Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich exhibits the sort of contumaciousness in the face of political controversy that we haven’t seen in an age and a half. The utter shamelessness of a man whose hair is too good for the rest of his body reminds us of someone else we used to watch, brimming with disdain, rooting for his removal or eventual resignation.
In the three-plus weeks since Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made a criminal complaint against Blagojevich, resulting in his arrest, every politician with a pulse, from Springfield to D.C., from local pol to president-elect, has called on the governor to step down. He hasn’t. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan tried to have him removed from office for being a nutter, but the state supreme court evidently thought impeachment was a better method of removal. The impeachment process, while already underway, takes time – too much time for aggrieved Democrats, who found to their dismay that after warning Blago not to fill the empty Senate seat that got him in so much trouble in the first place, and after repeated promises from him and his attorney that he had no intention of doing so, he did so.
During the mad scramble away from the political equivalent of polonium 210, Senate Democrats made clear their intention not to seat anyone the paragon of corruption might chose were he dastardly enough (he is) and brazenly defiant of the established order of things (he soooo is) to cross them. This forced Blago into a corner, or so they thought, because no one would dare come near the miasma that clouded the position. Enter Roland Burris, former Attorney General of Illinois, a man with a taint-free record and politically useful African-American decent. It was exactly the shrewdest choice he could have made to further his nakedly self-serving agenda, and he wasted no time using Burris’ race, and the potential for him to be the nation’s only sitting black Senator now that Barack Obama has been promoted, as a bludgeon, having another black lawmaker, Rep. Bobby Rush, warn reporters not to “hang or lynch” Burris.
Gov. Blagojevich’s gamble may be paying off, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, not wanting to be seen as an exclusionist hatemonger, allowed for the possibility of Burris’ safe passage into the hallowed halls of our nation’s capital. There are a great many forces working to bring Blago down. If one faction doesn’t succeed, another certainly will. But the man loves himself too much not take a few whacks at his enemies with this thing he’s got that’s fucking golden before he’s forced into early retirement.
