Too bad it is only former Congressman John Sweeney and too bad that it is for drunk driving and not the crimes he committed in office. Still, the little weasel is behind bars and that can’t be bad.
Back in 2006 I wrote about Sweeney’s involvement with Abramoff over at the GOS. And later that year I helped a reporter get the story into the Albany Times Union as the race went into the final weeks. I like to think that it helped to run Sweeney out of office. Of course he was an asshat in so many other ways that it was only a contributing factor.
And yet, it is good to hear that the little bastard is locked up. I somehow feel safer knowing that this corruptionist is off the streets, even if it was a self-inflicted event and not for the real crimes he committed.
Cheers
dengre
and yes, feel free to use this as an Open Thread…
Yutsano
There are many many criminals who end up going to jail for offenses less than their most egregious offenses. It’s actually more of a feature of the legal system: you get a criminal off the street for SOMETHING you can make stick, then try and go back for the worse offenses later. The fact that he’s in jail now actually will help because now his entire background will be under scrutiny.
Oh OT: are you also a night owl like some of us critters around here now? I’ve noticed a certain timing to your posts.
Comrade Kevin
Hey Dennis, I mentioned it in your other post, but that one made the rec list over at GOS….
gizmo
I live in the Hudson Valley, Sweeney’s former district. He’s a pig, and he’s representative of the sort of Republican we have hereabouts. They stopped evolving somewhere back in the 7th century. They don’t even have a coherent political philosophy; they just hate libruls.
asiangrrlMN
Oh, just fuck me. This shit makes me so mad, and yet, there is so little I can actually do about it. I am reading your GOS article, dengre, and getting more than a little depressed/riled up/pissed off. It seems so ingrained in our political system; I can’t think of a way to even scale back a little all the influence people like Abramoff had and how to hold accountable the asshats like Sweeney.
Rob
That’s an odd way to put it, because drunk driving is a real crime. Corruption at least leaves its victims alive.
b-psycho
I want an answer to this question: why do you even see a difference in terms of corruptionist? The only gap i personally see is admission vs denial, but they’re all inherently corporatist.
Power inherently corrupts. Call it idealistic all you fucking want, but in the long run all I see in terms of solution is to kill the power itself. Elections mean fuck all, the corporate elite will always buy off the low hanging fruit, and by definition there will never be enough nonlow to make a difference. Destroying the existing system entirely, in the long run, is more realistic than expecting it to reform itself.
+6!!!!
b-psycho
WTF happened to my other exclamation points?
Then again fuck it. I am in another whole fuckin zone right now.
bago
One on the many seemingly random parsing filters that scrubs the data before entry into the database doesn’t like multiple exclamation points.
2th&nayle
Like most criminals, he’ll just wear his time served as some kind of badge of honor. What a mutt!
+pint Horitoes and half a 12 pack of luke warm beer.
kansi
Good. Guy is definitely a sleaze (though didn’t Bob Ney go to jail for quite a while?). But all signs point to his being an alcoholic, and that is something I can’t celebrate.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I don’t know. I like the idea of a Republican schmuck locked up in the regular pokey instead of spending time in Club Fed. Makes me think of the Bloom County strip where Sen. Bedfellow meets his new cell mates. “Well hello, Mr. Bring Back the Death Penalty!”
Britta
As a former constituent of Sweeney, I say thank you, thank you, thank you for your role in helping us get rid of this scumbag. I think the domestic abuse allegations against him played the biggest part in sinking him toward the end, but all the negative stories contributed. To Kansi, he is most definitely an alcoholic, but one who a) supposedly beat his wife b) once crashed into a light pole while drunk and in office, knocking out power to a town but using his position to get off scot free c) once got caught speeding down the highway drunk with a young girl on his lap. So the lock up of this dude is most definitely something to celebrate.
Xenos
Not that we need another tortured and overextended psychological theory for why some politicians think the way they do, but seems to be a link between the simplistic and selfish worldview of the ‘corruptionists’ and long-term alcohol abuse. Whether dry drunks or wet, Bob Ney, Sweeney and W. all seemed to operate within the confines of their ideologies and to assume a liberty to commit crimes, somehow reinforced by believing their own propaganda. Most long-term alcoholics I have known have been very right wing, and have considered themselves to be very special people, and rail against liberals for being so arrogant as to dare to disagree with them.
Whether this plays out in the same way with non right-wingers is an open question.
A Mom Anon
I suspect there’s alot more addiction in Congress overall than we may realize. I don’t think it’s worse in one party over the other,but addiction does mask pain or a hole in the soul. It’s an attempt to fill a void caused by any number of abuses,secrets and lies. Money doesn’t fix that kind of stuff,no matter how much you have.
Eventually the wheels come off that wagon if you don’t sober up and correct the stuff that caused the problem in the first place. Sobering up without doing the tough work of looking at what started the addiction results in an even meaner dry drunk or sober drug addict.
Linda Featheringill
To b-psycho:
Historically, major change has come when folks figure out how to meet their needs without the input of the ruling class. This is definitely how capitalism supplanted feudalism.
So far, we haven’t been able to do that. When we manage this task, we can start to ignore the fat cats.
Am I saying that all slavery is economic? I don’t know. Maybe.
Julia Grey
I remember something on blogs a while back about this dick. Wasn’t there a YouTube with him drunkenly spouting some horrible shit while in the company of Young Republicans or something?
Maybe this will be the “rock bottom” experience that causes him to start his recovery from alcoholism, but I doubt it. Xenos is right, the right-wing mind-set feeds these people’s sense of both entitlement and grievance, and that fuels their self-justification. He’ll consider the jail term an excessive punishment for his peccadillos: “Okay, so maybe I screwed up a little, but nobody was hurt, and cripes, can’t a guy have a little fun once in a while? I work hard, I’ve got a lot on my mind, I need to relax, don’t I? And you people need to leave me alone. Fuckin nazis everywhere.”)
I suspect he’ll go on being an asshole, if, perforce, a dry one (at least for a while) after he gets out. In any case I think it’s unlikely that he will ever really face up to his alcoholism. He may do what he think he has to in order to stay out of trouble with other people, but he won’t take it to heart. He’ll always resent having to “knuckle under” instead of realizing any kind of inner peace or genuine self-esteem. He’ll always NEED to drink.
Or when they were able to CO-OPT the ruling class (for example, in the case of capitalism, by lending them money). I’m not sure how the next big change will happen, but global warming will probably play a role.
gbear
! x 3 = !!!
Steeplejack
@gbear:
Interesting comment. Could you unsubscribe me from your newsletter? Or tell me what you’re drinking.
PTirebiter
@Xenos: As a long term alcoholic who hasn’t had a cocktail in 22 years, I’d suggest steering clear of this. Looking for correlations between alcohol and personal politics is a waste of time. Most of the alcoholics I’ve known in L.A. leaned left, here in TX they lean right. And I’ve known a lot of alcoholics.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: That seems a little harsh since gbear was just answering the question from b-psycho about why all his exclamations didn’t show up. Three ! shows up as a ? in a blue box. But maybe you were just teasing?
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, teasing. Please adjust your snarkometer.
Edit: Especially since he didn’t give any clue as to what he was referencing.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I thought that seemed out of character for you. I guess that should have been a sign, huh? I just signed up for the adjustment, but they can’t get me in until Thursday.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Just jiggle the VHOLD a little bit. That usually works for me.
CalD
They ended up getting Al Capone for tax evasion. A win is a win.
Mary
The reason you don’t get more comments is because your brilliant posts say it all, Dennis. They are inherently worthwhile.