Governor Rod Blagojevich
and his staff have attempted to muddy the waters on the question of that now
infamous $1500 check from his friend by seizing on the flip-flopping of the
friend's wife, Beverly Ascaridis.
Mrs. Ascaridis, you will
recall, got a state job about the same time that her husband, Mike Ascaridis,
wrote the governor a check for $1500. The governor has admitted to directing
his chief of staff to find Mrs. Ascaridis a job, but claims that the check was
for his daughter Amy's college fund. He has so far refused to provide any
supporting documentation that the check was ever deposited into a college fund,
however.
Mrs. Ascaridis spilled the
beans about the check to the Chicago Tribune, telling the paper about how she
became suspicious when she found the canceled check, and how she had taken it
to the FBI because it looked hinky to her.
Then, after she and her
husband hired a high-profile lawyer with ties to Gov. Blagojevich, she changed
her story, claimed she was completely misquoted and even argued that she never
said she hated the governor with every fiber of her being, as the Tribune
reported.
A week or so ago, at what
was probably the most disastrous press conference of his entire career, the
governor did a flip-flop of his own. Blagojevich said the check might have been
for his other daughter's christening.
During the press event, the
same Tribune reporter who broke the check story tried to ask the governor a
question about his new alibi. The governor turned to the reporter and said, of
Beverly Ascaridis, "She's questioning your facts. So, I mean you should
get your facts right. She has raised questions about your facts and your
integrity."
There's a simple way to
clear all this up. Release the tape. Most reporters carry little tape recorders
around with them. And considering the detailed quotes of Mrs. Ascaridis in the
original story it seems more than likely that the Tribune has a recording of
her answers. They can post the whole thing on their website.
I want to make it clear
that I happen to side with the reporter on this matter. He's a good journalist
and I don't believe for a second that he would make up a story.
Too often, though, the
people who run big media outlets like the Tribune tend to think that when they
publish something everyone has to take it as God's Word that the story is true
and nobody should ever dare question their integrity.
But when the governor of a
large state who is already facing serious legal trouble contends that a
powerful newspaper deliberately falsified a highly damaging story about him,
then the newspaper ought to lay all its cards on the table.
Release the tape. And if
there is no tape, release the notes.
Meanwhile, the Chicago
Sun-Times and Chicago TV station NBC5 should take another look at the poll they
published earlier this month.
I compared independent
polling company SurveyUSA's latest poll with the Sun-Times/NBC5 poll and
concluded that it might be possible that the media companies' pollster drew his
survey sample solely from Chicago residents and not the entire state, as was
claimed in the stories.
The latest SurveyUSA poll
has Gov. Blagojevich leading Judy Baar Topinka 45-39 statewide and 59-23 in
Chicago. The Sun-Times/NBC5 poll had the governor improbably ahead of Topinka
56-26 statewide.
A Chicago-only survey that
excluded the more Republican-leaning Cook County areas might also help explain
Republican Cook County Board President candidate Tony Peraica's horrible
performance in the same Sun-Times/NBC5 poll. Chicago Democrat Todd Stroger was
ahead of suburban Republican Peraica in that poll 52-19. Other polls have shown
a far closer race, including (according to reports) Stroger's own
polling,
I want to stress here that
sometimes polls are just wrong. Almost no poll has more than a 95 percent
chance of being within the margin of error. So, there's about a one in 20
chance that any given poll is what's known as an "outlier."
That's most likely what
happened here. The pollster has a long history in the business and a wide
variety of clients. But the poll was so grossly out of sync with reality that a
closer look seems warranted. They should also seriously consider using more
than 400 respondents in the next poll. That's way too few for a state this
size.
-30-
Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com