ONE OF THE BRAGGING RIGHTS enjoyed by Philadelphia newspaper columnists over news commentators from other American cities is the simple declaration that our politicians are more corrupt than theirs.
I remember being interviewed by Noah Adams of NPR's "All Things Considered" during the height of the Abscam scandal in the early 1980's when Philadelphia elected officials, from City Council to Congressmen, were being locked up faster than a drive-through window at McDonalds. By the end of the sting operation prosecutions Philadelphia had lost two members of the U.S. House of Representatives and a half dozen members of City Council -- including Council President George Schwartz -- in the most outrageous pay-to-play scam ever concocted by the FBI. (Federal agents wearing phony beards were videotaped pretending to be Arab sheiks offering bribes to Pennsylvania and New Jersey politicians. Nowhere did elected officials sell their offices faster and more greedily than Philadelphia).
At the end of the NPR interview about which city was more corrupt, Philadelphia or Chicago, I reminded Adams, "Just remember, we're Number One!"
It wasn't simply the scale of the graft sought by Philadelphia's crooked politicians, it was the style. Who can forget a drunken South Philly Congressman Michael "Ozzie" Myers boasting on videotape to federal agents that in Philadelphia, "Money talks, bull-- walks." Or a few years later when City Councilman Leland Beloff tried to shake down developer Willard Rouse for a million bucks using a Roman salute to silently signal the deal was done? I mean these guys acted like they were part of Tony Soprano's crew.
We Philadelphia newspaper columnists looked upon our corrupt politicians as a naturally replenishing resource, like our legendary sports fans.
But then along came Blagojevich and our "corrupt and contented" title got blown away by the Windy City. Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich (pronounced: blah-GOY-o-vich) of Chicago has reclaimed the throne of "There ain't no corruption like Cook County corruption." by not only attempting to sell the president-elect's U.S. senate seat to the highest bidder, but to threaten to cancel funding to a children's hospital unless a $50,000 "contribution" was made and then to attempt to leverage a deal with the owner of the Chicago Tribune contingent upon firing editorial writers critical of the governor.
Not since Chicago's City Hall was taking orders from mobsters in Cicero, Ill. has the level of municipal corruption reached such heights in America. On behalf of a humbled Philadelphia I symbolically doff William Penn's hat to the new champion city astride Lake Michigan. Our Fumo is no match for their Blago.
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