Sheila's drunk the Kool-Aid

Where does accountability lie for public officials? Last night WTTW, our PBS station, spent their full news hour on the Illinois transit funding crisis. Anyone reading this who is not from Illinois probably doesn't care too much; it is enough for me to say that it is the typical problem of high pension obligations and benefits, funding neglected for far too long, and political wrangling that has prevented a solution until now (maybe).

I won't go into the remarkable political sclerosis that has prevented an earlier solution, but no public official has come out looking good. In particular, the governor, Rod Blagojevich, has seemed particularly feckless, pandering to public opinion while accomplishing very little of consequence.

At any rate, he sent his deputy governor to be questioned on WTTW last night (he rarely rouses himself to take real questions). She came on and, essentially, every answer she gave was some variation of, "The governor is working hard for the people of Illinois."

But don't we pay her? Isn't she supposed to serve us, not the PR interests of the governor? I don't understand why the accountability of highly-paid officials goes more toward the person who hired them, rather than the people.

[Accuse me, if you will, of being hopelessly naive or deliberately disingenuous. I think, however, that occasionally we need to put on our naive hat and look at the world as it is, not as we have forced ourselves to accept. Of course Sheila Nix is blindly loyal to the man who made her career, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't approach it with outrage, at least once in a while.]