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More political suicides, please

By Michael J. Smith on Monday May 25, 2009 11:08 AM

Robert Ransdell writes:

Wow, you mean somewhere in the world politicians still have a sense of shame? Considering what it's like here that's amazing!

If he were a U.S. politician he would deny having done anything wrong till the bitter end, no matter how damning the evidence was. Then if things got really bad he would appear before the media and announce with fake remorse that he merely made a "mistake".

The PR firm that handles him would advise him to check into an booze rehab facility even if he didn't have a drinking problem (The devil drink made me do it!).

Then he'd write a book for six figures and go on "The View" and the "Oprah Winfrey Show" show to promote it and sell the idea of that he had reformed himself.

He'd wind up marrying a beautiful woman (a former lobbyist) and go to work for a big investment bank on Wall Street. (Or he'd reenter politics and they'd put him on an anti-corruption task force.)

Bob is onto something. We can learn a thing or two from the Koreans. Let's not emulate their amped-up work ethic, of course -- otium cum dignitate, that's the word, comrades -- but politicians obligingly escorting themselves off the scene is a mighty praiseworthy custom.

Jumping off a cliff is a little melodramatic of course, but who wants to go out with a whimper? Still, if Nancy Pelosi would prefer some gentler quietus, like an overdose of barbiturates, that's fine with me.

Comments (10)

dermokrat:

this blog just goes over the top sometimes...which, of course, is why i love it!

Son of Uncle Sam:

I don't know genuine integrity is a little too seriouse for are anti-socail leaders that lie cheat and steal- Buddy Cianci had his State police escorts beat up and torture his wifes lover. If he had killed himself after he'd be as noteable as John Hanson.

Peter:

If Nancy Pelosi O.D.'d on barbiturates, how would you be able to tell?

hce:

Frankly, suicide is the easy way out. For our betrayers of the public trust I prefer plain old public stocks -- eight hours daily on display, at the base of the Lincoln memorial, for a minimum of two years. Then, permanent listing, with photo and full narrative of crime, in the book of public shame, to be ordered along the lines of Dante's Inferno, digitally stored and broadcast nightly just prior to the evening news.

@ hce, 05.25.09 4:53pm:

What, you mean "DON'T JUMP, YOU FUCKERS"?

It's the "easy way out" to our sloping-foreheaded Western Culture™; in places like Korea and Japan, it's done out of a sense of honor -- he's dishonored his family and comrades and finally himself. It's not your standard-issue bleak-assed, inward-turning, existential, already-soul-dead American suicide.

As far as the naming'n'shaming and public listing and public punishment, it looks like a fine, workable program there, but – stocks? I suppose the massive amounts of public humiliation would be gratifying enough, but at the end they're still alive and walking around and capable of causing further trouble. Public execution, man. It's the only way to make sure.

I like the listing idea, but I'd go easy on the technological gimmickry as things might be bad enough by then that at least half of us may have had to go back to 56k. The Book/Database/Website Of Public Shame sounds cool, too, but if you ask me: milk cartons, man. Milk cartons.

op:

"public stocks "

come on

the shameless fucks would turn
such exposure into
a media opportunity

nope neither suicide nor the stocks

both require a keener
sense of
public humiliation
of
terrible retribution
of
a just God head

recall the archissimo of this ...trait deficit

billy clinton

or on a minor key
that slavic chap
with the stream lined muskrat doo
from chicago


"Public execution, man. It's the only way to make sure."

yes the rubbery fucks have nine lives otherwise

one only need think of ...nixon

op:

"If Nancy Pelosi O.D.'d on barbiturates..."

seems you dismal moral snots
have no taste for a touch
of
bay area gothic
in your night life

well I do ....


nan i' m still with ya !!!

op:

Buddy Cianci

hey son

that giant
of a man-worm's a cherished local institution
we best not share him undiluted
with the rest
of the planet

they can't handle the truth

hce:

OK, here's another idea, borrowed from baseball. For elected officials, put an asterik next to their name: 42nd president, convicted of perjury, war crimes, subversion of the constitution, sexual deviance (suspected). This, plus, lifetime assignment as bathroom attendant at Disneyland.

op:

"lifetime assignment as bathroom attendant at Disneyland."

are u sure u want this ..?

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