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Keller @ Large: DiMasi Trial Should Wake Up Voters

BOSTON (CBS) - They're wading through the jury selection process in federal court at the corruption trial of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi, but soon enough the parade of witnesses will start giving testimony, and it won't be for the weak of stomach.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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DiMasi is charged with extorting $65,000 in payoffs for his alleged help in making sure a Burlington software company landed $17.5 million worth of state contracts.

And on one level, the trial may help answer a disturbing question - how could an experienced, intelligent guy like DiMasi, with a successful law practice on the side, allegedly be persuaded to risk self-destruction for what amounts to chump change?

But the DiMasi trial promises to be about much more than that.

With a witness list that includes the current speaker and senate president, the governor, and a who's who of lobbyists, cabinet secretaries, press secretaries and consultants, this will be a rare, detailed look at the way the sausage is made on Beacon Hill, the back-scratching, the ego-mania, the grasping and the greed, and the extensive amounts of time and energy devoted to everything but what they're supposed to be doing up there, taking care of the people's business.

In any business the size of state government, you're going to have waste, mismanagement, incompetence, even corruption of some sort, it's human nature, and the public sector does not have the market cornered on any of that.

But we can only hope that the DiMasi case exposes to a broad audience the reality of what state government here has become, most people doing their best, but far too many using our money to pursue agendas that have nothing to do with the public interest.

What DiMasi is accused of didn't happen in a vacuum. Perhaps his trial will wake voters up to how badly our political culture needs a vacuuming of its own.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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