Why is the media enabling Blagojevich?

I have found a new, hard-to-pronounce reason to never become a politician: Blagojevich.

The former Illinois governor’s wicked intention to “sell” a vacant U.S. Senate seat is trumped only by his narcissistic megalomania and pathological lying, played out in the public square recently thanks to ratings-craving TV news producers.

As he was taken from his home on Dec. 9 by federal agents, he told NBC, “I thought about Mandela, Dr. King and Gandhi and tried to put some perspective to all this, and that is what I am doing now.”

This wackjob sounds like a dream case study for a psychology student.

The Illinois Senate voted 59-0 not only to impeach Blagojevich as governor, but barred him from ever holding public office in the state again.

With such a firm repudiation, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why reputable media outlets were validating this man with a platform through which to feed his delusions and further tarnish the sometimes questionable credibility of American politics.

ABC’s “Nightline, CNN’s “Larry King Live” and several other supposed bastions of principled journalism featured Blagojevich in extensive interviews on telecasts in the days leading up to the decision on his impeachment.

I understand the Shakespearean tragedy and morbid fascination surrounding a U.S. governor gone corrupt. But with the unemployment rate in the country rising past 7% and with the government set to write a $800+ billion stimulus check funded with taxpayer dollars, so much journalistic energy should not have been spent on Blago from Chicago.

A two-minute summary of his trial and a few comments from the man would have sufficed. The fact that he has been elevated to an iconic status – which was exactly his sick intention – is sad.

Warren Buffet, the pragmatic billionaire investor, once said: “To a degree, people read the press to inform themselves, and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”

If the teacher is distracted by a corrupt politician with a bad hair cut and missing moral fibers, how are the students supposed to know what is important to learn?