Too bad he’s boycotting trial, it would have been a real show
Gov. Blagojevich started Friday on WLS radio portraying himself as Jimmy Stewart in the role of the idealistic Sen. Jefferson Smith who battles the crooked political establishment in the Capra classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
By his next appearance in the afternoon, the governor had recast himself as a cowboy (Gary Cooper?) unfairly accused of cattle-rustling in some unnamed old Western. In the governor’s story line, the posse is intent on hanging our hero, but one of the other cowboys objects: “Hold on! Before we hang him, let’s first give him a fair trial. Then, we’ll hang him.”
So when Blagojevich popped up later on black-oriented WVON, I was eager to learn which movie character he would adopt next. Shaft, perhaps?
In fairness, the governor did not pander to his radio audience by again changing movie genres, even if he previously did so while picking our new U.S. senator.
I’ll say this for Blagojevich: He’s very entertaining. That’s why it’s such a shame he has decided to sit out this week’s impeachment trial in Springfield. It would have been quite a show.
But the governor is never interested in playing by anybody else’s rules, which is why instead he went on a public relations blitz that allowed him to make speeches, filibuster and avoid all the really tough questions about those embarrassing — and incriminating — FBI wiretaps.
As it stands, it would appear the highlight of the trial before the Illinois Senate could be the playing of a portion of four of those tapes involving the governor’s alleged efforts to obtain campaign donations from a racetrack owner in exchange for signing a bill directing casino revenue to horse racing.
Federal prosecutors picked the tapes the Senate will hear, presumably because they most clearly show the governor’s venality without compromising the rest of their case against him.
Around the time Blagojevich was on WVON, the federal judge who approved wiretapping the governor agreed to release the four tapes to state legislators. I can’t say if the governor’s showboating affected the judge’s decision, but judges are known to pay attention to the news. Shortly after that, the governor’s lawyer quit the case, which is definitely something that happens when showboating clients antagonize judges by failing to listen to their lawyer.
The purported reason for the governor going on an offensive was to object to the fairness of the Senate rules under which he is being tried. I’m convinced he’s just trying to lay the groundwork for that one juror who could hang up the verdict at his future criminal trial.
Notably, the governor has not seen fit to challenge the impeachment rules in court, although he doesn’t rule out the possibility.
Believe it or not, though, I admit the governor has a point about the rules, even if he has obscured it with his usual misstatements and half-truths.
He keeps saying he can’t put on any witnesses in his defense. That’s not true.
But he is blocked from taking testimony from any of the individuals who figure into the criminal case. That puts him in an impossible situation.
While those prosecuting him in the impeachment case say they are constrained by the same limitations, the difference is that legislators propose to accept as fact the allegations contained in the federal criminal complaint under which the governor was arrested.
That leaves the governor no way to refute those accusations other than to go before the Senate himself and testify that he didn’t say or do the stuff that federal investigators say he did, which he can’t really do because it would put him in greater jeopardy in the federal case — especially since he’d be lying.
Does that make the impeachment case unfair? I don’t know.
I’ll tell you what I’m pretty sure is unfair: It’s unfair that a guy who was caught selling out his office is still on the job, running our government and making important decisions nearly two months later. There has to be a way to stop him, and if this is the only means now at our disposal, that’s what we’ll have to do.
One of my favorite parts of Blagojevich’s Friday performances, other than seeing him regain his old rooster strut, was his challenge to the Chicago Tribune editorial board to stick up for him about the impeachment rules.
I wonder if he was expecting that editorial to be prepared by the same writers he was secretly recorded trying to have fired as part of a Wrigley Field financing deal.
If it’s true Blagojevich takes his inspiration from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” then I’d say he more closely modeled himself after the Claude Rains’ character, the treacherous Sen. Joseph Paine.
Maybe it’s time he saw a new movie. “Frost/Nixon” should be right up his alley.
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Full article and photo:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/1395617,CST-NWS-brown25.article
