By Steve Rhodes
Okay, it’s too late for that to happen. But dropping the charges against Blago’s brother amidst a weird groundswell of pundit sympathy hardly equates with justice.
Let’s review.
Posted on August 31, 2010
Questions For Blago
By Steve Rhodes
As the Rod Blagojevich Comeback Tour continues with the national media, we hope against hope that the dillrods who keep giving this guy a platform to taint the jury pool takes up its proper responsibilities and asks the former governor the questions prosecutors weren’t able to when he refused to testify on his behalf. And also some other questions prosecutors may have bypassed.
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1. Every member of your inner circle testified against you – including several not facing any charges and who hadn’t cut any deals with prosecutors. Is it all really just a conspiracy against you?
2. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan just said you lied the other day when you claimed you were about to appoint her to the U.S. Senate. Sure, she’s a political enemy. But Chicago political reporter Mike Flannery said the other day that if you didn’t lie to the FBI, they were the only ones in Illinois you hadn’t lied to. Even while you were still governor you were accused by state lawmakers and others in the system of being a liar. You were forced to sign “Memorandums of Understanding” with legislators who no longer trusted your word. Is everybody lying except you? Why do so many people think you’re a liar?
3. Did you really hide in the bathroom to avoid your budget director?
Posted on August 24, 2010
Blago’s Next Moves
By Scott Buckner and Steve Rhodes
Sources say.
* Discloses he was just going to read passages from Moby Dick if he actually was called to the stand.
* Drives to Terre Haute federal pen just to moon George Ryan.
* Dinner with Ozzie Guillen.
* Forms book club with Carlos Zambrano and Billy Dec.
* Replaces Criss Angel on Mindfreak.
Posted on August 23, 2010
The Holdout Juror
By Steve Rhodes
“What [the other] jurors are being too polite to say is that that one holdout juror was somehow just, I mean, crazy,” Rob Wildeboer of WBEZ said on Chicago Tonight on Wednesday night.
“Not crazy obviously, but given what the evidence showed, how could that person not – it was overwhelming evidence and they all agreed on it, how could she not see what they all saw. There’s no real good reason that any of the jurors have given for why that holdout juror was a holdout juror.”
Indeed. And according to the form she filled out when she went through jury selection, she even listens to NPR!
“She had a different interpretation of the facts as they were set upon us, and it didn’t gibe with the rest of us,” juror Robert Schindler told Phil Ponce in a separate segment.
Is the holdout juror – Jo Ann Chiakulas of Willowbrook – nuts? Or did she simply pay too much attention to seeing Blago on Leno – which she did – than to the jury instructions and the government’s wiretaps?
Posted on August 20, 2010
A Blago Pundit And Pols Review
By Steve Rhodes
More tales from the front, from both pols and pundits, culled from various sources and reports.
*
Best Blago Reaction Quote Ever: Edwin Eisendrath
“If we find him guilty, it’s an embarrassment. If we don’t, it’s an embarrassment. We found a way to do both.”
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Lamest Attempt To Politically Exploit The Verdict: Alexi Giannoulias
“Today, the jury found Rod Blagojevich guilty for lying, and on November 2nd, the voters of Illinois will reject Mark Kirk for lying. The people of Illinois deserve leaders they can trust.”
Posted on August 19, 2010
Things The Blago Jury Does Agree On
By The Beachwood Jury Room Affairs Desk
* Patti is guilty on all counts.
* These pretzels are making us thirsty.
* Transcripts schmanscripts! Let’s say we want 100 gold bars.
* Having the race car is better than having the iron or the little scotty dog when playing Monopoly.
* We’ve got this verdict and it’s frickin’ golden. We’re not gonna just give it away for nothing.
Posted on August 16, 2010
The [Rosty] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
When I heard the news of Dan Rostenkowski’s death, I couldn’t help but flash in my mind upon the scene the night he lost his re-election bid in 1994 when I was in office of then associate managing editor Gerry Kern – now the Tribune’s editor-in-chief – along with a gaggle of other reporters discussing the coverage we were preparing.
I was there because – though I had just been told days before that the paper wouldn’t be retaining my services when my reporting residency ended – I was asked to join the small team otherwise composed of Tribune veterans that was covering what would turn out to be pretty historic midterms.
The election had just been called in favor of Rostenkowski’s opponent, the inestimable Michael Patrick Flanagan. Tribune bigwigs were aghast – as if nobody saw this coming.
“Oh, Rosty!” political reporter Dorothy Collin exclaimed. I almost offered her a hanky.
When I mentioned the unmentionable – that nobody should have been that surprised seeing as how he was under indictment – Kern threw me a sharp look and said “Some people think the charges are chickenshit,” or something very close to that. I was appalled. I didn’t know the paper’s official stance was that Rosty was getting rooked.
Posted on August 11, 2010
I’m With Whitney
By Doug Dobmeyer
I am sick of Illinois politics as we know it today! Blind abeyance to massive debt and unbalanced budgets are now the norm. This well entrenched corrupt political system has only expanded in the 39 years since my coming to Chicago in 1971.
So, I’m going to do something to work for change. I’ve decided a third party is a viable option. I’m volunteering with the Green Party doing media for the Rich Whitney candidacy for governor. Whitley is a civil rights lawyer from Carbondale is the Green Party’s candidate for governor.
Posted on August 9, 2010
Inside The Blago Jury
By The Beachwood Jury Room Affairs Desk
What they’ve really been doing all this time.
* Arguing about the finale of Lost.
* Leash training the courtroom cat.
* Waiting for Paul the World Cup octopus to quit dicking around on Priceline.com for a flight out of Berlin.
* Writing Yelp reviews of every downtown restaurant that delivers lunch.
* Playing the world’s longest game of Rock Paper Scissors.
Posted on August 6, 2010
Don’t Blame Edwin
By Steve Rhodes
In response to last week’s Who Is To Blame For Blago? post, Lew Manilow sent us a comment – which you can see at the bottom of that piece – and suggested I speak to his stepson, Edwin Eisendrath, who challenged Blagojevich in the 2006 primary. Here are some bits from that interview and then a look at the coverage of that primary, which is even more fascinating in retrospect than it was at the time. Edited for clarity.
Beachwood: You got a decent chunk of the vote, didn’t you? (30 percent; a landslide loss but still)
Eisendrath: Most of the votes came from downstate. And it snowed. We did better than the pundits thought we would.
Beachwood: Why didn’t the pundits take you more seriously?
Eisendrath: The pundits spend their time listening to what the political insiders tell them. And the political insiders weren’t interested in me . . . It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Beachwood: Was it hard to get media coverage?
Eisendrath: It was hard.
Beachwood: But we all knew Blagojevich was under investigation.
Eisendrath: We all knew. The U.S. Attorney went to the extraordinary length of [detailing Public Official A] so everybody knew.
Beachwood: Then why did the political Establishment stick with him?
Posted on August 3, 2010