But He's Our Bumbling, Loveable Criminal

Dean Zimmerman - former Green Party member of the Minneapolis City Council - has been convicted of federal corruption charges:

Zimmermann, who represented the city's sixth ward from 2001 to 2005, was charged in a federal indictment with four counts, three involving allegations that he took $7,200 in cash bribes from a property developer, Gary A. Carlson. He was convicted on three of the charges.

He was also accused of trying to solicit the small, nonprofit development group to build a retaining wall on the property of his former domestic partner, and when the group turned him down, of asking that it supply him with materials so he could build the wall.

But, according to Doug Grow, he was a loveable, bumbling criminal:

There are few things so wretched as a corrupt politician.

But I must confess, I have a big bias when it comes to Zimmermann. I see him as a bumbler, more than a crook. He was a poor but decent-hearted handyman before he stunned everyone, perhaps even himself, by being elected in 2001 to the City Council as a member of the Green Party.

He heads to prison a poor but decent-hearted man who ran his political life like he's run the rest of his life: With extreme casualness.

Ah.

Compare this, if you will, to the things Doug Grow wrote about, say, Rod Grams back in 2000, for the transgressions of a son Grams had only a limited role in raising, and had nothing to do with Grams' work as a representative of the people and trustee of the peoples' franchise.

Morgan Grams was a symbol of Rod Grams' ickiness as a person, according to Doug Grow and the rest of the Twin Cities' dead tree pundocracy. Even though Rod Grams was a rigorously ethical politician (and one who accomplished more in six years in office than did Paul Wellstone in twelve).

Dean Zimmerman - convicted graftmongering pettifogger? Well, he just couldn't help it!

Zimmermann is probably most guilty of being in over his head. In the summer of 2005, he was trying to raise money to pay for a legal fight against a city redistricting plan that had wiped out his ward; he was trying to raise money for a highly-competitive city council race and he was trying to do his job on the council.

Along came developer Gary Carlson, carrying cash and wearing a wire.

Zimmermann took the money. More sophisticated pols have other people who take the money in legal ways.

Over his head!

Trying to keep his ward from being wiped out!

Tricked - an innocent exploited! - by a baaad developer wearing a wire and carrying filthy, federal lucre!

Why, we're lucky he stopped at taking bribes! A lesser man might have shot up an elementary school! We're lucky it was Dean Zimmerman!

Note to Doug Grow: Zimmerman took bribes in exchange for votes. The end result: With Dean Zimmerman, money bought influence that mere voters coud not get.

Go ahead, Doug Grow (and Green Party); put a soft, mushy focus on that fact. Please.

Zimmermann and Heiser were at their home, waiting for the call that would tell them the jury had reached a verdict. As usual, they were surrounded by a gaggle of their grown children and friends.

"You worried?" Zimmermann was asked.

"Jenny does that for me," he said.

"We've got lots of people worrying," she said.

"Good, cuz I don't want to," he said.

There was laughter around the dining room table, where a steady stream of people were invited to help Zimmermann put together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a lovely cottage by a lake.

Zimmermann compared the wait for the jury verdict to a Zimmermann-family funeral back in his homeland, North Dakota.

"Everybody sits around, looks at the body and laughs and tells stories," he said.

He's just a folksy, regular guy - who happens to practice the same hippie politics Doug Grow has been waxing dreamy over for his entire career!

Never mind that he's been convicted of being a graftmongering pettifogger. Never mind that it's shown the Green Party, which sanctimoniously intones against the influence of money in politics, is not any better than the big parties - just more stupid about it.

Question: Do you think a convicted graftmongering pettifogger - no matter how loveable, no matter how human, no matter how loved by his family - would warrant the same gauzy focus from Doug Grow if he weren't a back-dated hippie who wallows in the same romanticized version of "the left" that Doug Grow's clip file bulges with?

I have no problem with portraying people as humans. I do have one when a columnist is as selective and myopic about it as Doug Grow is. And has always been. And will aways be.

Posted by Mitch at August 11, 2006 06:55 AM | TrackBack