An end to flimflam
Toolbox
Published: January 10, 2009
This peculiar interregnum between the expired Bush and nascent Obama administrations has been like a magical mystery tour of the highs and lows of politics.
The arrest and impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois have furnished a paradigm of the squalid and corrupt. Blagojevich is a caricature of the crude and narcissistic pol, and Americans are wondering: How did this guy get elected? Voters have elected crooks before, but seldom has the crookedness been exposed so blatantly.
Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama brought the circus to Washington, where Burris showed up seeking admission to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had vowed never to seat a Blagojevich appointee, but he appears ready to relent because the sins of Blagojevich do not seem to have touched Burris. Thus, the Democrats have gradually come to the conclusion that there is no basis for keeping Burris out.
This bizarre turn of events threatened to embarrass the Democrats and to distract Obama from the serious business in which he is now engaged. But it has done something else. It has shown the vast gulf that exists between politics as sideshow and politics as a serious undertaking.
Obama has an uncanny ability to ignore the sideshow. Over the last few days he has focused on serious issues of state in the way that presidents are meant to do. It is a reminder of the unending sideshow to which the American people have been exposed in recent years. It has been an era of flimflam on which, at long last, the curtain is coming down.
Flimflam has dominated business, of course, from the scandals of Enron to the housing debacle that is at the root of the economic collapse. Bernard Madoff is an exemplar of business flimflam, much more successful over the years than Blagojevich, whose political flimflammery was paltry by comparison.
Political flimflam has covered the gamut, from the congressional chicanery of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay to the executive secrecy and megalomania of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Anyone who sought to raise questions of substance that ran counter to the confidence game undertaken by these charlatans was drummed out of the business.
Obama continues to impress observers by the way he is taking his responsibilities seriously. His appointments of Leon Panetta as CIA director and Dennis Blair as national intelligence director indicate he is serious about his commitment to end the regime of torture that was one of the greatest crimes of the Bush administration. Obama reiterated his views on torture on Friday.
"I was clear throughout this campaign and was clear throughout this transition that under my administration the United States does not torture," Obama said. "We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals."
The legal flimflammery by which the Bush administration led the nation into the dark regions of torture and other abuses is coming to an end. And it's about time.
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