I was in the car yesterday, listening to NPR like the zany liberal stereotype I aspire at all times to be, when the news broke that Illinois's Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich (bla-goy-a-vitch, in case you've been wondering) had been arrested and taken into federal custody by the FBI, charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery in a pay-for-play scandal that allegedly involved, among other things, effectively trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacated US Senate seat to the highest bidder.
The investigation, led by US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the one and very same of Plamegate fame, culminated in Blago's arrest not 24 hours after the governor announced to reporters: "I don't believe there's any cloud that hangs over me. I think there's nothing but sunshine hanging over me." Given that he was caught on tape and is unlikely to escape losing his office at minimum, I guess we'll soon find out if there ain't no sunshine when he's gone. But I digress.
Despite the seriousness of the allegations and my hardly unique aversion to abuses of government power, I must admit that my first reaction when the news came over the wire was a resounding fit of laughter. And you might have done the same if you'd been paying attention to Illinois politics for the last three decades or so. You see, you're just not an Illinois governor unless you're breaking federal law – or hanging out with people who did.
Since 1950, Illinois has had 10 governors, starting with that Democratic disturber of the peace Adlai Stevenson. He and his successor, Republican William Stratton, managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Sure, Stratton was indicted for tax evasion, but he was acquitted.
Republican Otto Kerner was really the first governor to get the modern corruption ball rolling with a conviction on 17 counts of bribery, tax evasion, conspiracy, perjury and other charges, resulting in a federal prison sentence. But make no mistake: Kerner was merely the first to get caught – done in largely because he accepted bribes in the form of stocks from a dear lady who put the transaction on her federal income tax returns, as she considered bribery a necessary business expenditure for operating in the state of Illinois.
Kerner was followed by Democrat Sam Shapiro and Republican Richard Ogilvie, both of whom managed to keep their noses clean (as least as far as we know, ahem) – though poor Ogilvie was ousted for instituting a state tax, and might well have been better off committing an actual crime, as far as his constituency were concerned.
Democrat Dan Walker followed, with a clean record while in office, only to be sentenced to seven years in jail (of which he served 18 months) for savings & loan shenanigans after he left office. He was refused a pardon by President Bill Clinton.
Illinoisans were fed up with dirty Dems, and promptly elected three Republicans in a row: Jim Thompson (who had served as prosecutor at Otto Kerner's trial – you can't make this stuff up), Jim Edgar and George Ryan. Thompson was, by all appearances, clean. Edgar's administration was rife with scandals and federal convictions, though he was never caught with dirty hands. And Ryan is, as we speak, sitting in a medium-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, having been convicted, along with more than 75 other people, of various crimes of corruption in a massive investigation. Ryan's defence attorney is – wait for it – Jim Thompson.
You really can't make this stuff up.
And that brings us to Blago, who appears to have been brazen in his disregard of the law even by Illinois' standards.
Or maybe it's just that the standards in the Land of Obama, nee Lincoln, are not what they used to be.
In a twist of political irony that could only really be at home in a Shakespeare play or Illinois, Blago's downfall may have been indirectly orchestrated by his two-time supporter, President-elect Barack Obama. The New York Times reports today that a phone call placed by Obama three months ago to urge passage of an Illinois state ethics bill convinced the state senate to override Blago's veto 55-0, sending Blago scrambling to "press state contractors for campaign contributions before the law's restrictions could take effect on January 1," which eventually led to the wiretapping that resulted in his arrest.
Well, well. Obama did promise to be an agent of change. I imagine neither he nor Rod Blagojevich expected that change to arrive on the doorstep of the Illinois governor's mansion, but it's a good a place to start as any. And better than most.
