It's all in the fine ooooold American tradition (alas -- and not what they taught us in History class, either), right up there with buying votes, and getting voters drunk and telling 'em who to vote for and, the strongest tradition of all, profiting from the office.

Remember Spiro Agnew? Governor of Maryland and Veep under Nixon (another fine, upstanding American, cough, cough) -- in1973 during his 5th year as VP, the United States Attorney's office in Baltimore, Maryland investigated and brought Agnew up on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. He was charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000, while holding office as Baltimore County Executive, governor of Maryland, and Vice President of the United States. "On October 10, 1973, Agnew was allowed to plead no contest to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967, with the condition that he resign the office of Vice President." (Wikipedia to check facts -- but I remember it all reasonably well).

Okay, and back to Illinois, how 'bout Chicago Mayor ("Organization, not machine! Organization, not machine!") Daley (the first one, of course)? Remember, I hail from Chicago's northernmost suburb -- Milwaukee (WI).

But neither Illinois nor Chicago has any monopoly on greed and corruption (not to mention arrogance).

Probably the most honest politian I can think of was Frank Zeidler, Socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 (the year before I was born) until 1960. Took the streetcar to work every day and left office living in the same modest home he started out with. He certainly never profited from the being mayor and he had the best interest of Milwaukeeans at heart.

Linn