Governor
Rod Blagojevich was pure defiance last week after the House voted 114-1 to
impeach him.
Blagojevich
said he expected the impeachment because the House has been fighting him tooth
and nail ever since he was reelected in 2006. A statement his office released a
day earlier predicted smoother sailing in the Senate.
"It
was a foregone conclusion," the governor said about the impeachment.
"When
the case moves to the Senate, an actual judge will preside over the hearings,
and the Governor believes the outcome will be much different," his
office's official statement read.
The
outcome of last week's impeachment vote was, indeed, a "foregone
conclusion." But not because the proceedings were based on a purely
political war, as the governor claimed, but because of the depth and breadth of
the governor's own official malfeasance. This has been coming for a very long
time, and the governor knows it. I'm not the only one who warned him what could
happen if he didn't straighten out his act.
And
the man is delusional if he truly believes that the outcome will be any
different in the Senate. There will be an "actual judge" presiding
during his trial, and he will have a few more rights than he did during the
impeachment process. But if the governor really thinks he can find the twenty
Senators he'll need to block his removal from office next month, then he should
be locked in a rubber room. Voting to spare Rod Blagojevich from the fate he so
richly deserves would be an inexcusable, unforgivable mega-sin with
consequences that nobody could ever escape.
Blagojevich's
statements were essentially reruns of everything we've heard from him for the
past six years. The House is to blame for all the world's ills. The Senate will
save him. He is an heroic figure who did nothing wrong.
The
House was never the real problem House Speaker Michael Madigan has battled with
every governor he's served with, but he always found a way to cut a deal at the
end of the day - until Rod Blagojevich came along. Madigan, in fact, appears
awfully darn prescient now.
And,
governor, I've got news for you: Senate President Emil Jones is retiring this
week. Your comrade in arms will not be around to save your neck when your
Senate trial begins as he has done so many times in the past. And that
presiding judge? The Senate will be able to override all of his decisions.
Plus, the Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice was a criminal courts judge for
decades. Thomas Fitzgerald knows a crook when he sees one.
You
really have to wonder what the governor is thinking here. Come February when
he's removed from office, all those hoops that the US Attorney must navigate
when attempting to investigate and indict a sitting governor will disappear. No
longer will Patrick Fitzgerald have to check in with Washington, DC whenever he
wants to make a move against Blagojevich, because the governor will be a
private citizen by then. If Blagojevich thinks he's being manhandled by
Fitzgerald now, just wait until Fitz's restraints are removed.
Also,
when elected officials offer to plead guilty and resign their offices, the US
Attorney has to take that into consideration. Any leverage Blagojevich might
have to reduce his sentence to a length that will allow him to serve at a
halfway decent minimum security prison will undoubtedly vanish if he's removed
from office before he cops a plea.
Frankly,
conviction is almost as certain as the governor's removal. Former Gov. George
Ryan is serving essentially a life sentence for some dinky little crimes in
comparison to this governor's alleged lawlessness. Plus, the feds didn't have
thousands of surveillance tapes on George like they do with Rod. As Hawk
Harrelson would say: "He gone."
Then
there's Mrs. Blagojevich, who is likely behind Fitzgerald's "Door Number
Two." Offering to resign now and throwing himself at the mercy of the
system might spare the governor's wife from imprisonment. Does Rod Blagojevich
really want his much-hated father-in-law Dick Mell to raise his children?
Cut
your best deal and resign, governor. Spare the state and your family from this
tragicomic circus. Man up and go away.
Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.