There Is Violence In Chicago

2:15 am, 10/14/06

There Is Violence In Chicago
You can't script October, and Rich Miller is explaining that something is missing from the Rezko picture.

Once again, Illinoisans are forced to wonder whether their governor is an idiot or a crook or an idiotic crook.

Rezko was the ultimate Rod Blagojevich insider. He raised millions of dollars for Blagojevich's campaign fund. After the election, Rezko recommended tons of people for big-time state jobs. He got people appointed to state boards and commissions, including some who "coincidentally" contributed large sums of money to Blagojevich's campaign right around the time of their appointments. There have been many such "coincidences" in the last four years.

But Rezko was more than just a political pal. Much more. Rezko was one of the governor's most trusted friends. Rezko had an eight-year business partnership with the governor's wife. They attended personal and family events together.

Rezko also appears on the governor's gift disclosure report. Actually, Rezko wasn't listed on the report until Blagojevich was visited by his friendly neighborhood FBI agents, and then suddenly the form was amended.

The governor won't say what Rezko gave him except that the gifts may have been presents for his daughter. We went down that road last month, remember, when we found out that a city worker friend gave the governor $1,500 after the worker's wife got a state job. Blagojevich claims that the $1,500 went into his daughter's college fund. One can't help but wonder how much the fabulously wealthy Tony Rezko might have contributed to that same college fund.

Kid's going to George Washington University, apparently.

If Rezko was just a guy who raised a few bucks for the campaign and got a friend a job inspecting bridges for IDOT, then I can see how the governor could be excused for not knowing anything about this mess. But no matter how hard they spin things, he at least should have known something was amiss.

Accusations have swirled around Rezko since 2004, when it was alleged that he was part of a group that was shaking down hospitals and also that he may have sold seats on a state hospital oversight board for $25,000 contributions to the governor's campaign fund.

And it's not just Rezko.

Rezko was half of the gruesome twosome that helped the governor create his administration from the ground up. The other half was Chris Kelly, a roofing construction magnate who also raised millions of dollars for Blagojevich's campaign fund. Blagojevich has called Kelly "one of my closest friends." Kelly often described himself as "chairman of the governor's political organization."

I've wondered about what will become of Kelly, myself. Among his previous exploits, he raised money for an alderman whose brother determined how much Kelly got paid for roofing work at O'Hare, his sister landed a do-nothing job at the Bureau of Real Estate Professions, and threatened to sue Dick Mell, the Governor's father-in-law, for questioning the Blagfather's ethics.

Kelly is not mentioned by name in Rezko's indictment, but everyone's reporting that he is "Individual B." Individual B is alleged to have participated in a crooked scheme with Rezko and others to make sure that the Teachers Retirement System used investors and lawyers that he and Rezko recommended. According to a guilty plea by another player involved in this corrupt cabal, those investors and lawyers were then to be shaken down on behalf of Blagojevich's campaign fund.

The governor has spent millions of dollars on TV ads depicting his opponent Judy Baar Topinka as a "George Ryan Republican," but the most ironic part of this scandal is that the governor's guys were allegedly teamed up with some of the most entrenched Republican players in Illinois. Stu Levine was the ringleader and Bill Cellini is alleged to have been a facilitator. Levine has been a player for years. Cellini is the founding father of pinstripe patronage.

Meanwhile, the governor didn't see a thing and is totally clean. Or so he says. I'm not so sure.

Remember Al Capone's response in The Untouchables to the accusation he ran his business empire through violence?

"I grew up in a tough neighbourhood. We used to say, 'You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.' And in that neighbourhood it might've been true. And sometimes your reputation follows you. There is violence in Chicago, but not by me and not by anybody l employ, because it's not good business.

That's basically been Blagojevich's defense since all this started unravelling. In fact, Rod is now claiming that he hasn't seen Rezko in months. Next week, he'll completely throw him under the campaign bus and claim he hardly knew the guy, like he did with longtime friends Dominic Longo and Daniel Stefanski (who, ironically, was made a deputy director of the Department of Transportation, despite being a repeat DUI offender who eventually wound up nearly killing a number of motorists in yet another drunken joyride, finally getting crammed into the back of a squad car by three cops while shouting "Do you know who I am?!").

That's what it's like knowing Rod Blagojevich: One sunny day, he's telling you how you're going to get rich together if you'll just hold the bag, the next day, you're getting handcuffed and he's disavowed all knowledge of your existence, just like Mission: Impossible, but without any of the redeeming elements. The guy's father-in-law had him pegged.

It's not a partisan issue, it's a Chicago Machine issue, and if there is a just God, they're all going to prison.