Sleaze - Political and Otherwise

In thumbing through this week's issue of The Week magazine, I was struck by the amount of distasteful, sleazy, slimy shenanigans occurring in many aspects of our world. The problem with shenanigans, particularly when it concerns politicians, is that the shenanigans take on more importance than properly governing and solving problems. Thus, please do not get too depressed but the following, in no particular order, is the latest sleaze that we are living through which is certainly no conducive to improving our lives:

• The latest General Motors advertising campaign hypes the claim that GM has repaid a large government loan, with interest, five years ahead of schedule. Sounds like good news but it is really sleazy advertising. First, while it claims that it has paid back a $4.7 billion loan, it still owes the government, really the American taxpayer, about $50 billion more. Second, according to Neil Barofsky, the Obama appointed watchdog of government bailouts, the company did not physically repay the loan out of its own funds. It paid back the government the $4.7 billion loan using a government escrow account that was established to hold Federal bailout funds. In other words, GM used government/taxpayer funds to pay back a government/taxpayer loan and then bragged that it had paid back the loan. How stupid does GM think we are? Very, very sleazy. (Source of The Week story: Kathleen Pender of the San Francisco Chronicle)
• One thing I never quite understood about the economic crisis we are still living through, is how could the banks not know that a lot of the mortgage and real estate bonds and investment vehicles they were using were so toxic and dangerous? Another The Week article helps clear up that situation. In recent Congressional hearings, it became clear that the leading bond rating agencies were certainly more sleazy and less impartial than we might have assumed. Moody''s and S&P are the two major rating agencies and in testimony to Congress it looks like they were more interested in getting fees from their clients than doing their jobs, i.e. giving investment vehicles the proper rating of their risk. According to the article, "the ratings agencies also knew that Wall Street firms could choose among several rival rating firms, steering their business to whatever agency was most likely to give a favorable verdict [about the risk of the firm's investment offerings]." Why have a ratings agency when it will give you any rating you want for the right price? Of course, Congress and the SEC never were smart enough to figure out what was going on until the economy had almost collapsed. There is no better definition of sleazy than one who will sell their integrity to the highest bidder.
• Speaking of the SEC, lets not forget their recent revelations about sleaze that we recently covered in this blog but which was also reviewed in The Week by Tobin Harshaw of the New York Times. While the bond ratings agencies were prostituting themselves to the Wall Street firms, the SEC had many high level personnel sleazing around the Internet looking for pornography. This was done on work time and on government computers, all supported with taxpayer dollars.
• What would a post on sleaze be without mentioning Chicago politics? According to a an article from John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell President Obama's vacant Senate seat for personal gain, has filed court papers seeking to have Obama testify at his trial. Blago contends in his filing that he and the President directly discussed who might fill the vacant seat and he also wants the president to testify about his relationship to a key witness in the case who is also a convicted Obama fundraiser. Could Blago be lying and threatening the President in order to get a better deal from prosecutors? If he is lying and just fabricating facts to force Obama to go easy, then the sleaze of lying is at work. However, if he and the President did directly discuss the vacant Senate seat, a conversation that Obama says never happened, then the sleaze of lying is at work but it is the President that is at fault. In either case, someone is lying and that is also a condition for sleaze.
• Not to be outdone, foreign politicians can also be on the sleazy side. Politicians in the Ukraine recently got into an egg throwing, smoke bomb throwing fight inside the legislative chamber after a vote to allow the Russian navy access to Ukraine ports until 2042. Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn hid under an umbrella in order to not get hit with eggs thrown by opposition politicians. Nothing says we are sleazy, kindergarten level children more than trying to settle their disagreements by throwing eggs and smoke bombs.

It is so very sad when these are our so-called leaders. They lie, they do not do their jobs, they spin falsehoods about their finances, they sell out to the highest bidder and some think throwing eggs is adult debate on the issues. That is why the November elections are so important. it must be the starting point where sleaze is voted out of office and replaced by new faces and new ideas with a general idea of what integrity is. Hopefully, those who oust incumbents would obey Step 38 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government. That step would try to inject a few foreign concepts into American politics including respect, trust, teamwork, quality and a few other traits that do not currently exist in the DC political atmosphere. Until then, take a shower and try to de-sleaze in whatever way you can until November.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.