New American Idol (local bias)

[dellinger63]

Gov. Dead Meat woke early, and even before he could spray on some dry look and meet the day, the boss of the Chicago FBI was on the phone, saying there were federal agents outside waiting to arrest him on corruption charges.

One of those charges was for allegedly trying to sell a seat in the U.S. Senate by the pound, and there were candidates willing to pay the price. His alleged co-schemer was his chief of staff, John Harris, who once worked closely with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

"I could tell I woke him up," Chicago FBI chief Rob Grant said of his 6 a.m. phone conversation with "The Unreformer" outside the governor's Northwest Side home. "And the first thing he said was, 'Is this a joke?' "

No, it's no joke.

Corruption timeline Multimedia Blagojevich's buddies—the ones he still has left—surely aren't amused. They must be wondering how long it will take for Blagojevich to crack under the federal weight and start singing about all his friends.

This is the governor who once bragged that he had the "testicular virility" to make tough decisions. This is the governor who compared himself to John Wayne. Now he's trembling, afraid and, I figure, ready to spill his guts to save himself and his wife, Patti.

As I write this, he's being brought before a U.S. magistrate for a bond hearing, and they'll sneak him out of the federal building through the tunnel so the TV people won't get their perp-walk video, but that's not the end of his troubles. The only real decision Gov. Dead Meat has to make is when he'll start blubbering into a federal tape recorder and how much he'll say. The guys behind the guys aren't amused. To them, this Blagojevich isn't funny anymore.

But the joke is on us, on every single person in Illinois, since Blagojevich was elected here on a platform of reform.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," said U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor hated by the bipartisan Illinois Combine that runs this state. " Abraham Lincoln would be rolling over in his grave."

Actually, it's so bad that even Ulysses S. Grant would be rolling over in his grave.

Do I have to say it again? Illinois is the most politically corrupt state in the union. Now we have the poster boys to prove it.

Republican Gov. George Ryan is already in federal prison—with Democrats like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin trying to spring him early—and his successor Democratic Gov. Blagojevich could be wearing federal orange and sitting for years, hoping to pick up Cubs games on the prison radio.

Would Durbin write a letter of clemency for Blagojevich to President-elect Barack Obama? And will Obama finally address, in the most public way, the culture of political sleaze that threatens to drown all of us? I think Obama will address it, because it was his seat that allegedly was being bartered the Chicago way.

While Ryan was caught in a license-for-bribes scandal, Blagojevich was caught allegedly selling a different kind of license: The license to sit in Obama's Senate seat. As governor, it was Blagojevich's to appoint.

Not only is Blagojevich alleged to have tried to sell the Senate seat, he's alleged to have shaken down an executive at Children's Memorial Hospital, and threatened to use government leverage to squeeze the Tribune Co. on the Wrigley Field deal in order to stop the newspaper from criticizing him, demanding that his print critics be fired. He also allegedly tried to weasel the post of a U.S. ambassador, and even thought about putting himself in the Senate to stall the federal investigation.

And so on and so on. Most of this is on tape, as part of a federal wiretapping operation that was reported in the Tribune just recently.

Fitzgerald said he pushed for the charges and the arrest because of the nature of Blagojevich's alleged crimes: demanding that media critics be fired and, worst of all, selling the Senate seat. Fitzgerald said he couldn't wait to, months from now, reveal to the citizens of Illinois that Obama's Senate seat may have been sold to the highest bidder: "I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden, and, uh, uh, I'm not just giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And, and, I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

Imagine the faces of Blagojevich's jury when that is played in the courtroom years from now. They'll look at him and think one thing: Dead Meat.

John Kass Chicago Tribune

[herkhorse]

Don't feel bad, Eliot Spitzer was going to clean up prostitution too

[ArlJim78]

the early money is on Steve Carrel for the part of Blago in the inevitable movie that will come from this.