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Rod Blagojevic Ex-Governor Illinois: It’s Not Over
It’s finally happened. It was almost like waiting for your cousin to give birth to a new baby by C-section. You know she’s going to give birth on a specific date and time. You may even know the sex of the child.
That’s what happened when the Illinois state legislature conducted a very public impeachment trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich. We knew, as did the governor, when he was arrested on December 9, 2008, that it was just a matter of time before he was ousted from the office with much fanfare. The publicity, flamboyance and circus atmosphere surrounding Blagojevich’s actions while governor and his subsequent trial were equal to the way he conducted himself while governor.
We have no fault with what he did. As far as we can see he did nothing wrong. No lives were lost; no one was irreparably harmed. Yet on Thursday, January 29, 2009 the Illinois State Senate voted unanimously, 59-0, to remove Rod Blagojevich from the office of governor, never to hold public office in the state again, for abuse of power.
We want to say we like Rod Blagojevich. What would our American politicians be without the ability to leverage, negotiate to get people and laws into place that will benefit the people to whom they are accountable? Blagojevich was just doing what every other politician does. It’s just that while doing his job he angered, annoyed and blocked some opposing legislators; we suspect some of these people may have had it in for him because of his immigrant heritage, his administrative style and his political success.
We want to say, as that famous Hispanic-Jewish tee vee reporter said, Blagojevich got a raw deal. He never committed a crime. His discussions by phone or in person were sometimes profanity laced rants that can also be described as passionate for the topic of a vacated U.S. Senate seat. Acknowledging the value and stating his reluctance to give it up for nothing does not necessarily mean he was trying to sell the seat for cash.
We believe Rod Blagojevich is another in a long list of distractions for the American people. True he’s a former Illinois prosecutor, congressional representative with lots of experience in the law and politics, a bigwig whom many believe should have his comeuppance.
But we find his trespasses are far less offensive to us than those of say, Karl Rove, who was instructed by the Bush administration lawyers to ignore any subpoenas to escape being accountable for his part in the illegal Bush administrations’ activities–think Valerie Plame out CIA operative; or Dick Cheney who arrogantly disclosed in television exit interviews his part in the decision to go against treaty agreements that prohibit torture. Or for that matter the former occupant of the White House George W. Bush, himself, who is responsible for the deaths of countless numbers of young Americans and Iraqi civilians. Talk about abuse of power. GWB lied and provided false evidence to start a war that no one wanted.
We think the actions by state Attorney General Lisa Madigan–look for her in the future as a candidate for governor; federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and the legislative leaders in both state houses, who told Blagojevich in December that if certain things did not happen he’d be removed from office, (they were using their political leverage), are more offensive to us than anything the former governor said or did.
Just know that if it can happen to him. It can happen to you. We still do not know how it is the ex-governor’s actions came to the attention of the federal prosecutor who on December 9, 2008 at a news conference about the then governor’s arrest behaved as though the federal part of this case had been held with a favorable verdict for the government and the case closed. We had believed in the past Fitzgerald was fair. Guess we were wrong about that assessment.
We expect Rod Blagojevich’s federal case to never come to trial; just like Elliot Spitzer’s federal case. We find it interesting how certain governors are removed from office amid lots of scandalous publicity, federal charges of wrong doing and nearly 24/7 news coverage mostly to keep the public from questioning the real crimes being done in business and government while determining, once the subject has been removed from the power position, there is no point in going forward with the trial on federal charges.
We expect to hear more from private citizen Blagojevich. We hope he and his family will do well.
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