I am one of those who think that B-Rod is getting a bit of a raw deal here. Sure, he’s talked a lot of trash, but if your name was Rod “I’ve heard all the jokes so shove it” Blogojavich, you’d talk a little trash too. Despite his mighty efforts to get people to do him favors in exchange for favors, it seems that no one ever did him a favor, and so he never did any favors in return. Refraining from performing an act that might have been a crime is not in itself a crime.
The investigation of Blogojavich by Patrick Fitzgerald was supposedly prompted by reports that the governor and his staff were “feverishly” soliciting political contributions prior to the date upon which new state ethics laws were to go into effect. Again, performing legal acts “feverishly” is not a crime and should not be grounds for initiating a criminal investigation. I’m guessing that Fitzgerald went public with his “case” against Blogojavich so quickly because he was afraid he’d end up with tape of an Obama aide cutting a deal with Blogojavich. Information that hot probably couldn’t be contained, and so Fitzgerald essentially destroyed Blogojavich to avoid wrecking Obama’s presidency. A patriotic choice, perhaps, but I still don’t see why the investigation began in the first place.
Except that there simply doesn’t seem to be a downside to high-profile criminal investigations, not for the prosecutors, anyway. The idea that Tommy Chong deserved three years for selling bongs is ludicrous, and putting Martha Stewart away for a year for lying about receiving a stock tip is almost as bad. Republicans had been methodically putting away southern governors for such outrages as appointing supporters to government posts, and the only real blowback is coming from the Democratic Party itself, which has the long-term interests and resources to push back. But poor B-Rod, he’s got to fight this all his own.
