The Nexus

Political scandals are truly insidious creatures of the world of politics.

They draw the attention away from the most important issues, the issues that affect the American populace the most.

Instead, scandals make people focus on less important issues. The scandal takes full grasp of the national mindset, and thus eventually harm the work of the national government as a whole.

The recent uncovering of the alleged misdeeds of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has taken on the role of the new national scandal.

For those who don’t know what Blagojevich did, it’s really quite simple.

Governors have the power to appoint people to vacant senate seats until the next election comes around, when the seat will be up to a vote once again.

What Blagojevich allegedly did was basically auction off Obama’s vacant senate seat to the highest bidder, an act considered to be highly illegal, not to mention unethical.

Nothing has been on the news lately except for the Blagojevich scandal, a turn of events which I find concerning.

With the nation in such a harsh recession and with the American automotive industry collapsing, it seems like this scandal should have already had its say, and cleared off of the headlines, spending two days in the top spot, at the most.

Of course I’m not saying what Blagojevich allegedly did wasn’t wrong. It was a terrible, despicable sequences of actions.

But what I am saying we should not allow it to distract our whole nation from what is truly important to us as a whole.

Certainly, the issue holds the a large degree of importance to the citizens of Illinois, but I fail to see how the rest of the country is so greatly affected by the scandal.

Unless, of course, you count the political bounty it holds for the Republican Party. The scandal is seeping into areas of politics in which it does not belong, through the aid of the Republicans.

Already, claims have been lobbed by Republicans against Chicago native Rahm Emmanuel, the man who will be Obama’s Chief of Staff, alleging that he was involved in the scandal, though all evidence proves otherwise.

Obama has been forced to make numerous public statements denying his involvement in the scandal, and has on many occasions been lead to publicly decry Blagojevich.

In doing this Obama is being forced to waste away precious minutes and hours that he could be using to look over his daily intelligence briefs and form his cabinet.

It is one thing for Republicans to take advantage of this scandal. It’s expected that one of the parties to take advantage of any weakness in the other party, but the fact that the national media has so full-heartedly joined in on blowing up the Blagojevich scandal is truly unjust.

We as the media should know better than to hawk this story purely for ratings.

They should know that recent turns in the economic crisis and auto manufacturers are more important to the livelihood of the average American than Blagojevich.

It is their duty to assess what the importance of stories are, so as to reflect upon the issues that are most essential for the complete American public to know about.

They are supposed to follow the standards of journalistic integrity, not the standards of a ratings-crazed industry.

Above all, they should be journalists, not television stars. With the fullscale coverage of this scandal, they have been neglecting their true duties in their line of work.

The national media needs to move on from this scandal. The nation as a whole needs to move on from this scandal.

More important issues are at hand.