Chicago, a place I love to visit, but would never choose to live, could be called the "New Orleans of the North" when it comes to corruption. It is only fitting that Jessie Jackson Jr. represented this area in Washington. A quite Jackson arrived in court Wednesday wearing a leather bracelet, not
the gold-plated Rolex watch he bought with $43,350 in federal campaign
cash. The former congressman's head was bare, unadorned by the Michael
Jackson fedora, purchased with $4,600 from the campaign kitty. His wife,
at his side, eschewed the reversible mink parka, procured with $1,200
in campaign money from Edwards-Lowell furrier of Beverly Hills.
It was the kind of runaway spending usually reserved for someone with new found riches, a holistic retreat, a cruise, pricey restaurant tabs,
flat-screen televisions and even a pair of stuffed elk heads. The former
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. admitted Wednesday that he conspired with
his then Chicago alderman wife to pay for it all with campaign money
and cover it up. These purchases were part of $750,000 that Jackson and his wife, Sandi,
took from his campaign coffers for personal use. This led the couple to
enter "his and her" guilty pleas in the U.S. District Court in Washington.
The Illinois Democrat is looking at four to five years in
prison, assuming Judge Robert Wilkins follows guidelines in his June 28
sentencing. Jackson already has served the sentence of public disgrace and has resigned from congress. In the
hallway after the proceedings, a red-eyed Jackson spied Lynn Sweet from
the Chicago Sun-Times. "Tell everybody back home I'm sorry I let them
down, OK?" he asked her. The spectacle has generated a lot of interest because of Jackson's
famous name. His once-promising career is now in shambles, some saw Jackson as a possible future mayor of Chicago, that now seems doubtful.
FOOTNOTE; If you believe that where there is smoke fire most likely also exist, and that this revelation only came to light because of the extreme nature of the offense, then you might agree that this dovetails with another post I wrote. My prior post has merit, please note, this situation only proves that being a politician has its perks, please read
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/encourage-your-children-to-become.html
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