The week has been a wild one to be certain, and the hits keep coming - politically, at least. So, let's review, shall we?
Olbermann Resigns: On Friday, Keith Olbermann abruptly announced his departure from MSNBC's top-rated show. Granted, MSNBC lagged far behind the big dog of cable news outlets, Fox News, but Olbermann was their star. He did not say why he was leaving, MSNBC has simply said that they have agreed to discontinue his contract. Conservatives hate Olbermann and are celebrating his departure. I, for one, am not. As the proverb goes, "iron sharpens iron" and while his political leanings where clearly left of center and his rhetoric often enraged, he was the most intelligent of the left-leaning commentators out there. Conservatives need someone like Olbermann, we need a challenge once in a while. Unfortunately, we often participate in media that "tickles our ears" and tells us what we want to hear - never really having our minds challenged. Talk radio has generally become one big blob of talking points memo utterances and Republican platitudes. Olbermann challenged the establishment, asked the hard questions and rubbed our noses in it when our Christological political figures failed to do what they promised. Pretty sad, really.
Judge Smudge: You're not going to get an argument from this little gray duck that the judicial system is a mess in Oklahoma - nor will you get an argument that political corruption and cronyism is rampant. But I must admit that even this story shocked me. A high profile judge has been getting paid fraudulently for children allegedly under her care. It's like something from a Lifetime movie, but it's true. This is the same judge who stepped down from the Ersland case after prosecutors accused her of misconduct. Apparently, they had no idea just how much.
Read the Oklahoman story here.
Deafening Doak Silence: Former State Senator Randy Brogdon issued a statement about his employment with the new Insurance Commissioner and it has apparently been so powerful as to silence all the critics and even the often conservative-critical Oklahoman. Fortunately, Representative Richard Morissette is still paying attention and has authored legislation to clarify what many believe to be our founders' intentions - that legislators need a two-year cooling off period before taking a cushy state job...like Brogdon's $100k/year job and former House Representative Mike Thompson's $100k/year job. Mind you, it's more money than either of these boys have probably made and legislators are frothing at the mouth for such taxpayer income. Whether the bill goes anywhere or not is really up to us. We'll keep track of all the "no" votes and maybe someone will show up in those Districts in a couple years and raise a little hell. It does go to show us all that it really is about money, not political principle.
At the end of the day, there are those of us to take a step back, look around and wonder whether or not the "system" as we know it can ever be repaired. We make headway, then we lose ground. Perhaps it is just the fight itself, the struggle internally and externally that keeps us going, striving and desiring more from our existence. Politics is a good place to vent because it's "safe" in many ways. We expect the political process to be flawed and our expectations are often fulfilled with little effort and it feels good to let loose on the political establishment and to be honest, the establishment makes it bloody easy, doesn't it?
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