Poor Rod was convicted on a variety of conspiracy charges, said conspiracies consisting of Rod running his big fat Chicago mouth about all the sweet, sweet deals he was going to pull off, none of which ever emerged. He wanted a payoff for selecting a replacement for Obama’s old Senate seat. Politicians swap favors! Who knew?
I remain convinced that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald went after Blagojevich because he was afraid that if he didn’t he would catch Blagojevich on tape telling President-Elect Obama “I’ll appoint your guy if you’ll get me that $500,000 a year gig with the Teamsters,” with Obama saying “I think we can work something out.” Despite all his brazen wheeling and dealing—the guy clearly could not shut up about what a bad ass he was—Blagojevich never committed an actual crime. He only talked about it. A lot. And now he’s going to prison for fourteen years. Justice? I don’t think so.
*Curiously (at least it seems so to me) Word doesn’t recognize “moptop” as a word but does recognize “dickhead”.
†I confess that I can’t feel too sorry for Martha. In a pre-conviction profile I read of her, I learned that she had three different estates that were staffed and maintained as though Martha were there, even though the vast majority of the time she wasn’t. The thought that there was a cheery fire burning in the bedroom fireplaces of three different homes, the covers turned down, waiting for Ms Martha to arrive, well, it was comforting to her when she was hanging in her Manhattan triplex. That’s how the Tsars lived, after all, and if you’re a poor little Polish girl, apparently that’s how you want to live too. A year in the slam? Well, it’s better than being lined up against a wall and shot. USA! USA! USA!
