By David Rutter
1. Jesse Jackson Jr., WTF?
Don’t you just hate it when bad things happen to good people? Er, wait a sec. Sorry. That was a mistake. We think it was an LSD Reflux Moment.
Go ahead, Junior, taunt the federal prosecutor’s office. Wag your finger in their face and tell them, “Bring it on.” And then duck when the smart bomb catches your scent and explodes inside your pants. Are you happy to see us, Jesse, or is that an ICBM in your pocket?
WTF has no evidence that the federal prosecutor would do such a thing in pique except for the larger cosmic reality that there are no real accidents or coincidences.
This is all good news. It now appears that the stunted fun of the Blago trial need not have yielded a total litany of convictions in order to be both amusing and cleansing.
Jackson is outraged that anyone could possible believe that he was peddling $6 million for the vacant Senate seat, but there is an irreconcilable logic. Oak Brook businessman and Democratic moneybags Raghuveer Nayak had nothing to sell to Blago, or anyone else, unless the price was the Senate seat. He’s not Tony Rezko who was selling, but not buying.
He had nothing to tempt Blago except Junior’s money. Why would he bargain unless Junior was in the bag? WTF hates it when motives are so transparent. It takes all the fun out of tortured logical examination.
Though the Sun-Times got this scoop, the last paragraph of Tuesday’s Tribune story had the most intriguing sentence of the day: “His attorney, Thomas McQueen, confirmed that Nayak discussed the Oct. 8 meeting with federal investigators and that Nayak provided documents about his dealings with Jackson.”
Ah yes, documents.
2. Edith Lovinger, WTH?
For the sake of Edith, this item was renamed What The Heck because she would have hated the other word.
We lost her six months ago, which was a sad event for their entire WTH family, but we have noticed how her legacy lives on . . . and on and pretty much on some more.
In the course of her eight decades, she managed to leave quite a few little nest eggs here and yonder, and also shared generously with causes she admired. Pretty much every organization that had an interest in Israel.
So, here is the result. Despite her passage to a better place (as defined as a place with no Glenn Beck), no one who ever held her money or asked her for money believes she has passed away. Every day, a dozen or so pieces of mail arrive here at WTF headquarters and at least a third of them are addressed to her. They still expect her contribution.
Banks? If you ever thought they paid no attention to you in a positive way while you are alive, consider how obsessive they will be about you after you’re gone. Two even distributed her nest eggs to the estate and then sent letters demanding she call as soon as she could and clear up this “dead” thing.
Over the course of six months, at least 300 mailings have arrived. Day after day. The only mail WTF receives is addressed to “occupant” and “resident.”
Neither phone calls nor personal visits will convince them. It’s like losing a video from Blockbuster before Blockbuster went belly up this week. There is no escape from people who want your money.
3. Sami Samir Hassoun, WTF?
How can you trust the intelligence and soundness of mind of a terrorist who wants to blow up a bar in Wrigleyville, but not blow up the Cubs? Just asking.
4. Carol Moseley-Braun, WTF?
Here’s what she has going for her as a candidate for mayor in Chicago: Amnesia.
Maybe she’s been out of public office so long, we forget what she was like when she occupied several offices. At several points, she appears to have completely lost track of what she was doing several seconds after she did it. Or maybe, even better, she has forgotten why she thought whisking out the door with every dollar she could stuff into her pockets was a passable example of public service.
Not only did she pillage the public purse, she was not very good at it, leaving a trail across the floor like a leaking snail.
She won her Senate seat mostly because the black community was angry over the Anita Hill reputation assassination try, but then turned a blind eye to the same thing in her own universe.
5. The GOP again, WTF?
Frankly, WTF is not sure it’s a completely bad thing to give the country over to nutjobs every once in a while so we can have it reinforced what nutjobs do when they get their hands on the steering wheel.
The Republicans’ “Pledge to America” issued Thursday has the usual GOP gobbledygook (this is also what a snail leaves as it slides across the floor) but it also promises to “fully fund” a U.S. missile defense system that would keep the Soviets from launching a successful sneak attack.
Gosh, we’re glad somebody remembered the Soviet menace. The Commies scare me, too. Scared stiff, too.
The Party of No now seems to be so short of new bad ideas it has to dredge up the worst idea of 1985.
–
David Rutter is the former publisher/editor of the Lake County News-Sun, a Sun-Times Media property. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on September 24, 2010