Photograph Source: Justin Newman – CC BY 2.0
Recently, President Trump pardoned disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and reportedly is considering him to be ambassador to Serbia.
On the surface when he was impeached in 2008, Rod Blagojevich may have just looked like the newest John Edwards/Eliot Spitzer flame out: an ambitious, corruption fighting politician on his way up, even to the White House, but undone by a Fatal Flaw no one knew he had. But he was also a standard issue Chicago Machine pol practicing the Precinct Politics that dictate you hire your brother-in-law’s contracting firm (brudder-in-law in “Chicaga”) in your first100 days in office.
For example, Bruce Dold and John McCormick former Chicago Tribune editorial writers—both on Blag’s hit list—recount that Blagojevich made a beeline to meet (and eventually marry) Chicago Alderman Dick Mell’s daughter Patti at a political mixer when he was an upstart politician—a move that could only help a bid to be guv. (She appeared as a contestant on the NBC reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!” a decision which NBC called a “cringe-inducing brush with infamy.”)
Blagojevich was said to be a control freak, refusing to move into the Governor’s Mansion in the Illinois capitol of Springfield during his two elected terms in favor of working out of
his comfortable Chicago north side home and, later, not even attending his own impeachment hearings.
In fact, Blagojevich’s swift departure by airplane after his I-am-innocent speech at the impeachment hearings was his transportational m.o. since elected—commuting back and forth to the legislature by plane (at taxpayer expense) and winning him early detractors.
Nor did Blagojevich like to be detained after an editorial board meeting at the Tribune Tower. Dold and McCormick recount that he yelled he was being “held hostage” as photographers held open his elevator door to get some shots.
Da Defense Chicago Style
There was something in Blagojevich’s defense that was pure Chicago denial. As part of a vindication tour which featured appearances on Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show, CNN’s Larry King Live and The View, (even as police were milling outside his home and he was being impeached in Springfield) he said, is “giving low-income people health care an impeach-able offense?” when referring to the charges against him.
Nor was Blagojevich’s final speech in touch with reality. “Imagine going to bed comfortably and then the next morning your whole world changes—unexpected, unanticipated, not even aware or knowing what it was about,” whined Blagojevich, exhorting people to put themselves “in his shoes.”
Illinois citizens could. They woke up and found their representation unexpectedly vanished because of Blagojevich’s fealty to patronage, political machines and his ethical challenges.
Rod Blagojevich was impeached convicted and incarcerated for eight years on federal charges of public corruption before possible resurrection as an ambassador.
His was suspected of trying to silence his critics at the Chicago Tribune with a $150 million bribe and trying to auction President Obama’s vacated Illinois Senate seat for money.
Reporters Threw Softballs at Blagojevich
Too bad legendary Italian interviewer Oriana Fallaci was not around when the Blagojevich accusations were coalescing in 2008.
The woman who asked Henry Kissinger if he was Nixon’s “mental wet nurse,” to his face and accused Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, of “siding with the Arabs but selling oil to the Israelis,” to his face would not have asked Blagojevich about his pompadour or love of Elvis like softer reporters did. Fallaci also got the Shah of Iran to say he would hold elections if he knew their outcome in advance.
Was Blagojevich guilty as charged? Now as he likely takes a new office we will probably never know.
This is an excerpt from the Chicago section of the just published Food, Clothes, Men, Gas, and Other Problems
