My God, It’s Full of Stars

12:24 pm, 12/9/08

Yesterday, Rod Blagojevich defiantly brushed off the news that his phones were tapped:

A defiant Gov. Rod Blagojevich says anyone who wants to tape his conversations should feel free to do it openly because doing it "sneakily" smells like Watergate, the scandal that brought down former President Richard Nixon.

"This is America, you know, and I'd appreciate if you want to tape my conversations, give me a heads-up and let me know," Blagojevich said.

It did smell like Watergate, if you imagine that Blagojevich is, in fact, playing the role of his political hero, Richard Nixon. The reason federal investigators didn't give Blagojevich a "heads-up" is for much the same reason that cops sometimes get no-knock warrants.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder in what a federal prosecutor called a "corruption crime spree."

Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.

"We were in the middle of a corruption crime spree and we wanted to stop it," Fitzgerald said Tuesday, calling the corruption charges against Blagojevich "a truly new low."

Federal investigators bugged the governor's campaign offices and placed a tap on his home phone and Chicago FBI chief Robert Grant said even seasoned investigators were "stunned" by what they heard on the tapes.

Stunned?

There's no excuse for being "stunned". I got over that five years ago when the brazen criminality of Rod Blagojevich became so painfully obvious simply from reading the paper. Since this blog started, I've written about four hundred posts on Blago's corruption and incompetence, pretty much shouting into the darkness, even while partisan Democrats still tried to assert that Blagojevich was merely a "victim" of the "right-wing smear machine".

You didn't need a degree in political science to put this one together, you just had to have a healthy skepticism of politicians from the most corrupt political machine in America, and a willingness to admit that they're visibly destroying the state. I called this exact scheme with Obama's Senate seat six months ago. Somehow, despite it all being right there in the papers, he managed to get reelected, and the public consensus that his corruption exceeds the typical background noise for Chicago Democrats has really only started to come together in the last year or so.

Fitzgerald took a dramatic step to stop Blagojevich today rather than continuing to gather evidence. My guess is he wanted to stop him before he could poison the Senate with his appointment. Longtime readers know that seeing Blagojevich go to prison has essentially been this blog's primary purpose, so let me put it in writing, to avoid any confusion: this arrest makes me very happy. The only reason it took me this long to post about it is because I've been working nights this week, and didn't find out until I woke up two hours ago to several voicemails, emails, and instant messages wondering why I haven't posted about this yet.

This is like Christmas morning.

Blagojevich considered appointing himself [to the United States Senate]. The affidavit said that as late as Nov. 3, he told his deputy governor that if "they're not going to offer me anything of value I might as well take it."

"I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain," Blagojevich allegedly said later that day, according to the affidavit, which also quoted him as saying in a remark punctuated by profanity that the seat was "a valuable thing - you just don't give it away for nothing."

The affidavit said Blagojevich also discussed getting a substantial salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions.

It said Blagojevich also talked about getting his wife placed on corporate boards where she might get $150,000 a year in director's fees.

He also allegedly discussed getting campaign funds for himself or possibly a post in the president's cabinet or an ambassadorship once he left the governor's office. He noted becoming a U.S. senator might remake his image for a possible presidential run in 2016, according to the affidavit. And he allegedly said a Senate seat would also provide him with corporate contacts if he needed a job and present an opportunity for his wife to work as a lobbyist.

"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.

The affidavit said Blagojevich expressed frustration at being "stuck" as governor and that he would have access to greater resources if he were indicted while in the U.S. Senate than while sitting as governor.

Not only was Rod Blagojevich, the most loathed Democrat in America, the only Democratic governor who managed to prove less popular than Kathleen Blanco in the middle of Hurricane Katrina, still trying to weasel his way into the Presidency of the United States, but he was hoping to have a more powerful office from which to weasel his way out of the criminal charges he so richly deserves. Ironically, the fact that he deserves them is why his hopes of running for President were dashed in the first place.

They've also arrested Blagojevich's chief of staff, John Harris, who apparently was involved in a separate conspiracy involving the Service Employees International Union and, in some undefined and apparently non-implicatory way, Barack Obama.

Under the plan, Blagojevich would appoint a new senator who would be helpful to the president-elect and in turn get a job as head of Change to Win, a group formed by the union. The union would get an unspecified favor from Obama later.

Nothing in the court papers suggested Obama had any part in the discussion. In fact, Blagojevich allegedly said in the same conversation that Obama most likely would not appoint him as secretary of health and human services or to an ambassadorship because of the negative publicity that has surrounded the governor for three years.

One day later, according to the affidavit, Blagojevich allegedly told an associate he knew Obama wanted a specific Senate candidate but "they're not going to give me anything except appreciation." He finished the remark with an expletive.

Illinoisans aren't even going to give him that.

Update: A reader emails:

Q: What did one Illinois prison inmate say to the other?

A: "The food was better when you were Governor."

Heh.

Update: The complaint.

What a relief that the Feds didn't let him finish his term before taking action. He didn't deserve to go out with his dignity intact. Today was a good day.

Update: Ironically, today is United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day. Tomorrow is Rod Blagojevich's birthday.

An instant message from my father: "It's Rod Blagojevich's birthday tomorrow, but he had his surprise party today."