VENGEANCE WILL BE HIS

VENGEANCE WILL BE HIS Whether Scott Lee Cohen can be described as jetsam (thrown overboard voluntarily by Mike Madigan) or flotsam (goods floating on the water without having being thrown in deliberately), he is now rising from the ashes of a media scorching like the mythical phoenix; reborn anew to live again. On February 7th, I posted a blog, “Holier Than Thou,” where I wrote that I hoped that Scott Lee Cohen, the winner of the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor, would not succumb to the pressure of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and drop out of the race. On February 8th, I wrote, “Know Thyself,” where I registered discontentment that he had surrendered. I quoted Plato and then Cohen: “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge.” Cohen exhibited all three of those sources when in his speech on dropping out of the race he said, “When I decided to run for Lieutenant Governor, I did it with my heart and my soul. I thought that by opening up my life, I could represent the people in a fair, honest, loving, caring way.” On March 4th, I met Cohen for the first time at a private lunch at The Capital Grille that had been arranged by one of his advisors, Baxter Swilley. While I might have found some of the “scandal” in Cohen’s past offensive, I respected that he had attempted to get ahead of his history James Carville Cajun-style by revealing his foibles to Sun Times columnist Mark Brown a year earlier. The fact that other media and the uneducated voting public choose to ignore the story was through their own stupidity; not through Cohen’s lack of candor. I enjoyed my conversation with Cohen and found him quite charming. Once it became apparent that my candidate of choice for Illinois Governor, Kirk Dillard, would not be the Republican nominee, I hoped that Cohen would enter the race as an Independent candidate. While I am a Republican, I do not know Bill Brady and have no allegiance to him; he beat my friend Dillard so he meant nothing to me. I had no horse to whip. When I received a call last week that Cohen would be entering the race, I was ecstatic! Now I could care about the gubernatorial contest. Let the trumpet call of “Boots and Saddles” resound loudly throughout the Land of Lincoln. Here was a stallion I could root for. Here was someone who decided he was not afraid to take on Madigan. How could one not help but respect someone with such guts?

Cohen might have rolled over like a puppy when first confronted by the Illinois Democratic Party that he better get out of Madigan’s way; but now he is growling. The Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz might have asked Dorothy and the Tin Man to talk him out of confronting the Wicked Witch of the West but he discovered he had the courage to tackle the demons in the Emerald City. Cohen doesn’t have straw for brains, he is no Scarecrow and Madigan might be melting right now.