May 26, 2011--Political Mafia

Back in1957 there was a meeting of nearly 100 Mafia Godfathers in upstate Apalachin, New York.

The boys had a lot on their minds.

They needed to divvy up Cosa Nostra operations such as gambling, casinos, and narcotics dealing. The Scalice and Anastasia murders were topics that needed immediate attention, since men in the Anastasia Family still loyal to the Anastasia/Scalise regime, such as the powerful caporegimes Aniello "The Lamb" Dellacroce and Armand "Tommy" Rava were about to go to war against Vito Genovese and his allies.

Some of the most powerful Mafia family heads in the country, such as Santo Trafficante, Jr., Northeastern family underboss Rosario "Russell" Bufalino, Frank DeSimone of Los Angeles, Carlos "Little Man" Marcello and Meyer Lansky worried about Anastasia's attempts to muscle in on their Havana casino operations, before the Commission sanctioned his assassination.

Cuba itself was one of the Apalachin topics of discussion, particularly the gambling and narcotics smuggling interests of the Cosa Nostra on the island. The international narcotics trade was also an important topic on the Apalachin agenda. Shortly before the confab, Bonanno Family members Joseph Bonanno, Carmine Galante, Frank Garafolo, Giovanni Bonventre. and other representatives from Detroit, Buffalo. and Montreal visited Palermo, where they held talks with Sicilian Mafiosi.

Among other things, these goodfellas helped invent what we today call the globalized economy.

Imagine, if you will, a more contemporary meeting. This one hosted by Fox News godfather Roger Ailes at his own upstate compound. The purpose of the meeting, according to New York Magazine, was to convince New Jersey governor Chris Christie to enter the Republican race for the presidential nomination. Ailes, a former Nixon aide, had become increasingly frustrated with the shrinking slate of candidates and to figure out what to do had been talk daily with George Bush, the Father.

Though Ailes hired Mike Huckabee to host a Fox show and thought of him as a comer, Huckabee likes his six figure Fox salary more than having to give it up as he would have to do if he were to enter the race. Newt too has been a Fox regular but then there is that adultery issue and now the $500,000 Tiffany problem. And though Ailes also put Sarah Palin on the payroll for big bucks, he has come to conclude that she is "an idiot." No fool that Roger.

So what to do?

Fall in love with Christie, that's what he did, just when the New Jersey Supreme Court found the governor behaving unconstitutionally for savagely cutting school budgets in impoverished districts around the state; and after recent polls showed Christie's approval rating had plummeted to only 42 percent, lower than Jersey Shore's Snooki's.

Not to be deterred, Ailes plowed ahead; and since he knew that Christie had taken himself out of contention (saying with blithe certainty that though he could beat Obama, with considerable self-insight, declared he was not yet qualified to be president), Roger, caring more about winning than elected a qualified candidate, decided he had to roll out the literal heavy guns. So to the dinner he invited Rush Limbaugh, who along with Ailes and Karl Rove is the titular head of the Republican Party.

Considering the heavyweights gathered in the baronial Ailes' dining room (and the pun is intended), I wish I had been a fly on the wall to eavesdrop on the courtship.

All I know that Christie humbly declined.

So I guess this means that the GOP field is reduced to three Mr. Excitements--Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Obama's recent ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman. On the lunatic right, of course, there is Ron Paul. And for comic relief, Michele Bachmann. I am assuming that the one-year governor of Alaska doesn't want to give up being CEO of Palin, Inc, which continues for the moment to net her a cool $10 million a year. And I assume that George H. W. Bush is reluctant to push son Jeb's candidacy. Even though his mind isn't as sharp as in the past, I suspect Poppy in his soul knows that another Bush presidency would just about finish us off.