15 minutes of shame
Of course it's all very sad about indicted House speaker Sal DiMasi. Presumed innocent, he will either negotiate a humiliating plea bargain or flail away at his accusers in a protracted show trial. But he does have something to look forward to: complete, absolute, overnight rehabilitation.
It is the American way.
The real problem with Americans who disgrace themselves is that they don't stay disgraced long enough. Who do I hear every morning on the radio? Why, it's the previous disgraced speaker of the Massachusetts House, felon-turned-talk-show-host Thomas Finneran. What about the man Frank Rich calls the "disgraced former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle"? He's thriving on radio and TV. Good work if you can get it.
Look who was just on the cover of Newsweek magazine: disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. It seems like only yesterday that Spitzer was hauling his wife in front of the TV cameras in a staged exercise in group contrition. To refresh your memory, Spitzer was caught "consorting" with a prostitute, not good form for a married, former crime-bustin' attorney general.
In a bygone era, Spitzer might reasonably have been expected to join the French Foreign Legion, or to wash out bedpans at Dr. Albert Schweitzer's Lambarene clinic for a few years to atone for his sins. Sin? That's so 19th century. Instead, Spitzer is preening for the rapidly shrinking newsweekly and - talk about social acceptance! - writing a column for Slate magazine.
Without apparent irony, Newsweek calls Spitzer "a voice uniquely qualified to speak to the country's current concerns." In his Slate column, Spitzer has been railing against the insurance giant AIG, railing against the New York Fed, and railing against dead-letter policy proposals, e.g. privatizing Social Security that were consigned to oblivion years ago. "There has never been a tougher time to be a governor," Spitzer wrote in March. How would he know? He's just a columnist, for heaven's sake.
Nine months in the doghouse? Not nearly enough, I say. Wait - did someone say doghouse? Look who's peeking his wet little nose out . . . it's canocidal maniac and former NFL star Michael Vick, of Bad Newz Kennels fame. When Vick and several codefendants were facing a variety of criminal charges relating to gambling, drugs, racketeering, and cruelty to animals, Wayne Pacelle, president of Humane Society of the United States, condemned the quarterback for engaging in "a barbaric activity that causes immense animal suffering and fosters violence in our communities."
But now, with Vick eager to clear his name and the Humane Society baying for publicity, Pacelle has changed his tune. Last month the Humane-itarians signed up Vick as an anti-dogfighting spokesman "to young African-Americans in urban centers where there's widespread dogfighting." "We're both using each other," Pacelle admitted to a radio interviewer.
Hope that works out for you, Mr. Pacelle. I'm sure you know the old adage about lying down with dogs. You could wake up with fleas, or worse.
Who else is due for a spin through the reputation laundering machine? I fear we haven't heard the last from former presidential candidate John Edwards. OK, Edwards is a liar and an adulterer, but so was Bill Clinton, and he's very much back. I see him on the front page all the time, saving the world on Bill Gates's nickel.
I know what you are thinking: former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. He'll never come back. Sure he will. He was on Larry King's talk show the other night, praising his wife for joining the cast of NBC's sub-moronic reality show "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!" The Associated Press opines that Patti Blago's star turn as a "plucky, well-liked mom . . . could help erase the image of a woman who spewed profanity on FBI tapes in her husband's corruption case."
So bleeping true! Mr. Blago has just agreed to appear with Chicago's famed Second City comedy troupe, making fun of . . . Blago. Next year's corruption trial may be a speed bump on his fast track to full-blown celebrity rehab, but make no mistake: Blago shall return.
So don't worry, speaker DiMasi. It is only a matter of time.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 