Blago Releases 'List of Nine Reasons Why I'm Great'
Give Rod Blagojevich credit: This man simply does not back down on health care -- the issue that is the true reason the legislature is trying to remove him from office.
Blagojevich just responded to his impeachment by holding a press conference surrounded by supporters, some of whom were sick or disabled, discussing everything he's done to help people, and how the legislature has stood in his way. "So the House's action today, and the causes of the impeachment," Blago explained, "are because I've done things to fight for families who are here with me today."
Here are just nine ways he is great and good:
• He has been pushing the House to pass a capital construction program, a jobs program that would create 500,000-750,000 jobs.
• His commitment to health care comes from a religious conviction, and learning the Golden Rule back in Sunday school.
• He has pushed for the House to expand the breast and cervical cancer program, on behalf of the 261,000 uninsured women in Illinois, and to "keep moms alive to care for their children."
• He has saved senior citizens 30-50% off the cost of their medications.
• He saved a woman from breast cancer.
• He saved a young man with kidney disease, getting him a transplant.
• "And in many cases, the things we did for people have literally saved lives," Blago said. "I don't believe those are impeachable offenses."
• While the legislature is trying to throw him out office, he's trying to pass a bill to stop people from being thrown out of their homes.
• And finally, he quoted the great poet Alfred Tennyson:
though we are not now that strength which in days of old
moved heaven and earth --- that which we are, we are;
one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
This really demonstrates the dynamic with Blagojevich, which has to be recognized if he is to be truly understood: He is a proud and strong progressive...and a complete megalomaniac.
Late Update: Here's the video:
You can't make this stuff up...no one would believe you if you did.
January 9, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody have a video of this press conference? I can't seem to find one.
January 9, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because of these nine points, he gets to be governor, but if ge gets the trains to run on time, he gets a kill people too!
January 9, 2009 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I'm going to play devil's advocate. I know the guy is a loose cannon and has a reputation as a crook. But as I've said before, if really all there is is the stuff Fitzpatrick leaked, color me unimpressed with the case against him. It looks uncomfortably close to Siegelman-style prosecutorial overreach to me. I'd be happy to consider really substantive reasons why I'm wrong about that, but I'm really not seeing them anywhere.
January 9, 2009 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
They have enough to remove him from office, including the allegations from before the senate seat vacancy. After he is out of office, who cares if he's convicted?
January 9, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you expect Fitzgerald to publicly release all the evidence he has? You'd hardly characterize Fitzgerald as a loose cannon.
January 9, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steve,
I certainly agree that it is concerning that the impeachment is seemingly complete without Blago getting his day in court.
On the other hand, Blago's stunningly insane diversionary tactics may be grounds for impeachment on its own. Had he simply stated from the beginning that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing and that he would be vindicated, I would be much more sympathetic.
January 9, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
If being a megalomaniac were good reason for removal from office, there'd be a lot of vacant offices in this country.
January 9, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You say that like it shouldn't be that way.
This is a good instance where the slippery slope argument makes some sense. Just because we've become numb to self-serving politicians doesn't mean we can't draw the line somewhere.
Personally I am getting a little offended by all the other "practices" that are being used to prove Blaggo is just like everyone else. Our country would be much better without the whole lot of them.
January 9, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the impeachment is like an indictment - the defendant doesn't testify or present his case. the indictment is the green light for a trial in the Senate. So, Blagojevich has been impeached, but he will still have his day in court in the Senate trial. It's just like what happened with Clinton - he was impeached by not convicted.
January 10, 2009 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Fitz has done is nothing like Siegeleman's issues. I agree that "trial by press conference" is an abuse of power. Such abuses should be censured.
But impeachment in IL is not about illegal conduct of the Gov., proven or only suspected. It's about whatever the House decides it's about.
Blago may well have done some good things in office. But that doesn't answer the charges in the impeachment, and of course it wouldn't excuse illegal acts such as what Fitz. charged in the criminal complaint, should Blago be convicted at some point.
January 9, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trying to sell a Senate seat? Prosecutorial overreach?
January 9, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not what I saw in the transcripts. I saw exceptionally vulgar braggadoccio about (attempted) political horsetrading of the basest kind, but didn't see anything about bags of cash being delivered to B;ago, or the equivalent. Please correct me with chapter and verse if I'm wrong (a sincere request, not an ironic one.)
And given the awesome power of Federal prosecutors to ruin lives, yes Fitz should put up (i.e. indict promptly) or shut up. His excuses for dragging this out, while providing a peep show, are disturbingly lame.
As the Siegelman case shows, the power these prosecutors hold is dangerous and can strike down people a lot more admirable than Blago. That may in the long run be a bigger evil than the small-time mopery of the likes of Blago.
January 9, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
So let me get this right: when he was busy convicting Gambino, Rahman, Libby and Ryan, Fitzgerald was a straight shooter. Now he's a loose canon? Call me crazy, but he has FAR more credibility than Blago.
Political "horse trading" is ILLEGAL. You don't have to take delivery of cash to be convicted of conspiracy - which is a crime that those tapes prove without any additional evidence.
But any way it goes, there is the bit about him demanding 20K for the hospital funding - which was magically granted when Blago got his money. If you refuse to look at the evidence, you can easily pretend it doesn't exist.
The judge wouldn't have granted an extension if the only issue was needing to build a case against Blago. The only way an extension would happen is if Fitzgerald demonstrated handing up the indictment would damage the investigation and prosecution of others. I'm pretty sure what's happening now is the marginal players are being sewn up to see who will play ball.
Anyhow - you don't need to commit a crime to be impeached. Only to demonstrate that you failed to uphold the honor of the post, like maybe (attempted) horse trading of the basest kind. The constitution allows elected officials to be held to a HIGHER standard than the simple ability to avoid conviction over their actions. Read the document.
January 9, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do he and Burris have matching mausoleums?
January 9, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of megalomaniacs!
January 9, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because Blagojevich can't work things out with the two houses of the Legislature (under my party's control), Illinois is far behind paying its bills on time. As a University of Illinois retiree who qualifies for Medicare, the State picks up 20% of the amount approved by Medicare for my medical services. My clinic statement arrived today and the State still has not paid for some services I had in May and for which payment had been approved many months ago. Ask doctors how they feel about that. Many social service agencies in Illinois are practically bankrupt because the State is not meeting its commitments. While Blagojevich's antics have given late night comedians much to joke about, the way our state government has been running lately is causing real harm to many individuals. When Blagojevich was elected in 2002, he refused to live in the Governor's mansion in Springfield. The story was that his wife did not want to live downstate. I believe she is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which with Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington and Decatur are all decent places to live in Central Illinois. Now with hindsight, it seems that she realized there were better pickings in Chicago than downstate.
I've followed all this business pretty closely and our government right now seems like a real dysfunctional family. It may be that Fitzgerald won't be able to get a conviction (we have not seen all the evidence yet) but maybe we can again get a government that can do something.
The appointment of Burris to the Senate was a crowning indignity by Blagojevich, leaving us with a nice elderly U. S. Senator whose best days have receded pretty far into the past.
January 9, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just watched the video and think he's great. A fighter, something very much lacking among Democrats.
And I'm with Steve LaBonne (above) on this one. I read the entire indictment and it really didn't seem so bad. He is coarse and played some hardball that doesn't really shock me considering it is Chicago. The senate seat issue was all talk and isn't even the basis for the charges.
January 9, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
How could you possibly have read an indictment that doesn't yet exist?
January 9, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I meant the Complaint and the affidavit attached to the complaint.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/12/09/complaint.pdf
January 9, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Chicagoan, I say if you think he's so great you can have him. Yeah, he's a fighter but he only has one cause - himself. The state government has repeatedly grinded to a halt because of him - even before his arrest. He has been an awful governor, who has accomplished a few good things. Of course, it's more likely that he would have accomplished more good things if he did a better job and was willing to work with people instead of pulling one political stunt after another. I voted for him his first term but not the second because of how much he sucks.
The senate seat issue is part of the complaint against him - it falls under the part about committing fraud against the people of Illinois. Numbers 8 and 9 also touch on the senate seat issue. Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell a senate seat for personal financial gain - that is more than hardball. He tried to get editorial writers who criticized him fired in return for some help taking Wrigley Field of Sam Zell's hands. Even if this is the status quo, that doesn't make it right.
As for the senate seat issue being all talk, it seems to me that Fitzgerald arrested Blagojevich when he did to prevent him from selling the seat. Think of it as having wire taps on a hit man. the cops don't let the hit man go through with the hit before they step in. They step in when they think they have enough evidence to arrest him, and they prevent the hit from happening.
January 10, 2009 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly the kind of goo-goo grandiosity I'm warning against. It may seem ever so moral but it's actually deeply subversive of democracy.
January 9, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
My understanding is that "pay to play" was legit in IL, at least to some extent. So any specific allegations of horse trading do need to be tempered by the local legitimacy of such behavior in general. Some trades were probably acceptable, some not.
Impeaching the Gov. merely for conducting himself in accord with the official status quo seems ludicrous. Impeaching him because of Fitz's "trial by press conference" is a violation of due process. It's clear that the "selling the Senate seat" meme promoted by Obama is actually groundless, and it's plausible that there was no actual conspiracy to do that. I hope that at least some of the 13 counts in the impeachment have more substance.
January 9, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pay to play is not legit or legal in Illinois
January 10, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
It WAS. A bill was passed, and that passage was apparently what drove Blago to cast about for options before the deadline this year.
January 10, 2009 6:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Selling a senate seat for personal profit or trying to force a newspaper to fire editorial writers was not legal before the new ethics bill went into effect.
According to the Chicago Tribune on September 17, 2008, the bill "ban[s] contributors who have or seek contracts worth at least $50,000 from giving to statewide officials who dole out the business. They passed legislation this year to do just that against the backdrop of a federal investigation into allegations of pay-to-play politics and illegal hiring by Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration."
So Blagojevich was already being investigated for pay to play BEFORE this bill was passed, which to me suggests that pay to play was illegal before the bill was passed. This ethics bill just tightened up the ethics laws.
January 11, 2009 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
You say it "just tightened" but plenty of reports say Blago was hustling to try to beat the deadline of it going into effect. That says that SOME pay to play (or whatever other label might fit) WAS legal. What's your problem here??
Nobody sold a Senate seat. And there is no public evidence that anyone actually offered the Senate seat for sale. It's not even clear that there was an actual illegal conspiracy to try to sell it. It is clear that there were discussions of how to "horse trade" for it.
January 11, 2009 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
My problem is that I actually live under this governor. My other problem is that you were insisting that pay to play was legal in Illinois, and I was trying to clear up that it was not and is not. I specified how the ethics laws were being tightened regarding contributions from people seeking state contracts worth $50,000 and over to try to present actual facts to support my point. This new law makes any contribution between contract seekers and the government officials who make decisions on the contract illegal - that is a pretty strict and specific standard as those donations in the past were not necessarily pay to play. This law tries to remove even the opportunity for people to attempt to pay to play. Yes, there are reports that the deadline before that bill went into effect sent Blagojevich into overdrive trying to collect as much as he can from these people before those specific actions became illegal. There also reports that he may have gone into overdrive because he an astonishing amount of debt, mostly legal bills, to take care of.
Pay for play by my understanding is by definition illegal. It goes a step beyond "normal" political favors or donating money to a candidate, although the line can be blurry. It involves a clear quid pro quo - bribery, blackmail, or extortion may be involved. It's like saying "you won't get what you need for your children's hospital unless you give the governor $500,000." It is a direct purchase of government favors.
As for the public evidence, we'll see at the indictment proceedings what the evidence is and if there is enough for a trial. The only information the public has at this point is what Fitzgerald has told us and what Blagojevich and his lawyers have told us. We'll see how it all shakes out. I think he is corrupt, but I do not know for certain that he is corrupt. What I do know for certain is that he has been an awful governor. I voted him into office, but I did not vote to re-elect him.
January 11, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You replied to my comment
Besides quibbling over the exact meaning of "pay to play" (in quotes), do you have any substantive disagreement with the point? Some horse trading is okay, some is not, that's what "to some extent" means.
I'm not defending Blago, but I will defend due process generally.
January 11, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out the actual laws. Quid-pro-quo agreements are illegal. The requirement is that every action be taken in good faith without regard for any factor other than the evidence presented in relation to a specific official act (different states have varying degrees of "sunshine" laws that lay out the requirements for evidence disclosure related to official acts).
I don't see how that's subversive to democracy. It seems that if a legislator refused to vote in favor of a piece of legislation that was in their constituent's best interest as retaliation over the actions of another politician on an unrelated vote, the will of the people has been completely subverted.
If a political appointee is given a position instead of a more qualified person(or funding is granted/withheld) as a reward or retaliation for unrelated actions, it doesn't advance the good of the people - it advances the politician's own personal objectives.
Odd view of democracy you have. Any way it goes, I don't make the laws.
January 9, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have time to dissect the Administrative and other acts for all the related statutes in Illinois ... but here's one that probably applies from the penal code (720 ILCS 5/33‑3.1):
January 9, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, with such a nonsensical overinterpretation of the law you could put every legislator in the country in jail.
January 9, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is overinterpretation like what Alberto Gonzalez did to torture or was he suggesting those against torture were overinterpreting? Either way, it seems the issue is that the law is gettign enforced which is the preferable action in any and all situations. Then they get their day in court and everything gets out in the open. Right now we are mostly half-blind at best until Fitz shows the rest. I'm putting my money that Fitz has plenty.
January 10, 2009 3:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the Article of Impeachment. Funny how he didn't mention the 10 other charges in his presser.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/95/HR/PDF/09500HR1671lv.pdf
January 9, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
this guy is pure comedy.
January 9, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can tolerate a lot of nonsense, but quoting Ulysses is WAY over the line. You have to earn the right to quote Ulysses.
January 9, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blago quoting Ulysses is like Tiny Tim singing The Messiah
January 9, 2009 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you notice there's a baby crying periodically in the background of the press conference? That seems unusual... where's he doing the availability?
January 9, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"'List of Nine Reasons Why I'm Great'"
Nine out of 563 is not that great. No sir ree, Rod.
January 9, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
And on the 7th day he rested...oh and he can heal the blind too.
January 9, 2009 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, it sounds nice to say that he did a lot to move the ball on health care, and there is some truth, but also know that he extorted Mercy Health Care and Children's Memorial Hospital, tried to sell access to the Teachers' Retirement System, and played demagogic games with the tax system and the budget that ended up screwing education, health care and all human services programs. My wife and I are working at 4 part-time jobs,all dependent in some way on state funding. I'm as much a Dem and a health care and education liberal as they come, and I despise this guy, though I voted for him twice and though he was a decent congressman before Rahm.
Granted, Mike Madigan has a seriously messed up perspective as well, but Pat Quinn is as intelligent a progressive as we're likely to find in Illinois, and the sooner he succeeds The Loony, the better.
January 10, 2009 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't figure out which one if more self delusional: Blago or Palin. Both seem unable to bear any consequences for their words or actions. Both are paranoid acting. One has been described as a "whack job" and the other has been called insane by the people who work with them.
January 10, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
None of the folks who see Blago as almost normal seem to be from here in IL. There's a reason his approval rating was 13% before his arrest. There's a reason many D's were actively discussing impeachment before his arrest. There's a reason many supported an otherwise dangerous Constitutional Convention to try to get a recall provision before his arrest,
His erratic behavior- bullying, non-cooperative, irrational, ineffective- has bankrupted the state and crippled many of its functions. We aren't being fussy about technical violations of some law, or failure to toe some perfect progressive line, or about excessive progressive heroism. If you had been following this guy you'd crack up at that characterization of his publicity stunts. Nobody is going after Daley, who is unlikely to be perfectly clean, but basically keeps things going in a reasonable fashion.Comparisons to Siegel's ordinary politics are laughable.
I'm not a lawyer and have no interest in whether Blago goes to jail, although demanding $ to continue funding a children's hospital or demanding the firing of a newspaper editorial staff before facilitating a baseball deal sounds like dictionary-defiinition extortion. Our IL constitution allows removal from office (Senate conviction) for any major misdeeds, and this guy is way over threshold.
January 10, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Blago has just about the same amount of arrogance as your average Repignican. I wonder if he should change parties before he's thrown out of office by the Illinois Senate?
January 10, 2009 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bla, Bla, Bla, Go, Go, Go!
January 10, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blago's presser was the most remarkable I've ever seen.
Whether or not he is guilty of any crimes, he does not have the power to appoint a person to fill the open Illinois Senate seat. Why not? Because he said he wouldn't (thru his attorney). The people of Illinois have a reasonable expectation that the Governor will keep his word. As long as a cloud remains over Blago's head, because of his assertion that he would not appoint anyone, he may not do so. He effectively revoked his own power, as he should have.
Mr. Burris is not the Junior Senator from Illinois. Indeed, even if the dumbos in the Senate anoint Burris, the citizens of Illinois would have just cause to sue to have Burris removed, based on the Governor's promise not to appoint.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
The Constant Weader at
January 10, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink