Bloggers React to Dreier, Blagojevich Arrests

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At Portfolio.com, blogger Felix Salmon sees a larger trend in the Dreier and Blagojevich scandals:

Yesterday, the idiot was Marc Dreier; today, it’s Rod Blagojevich. Both of them powerful men near the very top of their professions; both of them sworn to uphold the law; both of them resorting to the kind of desperate criminality which is almost certain to be caught and prosecuted.

Is this the beginning of a pattern? First it was subprime mortgages, then credit markets, then the financial system, then the economy. Now it’s civil society in the crosshairs.

  

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At ICantBelieveItsNotADemocracy.com, class anger over the Dreier “tragedy”:

My stomach turned when I read that a lawyer who worked with the miscreant, Marc S. Dreier, years ago called this sordid tale “a tragic story.” … Dreier was a Yale man with a Harvard degree, and he rose to be the head of litigation at a major law firm, etc. He also liked having lots of shiny toys, to wit: [Dreier] has a triplex apartment on the East Side of Manhattan, along with a house near the beach in Southampton, N.Y., and a 120-foot yacht. The walls of his Park Avenue office drip with expensive modern art, and he kept three personal assistants busy. That is, tragic story, my ass. Greedy, sociopathic [expletive deleted] got caught and now he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Sounds more like a good old-fashioned morality tale.

At BearingDrift.com, on Blagojevich:

Before the 17th Amendment, this likely happened all the time. State legislators appointed all US Senators, and except for the many times that they deadlocked and didn’t send anyone to the Senate, accusations of bribery and corruption abounded.

There have been several calls to end the popular election of US Senators, arguing that with that change went the last vestiges of states rights and any state check on federal power.

But the brazen actions of Democrat Rod Blagojevich (”I want to make money”), and the fact that he can still exert his power, tells me that while the 17th amendment on balance was a good thing.

Conservatives are suggesting, sans evidence, that someone on Obama’s team may have been involved with selling the Senate seat. On the other hand, Abe Greenwald helpfully points out it’s pronounced “bluh-GOY’-uh-vich.”

And finally, Carrie Shepherd at the Chicago Public Radio Blog is watching the Twitter feed, and reports this gem about Blagojevich:

“I really see this as more of an indictment of bad pompadours and turtlenecks.”