Jesse’s Dereliction Of Duty

This lack of will to work to protect those who elected him might be remarkable if Junior had been busy hammering away at other important legislation – but he wasn’t. His Congressional record consists almost entirely of nothing, aside from periodic race-baiting and stories of threatening fellow Congressmen with violence. Go ahead, I dare you to try to find something, anything, useful he did during his long stint in Washington. Vote Smart, a famously useful tool for gauging the political stances of politicians, couldn’t get ANY quotes about positions from him or his office on any topic.

He did cheat on his wife with a D.C. restaurant hostess-cum-bikini model and allegedly steal funds to decorate his house in the Capitol, though, so at least we know he was actually IN Washington sometimes.

And let’s not forget his attempt to buy Barack Obama’s Senate seat – though apparently Federal prosecutors have. Despite testimony from Raghuveer Nayak, the man who was putting the whole offer together on the command of the disgraced Rep., Junior still hasn’t been charged with anything.

But what happens the minute it does come out that the feds are looking into him? He has a “mental breakdown” and disappears from the face of the earth. No excuses, no statements – he just drops off the planet, ignoring his job and constituents. If anyone else did such a low-down, dishonorable thing Chicagoans would be screaming for his or her head.

Instead Junior gets undeserved sympathy. I’ve yet to see any proof backing up this shallow and decidedly convenient excuse for Jackson’s ludicrous dereliction of duty. The wholesale failure of the national media to investigate this is sad, but the Chicago media’s lack of interest in finding the truth here is downright criminal.

Hopefully there will be a comeuppance for Jackson, but I highly doubt it. In the end I’m sure he will pull a “Weiner” and fade from the public view, biding his time scamming people on behalf of his father’s charities until it is feasible for him to toss his hat back into the political ring. In the meantime, a new shill will be slotted into Jackson’s spot (possibly his wife, who is also under a criminal investigation that will certainly go nowhere) and the Machine, its gears greased with the blood of the South Side youth slaughtered in the endless gangland wars that carried on under Junior’s reign, will trundle on.