-By Warner Todd Huston
Disgraced former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois passed away today at his summer home in Wisconsin. He was 82.
It says something about American politics that a corrupt influence peddler and ultimately an inmate and ex-con like Rostenkowski had a “summer home,” doesn’t it?
Being part of the corrupt Richard J. Daley Democrat political machine, Rostenkowski was in it up to his neck for his entire adult life and well did he wield that insider power built on deals made in smoke-filled rooms, by under the table agreements, and through influence peddling. He was a true “Chicago way” pol.
For folks our age (those over 40-years-old) Rostenkowski is best remembered as the pol that went to jail over the House Post Office scandal of the mid 1990s. In the end, in 1996, he pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud serving 17 months at the Oxford Correctional Facility in Wisconsin.
He was later found to have had an entire warehouse of items he stole from the federal government — chairs, desks, and the like. I guess he felt entitled to steal office furniture from Uncle Sam. After all HE was a powerful congressman!
Famously called “Rottenkowski” by his detractors, he was nonetheless endlessly reelected. He always knew how to grease the right palms back home. Though like a true Chicago way pol he never admitted any wrong doing. Still after his indictment Rostenkowski lost his 1994 reelection bid. In those days even Chicagoans couldn’t see their way clear to reelect a pol that was about to become a convicted criminal. And everyone knew automatically that he was guilty. Chicagoans have since shed that aversion to criminal pols, though, when they elected Rod Blagojevich first to Rostenkowski’s old Congressional seat and then to the governor’s chair and Todd Stroger as President of the Cook County Board.
It’s true that Rostenkowski was an old-time politician in times that were changing. His back-slapping and envelope in the pocket-style of politics was coming to an end as his days in office were winding down. Things were no longer like “the old days.”
Even his name was political artifice in a way. Trying to get out from under his ethnicity, Rostenkowski spent his college and Army days as Dan “Rosten.” But when politics came calling he suddenly found that his proper, ethnic sounding last name was a boon to him from Chicago’s Polish voters. So, suddenly Dan “Rosten” again became Dan Rostenkowski.
Rostenkowski’s life story is that of a corrupt political hack that became rich on the backs of the people. It is a story that one would hope could serve as a negative example, one that would help voters prevent his sort from again darkening the doors of Congress.
Sadly, he’ll likely just be forgotten, relegated to a footnote in history. Just as sadly voters are already sizing up the next generation of Rostens… or Rostenkowskis… or whatever name is convenient this election year.
RIP Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, 1928 – 2010.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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