Three Truly Weird Governors, USA

Even with a shiny new Barack Obama glow emanating out of the White House, I can't shake the passing strange sensation that a trio of governors we've gotten to know lately on the national stage have been as truly weird as the three witches in MacBeth.

Consider the evidence: Governors Sarah Palin of Alaska, David Paterson of New York (not to mention his tawdry and disgraced predecessor, Eliot Spitzer) and of course, Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. Wow, who knew what human dramas, complexes and perhaps perfidies lurked behind the doors of these governor's mansions?

All owe their newfound fame to the presidential election of 2008. Now we know too much, yet the mystery remains: why have we have we here three whacked-out governors in a row?

You could not make some of this stuff up. Let's take Palin first, she who swooped into our collective psyche last September as Sen. John McCain's chosen one for the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Somehow her plain speaking pattern, upswept hair, glasses and supreme self-confidence electrified the body politic. Love or fear her, she and her small-town ways could not be ignored. She was charming when she chose to be, with her winks and aw-shucks, doggone-it lines, but it wore thin when asked about foreign policy or how she intended to "be in charge" of the U.S. Senate. Sarah Palin also showed a smiling mean streak out on the campaign trail.

Substance was not her strong point and we never got an answer to Katie Couric's question: what in heck does the lady from Alaska read, anyway? Stay home up there near Russia and the North Pole, and chill out, Governor. You have delighted us in the Lower 48 long enough.

Less amusing was the daft and drawn-out performance of the New York governor, who botched his chance to appoint the U.S. Senate successor to Hillary Clinton. Paterson had the gift of two political plums in hand, either a Kennedy or a Cuomo, but he picked a first-term congresswoman named Kirsten Gillibrand, an unknown outside of New York. The daughter of the late president, Caroline Kennedy, an author and a civic do-gooder, and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo were shunned and treated shabbily, especially Kennedy. The governor curiously saw fit to let his aides tear her down as she withdrew from the agonizing endgame. This is an unelected governor who only got the job because of the spectacular downfall of the former governor, Eliot Spitzer. The perverse Paterson gave new meaning to "amateur hour" in his handling of a decision that should have been a swift and easy political win for him.

Now comes Blagojevich, who seems to tickle some funny bones on the media circuit as he peddles his own form of legal defense. Indictment and impeachment hanging over his well-groomed head seemed not to faze him one bit as he defiantly went ahead with making his own choice for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Obama. It is sobering to realize that Illinois gave us Obama, but also elected this scary character, Chicago-born from a Serbian family, in the same space of time. While he has not been convicted of charges that he tried to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder, Blagojevich's self-deluded public conduct is so far from dignity and reality that "Nixonian" is really the only word that does him justice.

Just to be safe, let's stick to electing senators to the presidency for a long time to come.

Comments

[MBryant]

How could you forget Jim Gibbons of Nevada? Locked out of the governor's mansion by a scorned wife...

One could go on but let's just suffice it to say. Among America's governors... the immigrant bodybuilder and hee-man action star ...

he's one of the better ones...

[longislandlol]

Funny post and so true............... we surely hit the trifecta with these cast of characters---

[normathumb]

On McCain's choice of Palin; don't you wonder what Olympia Snow, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Elizabeth Dole and any number of other strong Republican women, who have slogged through years of work, with national profiles and strong records of accomplishment within the party, as campaigners and legislators, must have thought? Or perhaps, what they think now? With his choice, McCain transformed Palin into a national joke apparent to all but the snake handlers on the far right. I want to hear a discussion between W and Palin, without any one else present, on the issues of the day. It would be a hoot.

[demfriend]

While the people of Alaska have been finding out much more about the person they elected than she had devulged to them before or after they voted for her becase of John McCain's thoughts process that he would give the GOP a younger, better female version of what he thought the US Republican and Dems wanted. He actually must have thought any female would do when Hillary didn't win and he could just slot into the VP for the GOP and females across the US would automatically vote for him/her. But the media after 8 years of Bush/Cheney dug into Palin and didn't get far to uncover lots that the Palin family had hidden well from Alaskans who supported her. The clothes and the scandals left many wondering if McCain had lost it or if he though the women in the US were stupid enough to buy the package. She is still not doing her elected job while starting up for 2012. Blago is a stupid idiot kind of man who also hid lots until the tapes came out to reveal his desire to make himself a nest egg out of Obama's empty seat. The New York gov played for drama and now looks a fool too. I wonder if the GOP can recover from all this and not show their butts in Congress like they did already with the stimulus package?

[TLaw]

I don't live in the states but I'm willing to bet that those who do will say that the "Terminator" belongs on that list too.

[KarenGeorgetown]

Tawdry? Spitzer may be an embarrassment to the Victorians of the nation, but let us please remember, he was hunted down and cornered by the people on the Dark Side who were terrified of the damage he had already inflicted and the dirt he was digging up about Corporate America. I wish guys like him and President Clinton could keep it zipped so they could go about the business of this country without taint... but let's not lump someone like Spitzer together with loony tunes like Palin, Patterson and Blago.

[zyxomma]

Right after Spitzer's "downfall," I got an email from an informed friend that Spitzer had followed the money on the mortgage meltdown, and had the facts and the names. According to my friend, he was taking this info to someone at the Washington Post. Unfortunately, he booked a hooker to join him in his hotel. I didn't like him as my governor, but I like Paterson far less. Eliot, Eliot, divulge what you know about who turned bad mortgages into "securitized" toxic paper all over the globe! No matter what you did in your private life (and I really REALLY don't care), you're an American citizen, and a great investigator. If you know the truth, TELL someone -- preferably, someone in Congress or the Senate on the appropriate committee. If you've got the facts, you owe it to all of us to share them!

[dryrock]

Blago keeps saying "Play the tapes - ALL of them, unedited. I'm not a defender of the guy, but I wonder why the tapes are not being made public. It is worrisome, because it looks like he knows they won't play the tapes unedited because of what the tapes would expose about the people he was talking with - and he knows they will protect those people. I'm not saying he's innocent, but he may be correct that the fix is in regarding the outcome, and we will never know what those tapes contain, or about whom.

Please, someone Talk Me Down.

[normathumb]

Since he was under observation for some time, most tapes are probably innocuous and anyway irrelevant to this case. There are legitimate privacy issues regarding the other people on those tapes, people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. They are making a case out of the pertinent tapes for the impeachment trial. There is also a criminal trial further down the path. The protocols of criminal law prohibit the dumping of evidence and unrelated collateral information gathered in the course of an investigation before trial. Blagojevich has the opportunity to examine the same evidence to present a defense. He must show pertinence. He has chosen not to do so and will only present a closing argument so as to avoid any cross examination. Here is an apt metaphor. I am interested in political corruption. I am not about to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica to research it. Calling for the release of all the tapes is a smoke screen designed to make him look like a victim here. He knows full well the prosecutors couldn't release all the tapes. There may well be further prosecutions of unnamed others down the road that would be affected by some of those tapes. There are plenty of very good reasons not to release "all" the tapes.

[glorialovelace]

1. Neither Caroline Kennedy nor Andrew Cuomo were treated "shabbily" by Governor Paterson. What is it about “I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate,” that you folks don't understand?

2. The polls made it clear that the voters did not want Caroline to be our senator. If Paterson had hastened the process -- as Mayor Bloomberg and Caroline's allies started to demand -- the people of New York would have been stuck with an appointee they clearly did not want. So it might have been a political win for what's left of the Kennedys, but would have looked like a Blago deal to the rest of us.

3. Gillibrand is a second-term congresswoman, not a first-term -- as you claim. She was elected to her seat twice.

4. Paterson said repeatedly that he would have preferred that the seat be filled by a special election. Under NY State law, that was not a possibility.

5. Paterson cannot be held responsible for supposed anonymous leaks from his aides -- especially if it's a disreputable and dishonest rag like the New York Post that supposedly received those leaks. Furthermore nothing was said about Caroline that had not already been said many times here on HuffPo by me and by others.

[ndnndpendent]

She's back.

It seems no one likes Gillibrand but you and Paterson.

Paterson is indeed responsible for news leaks, its his office. He is just plain incompetent. The best thing that can happen is Coumo runs against him and Kennedy against Gillibrand.

That would would be just desserts.

[glorialovelace]

If Cuomo runs against Paterson, it will be because it was already in the cards. In case you don't live in New York State -- and therefore don't know what you're talking about -- the potential Cuomo/Paterson face-off has been talked about since before Caroline Kennedy stuck her oar in.

If I were you, I wouldn't bet on Caroline doing anything further in politics. She made it pretty clear by her demeanor throughout her so-called campaign that she was repelled by the entire process. Aside from that, the polls showed that the voters of New York simply did not want her. She'd have to grow herself a completely different personality in order to make herself acceptable. If she challenges Gillibrand, she will lose. There may be candidates who could beat Gillibrand, but Caroline Kennedy and Carolyn McCarthy are not among them.

[PresidentBeeblebrox]

I don't see what the problem is with believing a US Senate seat should not be a hereditary right. We got rid of peerages when we declared independence in 1776. Caroline Kennedy's greatest qualification was that she was a Kennedy. Andy Cuomo was more qualified, but he's only been NY AG for less than a full term and was HUD Secretary before that. I somehow don't think he would have been under consideration if his name was Smith or Popovich.

I'm not a Gillbrand fan, but I resented the fact that Kennedy and Cuomo were instant contenders because of their names. (Of course, that's how Hillary Clinton got elected in the first place...)

[Raven]

Three truly weird governors? Sounds a little low to me, especially considering that out here in California we have our very own governator who is nothing if not weird.

Maybe governators get their own category of weirdness...