the conviction of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

The Illinois Senate voted to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office Thursday, marking the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted.

The vote to oust Blagojevich, who is a Democrat, was a very close � 59-0.

The thing which struck me about the Trib's lead was the phrase "the state's long history of political corruption."

What a wonderful legacy to the Republic that its fifth most populous State have a "long history of corruption."

And how absolutely marvelous that the very state which has that "long history of corruption" happens to the be the home state of � Oh, my. Can it be? Yes! President Barack Obama. The only person ever to have served in the Illinois State Senate to have emerged with his robes unsoiled; his hands unsullied; his soul pure.

It is as if you cannot just say his name. Angels have to sing it: Baaaaarrrrraaaaack Ohhhhhbaaaaaahhhhma.

Well, we'll see.

The thing about Blagojevich I have disliked the most is how hard it is to remember how to spell his name. Sort of like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Or Albuquerque.

Gray Davis was recalled in California. Elliott Spitzer resigned in New York. And now Rod Blogzoiub;zytch has been convicted of impeachment in Illinois. While they certainly do not have the corner on corruption and bad behavior, it seems to me that Democratic Governors are in a slump.

Oh, and I almost forgot Bill Richardson, the Governor of the state which contains that confounded Albuquerque. Steamboat Bill, you may remember, had to resign as Secretary of Commerce in the Cabinet of Baaaaarrrrraaaaack Ohhhhhbaaaaaahhhhma before he even got sworn in because he is under investigation for selling state business in return for contributions.

That's four for four corrupt (or inept) Democratic Governors.

Dear Mr. Mullings:

The Governor of Illinois immediately preceding Rod Blo*&(^i8dvich is named George Ryan.
Ryan, a Republican, is currently the Governor of Cell Block E in the federal slammer outside of Terra Haute having been convicted of corruption but not until he had left office.
To be fair, we think that counts.
Signed,
The National Association of State Historians
Four for five, then.

Now, to the second half of the title.

Iraq has largely been out of the news of late. If Iraq were in the news this is what you would be reading, from Tina Susman of the LA Times:

About 14,500 candidates are running for 440 seats on 14 provincial councils.
Unlike the last such election in 2005, when Sunni parties boycotted the balloting, Sunnis groups are taking part this time in hopes of unraveling the uneven distribution of power that resulted in Shiites and Kurds dominating provincial councils.

Wait. What? There are elections going on in Iraq? And each of the three major groups - Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds are participating? And this hasn't been front page news?

One of the 14,500 Iraqis running for a council seat is a guy named Salah al-Rekhayis who lives outside of Basra in the southern part of Iraq.

What makes al-Rekhayis special is that he is, according to the Associated Press, Black. In a piece filed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra,

Iraqis who have African roots � have never been allowed to run in any Iraqi elections, or to hold important executive positions of power in either political or corporate areas of the country. Until now.

Mr. al-Rekhayis calls himself "The Iraqi Obama."

That is close, but he needs high level profession political help such as I can offer. If I were running his campaign, his posters would say:

VOTE FOR IRAQ OBAMA

That's why I get paid the big bucks.

The Iraqi elections will be held on Saturday but the once mighty Muqtada al-Sadr is nowhere to be seen. According to Time Magazine's Mark Kukis writing from Baghdad,

The cleric [is] scarcely a presence in Iraqi politics these days. A series of military defeats at the hands of toughened Iraqi security forces plus political missteps over the past year by al-Sadr and his followers have left the future of the mass movement in doubt.

Let's see: Free elections. Iraqis in control of their own security. Things are going better in Iraq than they are in Illinois.

The good guys won.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to all the articles mentioned above. A Mullfoto left over from the weekend before the Inaugural of Baaaaarrrrraaaaack Ohhhhhbaaaaaahhhhma and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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