Of Corruption and Silver Linings

The good people at Badlands Blue have plugged this blog on Twitter, so I really don't want to cast aspersions on their interpretation of Governor Rounds being named one of the nation's worst governors, but I really think that they are missing a few of the benefits that come with corrupt governance.

Hiding donations and making sure that family members on on the payroll seems to come straight from the Huey and Earl Long school of governing.  If South Dakota is to be governed as if it's Deep South Dakota, then we might develop our own William Faulker or Flannery O'Connor instead of leaving regional literature to Wyoming's Craig Johnson.

Johnson is truly a great writer, but this corruption might mean that South Dakota won't  have to limit our sights to regional literature.  We could find our own Shakespeare and have him write a South Dakota version of Hamlet.  If something is truly rotten in South Dakota, perhaps the Governor could begin political testimonials by saying, "Alas! poor Janklow, I knew him Daugaard; . . . "  State policy could be dictated with decrees such as "This above all to thine own self be true/but give no money to the schools."

Most importantly, we unenlightened voters might view corruption as madness, but "there is method in 't."  I'm sure Rounds intends to stave off the 2012 disasters that some say the Maya predicted.  After all, if "the world's grown honest/Then is doomsday near."  Corrupt politicians surely mean that the world has not yet become honest.

We benighted folk of the hinterland just need to remember that "there are more things in heaven and earth, . . . /Than are dreamt of in [our ethical] philosphies."  I for one look forward to practicing either a Southern or Elizabethan accent.