Bleepin' Guilty

Former Illinois Governor Rod "The Bleepinator" Blagojevich was found guilty of several corruption charges connected with his attempts to "sell" an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president.

This was Blagojevich's second trial. The first jury deadlocked on most of the charges, including the major ones, and federal prosecutors no likey losing cases against officials when they have them committing the crimes on tape. Blagojevich had long since been booted out of Springfield, the state capitol, being removed from office after being impeached. His successor, current Governor Pat Quinn, has presided over a substantial income tax hike needed to keep the Illinois government functioning. Once Quinn leaves office, Blagojevich will probably not be Illinois' most hated ex-governor anymore.

Again, we have to wonder what Illinois' most famous machine politician, Da Honrable Richard J. Daley, Mare a Da Great City a Chicago an' All Its Great Peoples, would think of these issues. Blagojevich was convicted based on several phone conversations with others that were being taped by investigators, and Da Mare would probably just shake his head at someone who trusted important matters of state like this to the phone. He knew that you never knew who might be listening, and he even owned all the Chicago cops. In the end, I imagine he might have said something like what most Chicago politicians might say about why state government officials seem to get caught doing stuff that Chicago pols would think of as remedial-level graft: Springfield makes you stupid.

You got to stay amongst the best there is if you want to stay amongst the best there is.