What comes around, goes around

By now, most of you have heard of the scandal in Illinois regarding the arrest of the Governor on graft charges. This is the type of story that reaffirms my belief in karma (or a facsimile thereof), in that the party of the recent national elections is now the recipient of the taint that they were so quick to throw to the losing party just two months earlier. The President-Elect (should he be referred to as POTUS-e? TPE? That last one sounds too much like a popular reference to bathroom tissue, we can't have that. But I digress...) is involved because this is his home state, and the scandal involves the Governor's legislative responsibility to designate a successor to the POTUS-e's Senate seat. Governor Blagojevich ("Blago") has been caught on voice recordings with many direct statements about how he (was) planning to sell the seat to the highest bidder, which is clearly against the law. The fact that he comes off as arrogant and aloof doesn't help. But equal to all of this is that Blago is a Democrat that is tied to the POTUS-e, and suddenly the POTUS-e's image is not so golden. Immediate reaction from the media is shock and awe -- Blago wasted no opportunity to voice his opinions, and most of them were caustic -- and it's been interesting to watch the Matthews and Olbermanns and Maddows of the world bob and weave while trying to get a grip on it all. "Surely this cannot be happening to our guy? He's not like one of them! This is so...so...(gasp) Republican!" Ah, that's the beauty of it. You see, kids, there's scum on both sides of the aisle. And yes, there's good people on both sides, too, but let this be a lesson to those who were so myopic that they failed to acknowledge this until now. Nobody's perfect -- we learned that long ago, first during the Kennedy election, and soon after with Watergate. Hey, it goes farther than that: Lincoln appointed his campaign manager to the Supreme Court (so there was a Harriet Myers before Harriet Myers). American politics in general, and POTUS history in particular, is littered with this type of thing. What makes it all worthwhile is to see the squirming of the mainstream media and devoted followers who never saw this coming and never expected their guys/gals to fall prey to this corruption. It just shows to go ya: it can happen to anyone.