Free Will Classic

5:36 am, 10/9/03

A Vast Illinois Conspiracy
This is fairly amazing: Democratic Underground's fruitcake message board features the theory that Blagojevich will be the next target of an imaginary plot to make Democrats look bad. (All the bad press is proof of a right-wing media conspiracy, right?

Blagojevich is a brand new Dem governor... even if he was forced out somehow, the voters are still overwhelmingly Democratic -- Chicago is still run by the Dem "machine"...

"Somehow"? The tip of the tip of the spear of Illinois corruption? I can't possibly imagine how. Is it the wheelbarrows full of cash to corrupt special interests? The dismantling of the state? The accusations even from other Illinois democrats that he's a lying, incompetent oaf? The complete malfeasance on the budget? Hiking business fees and driving jobs out of the state? Getting stopped by a federal judge because he was trying to give Mayor Daley's brother a telecom supermonopoly in the state? Bilking Chicagoans in the People's Energy scandal? His pointless scheme to smuggle drugs from Canada? His hysterical rhetoric on gun control? His declaration that the destruction of downstate communities in horrific natural disasters "isn't important enough" to warrant a flyover to tour the damage, even while the Missouri governor is already on scene and disaster area declarations are being made? His refusal to move to Springfield? Any of the hundreds of acts of incompetence that are featured in the papers every day?

How could he possibly end up getting driven out of office? As George Carlin would say, it's a mystery.