It must be the week of the corrupt Republican governor. Fresh on the heels of Connecticut Republican Governor John Rowland’s disclosure of yet more ethics violations, comes the federal indictment of the former Republican governor of my state of Illinois George Ryan, on you guessed it, corruption and ethics violations.
In Connecticut the Democrats, surprise, surprise, seem powerless to remove the scoundrel John Rowland from office. And the scoundrel is unwilling to put the public good above his own bloated ego, and therefore refuses to do the honorable thing, and step down. Meanwhile, here in Illinois, the acrimony between the former governor and the current Democratic governor is taking on a live of its own. Ryan, of course refuses to admit that he did anything wrong, despite the conviction of some 59 of his former inner circle cronies on a vast array corruption and ethics violations, the most egregious of which were perpetrated by his former Chief of Staff, Scott Faywell.
But underlying it all is a further erosion of the public’s trust in the institutions of government upon which we rely to enforce our laws. How much longer before this sort of unabashed, immoral greed, coupled with stupefying lapses in personal integrity, vastly undermines the very foundations of our Republic; or am I naïve enough to believe that the process is not already well underway? And one could argue that this is yet another failing of our two party systems, because it both cases a Republican governor was kowtowed to by Democrat controlled legislatures. Huh?
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