Very strange, the whole thing. It's not surprising the jury exited the place without going to the interview room after an 11-1 holdout situation on one of the main counts of selling the Senate seat.The question now is what next? Will we have to put up with this knucklehead making news every few days for another year, which will occur if Fitzgerald tries him on the 23 hung counts? It's likely Blago's defense would pull the same non-defense again if they go through the same motions with another panel, so perhaps next time around the government would need to call Rezko, Jarrett and Raum.
Of course, that won't happen until after the mid-terms, if it happens at all. But it certainly would run into the 2011 presidential campaign kick-off so my guess is they'll huff and puff about a retrial for a few more days, then on some obscure Friday (before Labor Day maybe) the DoJ will announce they won't retry.
Meanwhile, the main thing learned during this trial was not about Blago, but about Obama. His transition team's report about their contacts with Blago regards the Senate seat was clearly less than transparent....which registered as much on the mainstream news BS-0-meter then as it does now.
6 comments:
Blago was right about one thing: The majority of politicians would have-and probably have done-the same thing he was being accused of, and most certainly those he had been associated with in Illinois.
Here's my theory:
Once Obama was sworn in, his team of thugs were starting to pressure Blago to name Obama's hand-picked successor, Valerie Jarrett. Blago did what all Chicago style pols do and wanted something in return.
That didn't play well with the newly crowned emperor and his court (made up mostly of jesters), so they set him up for a sting as revenge. (That's why Blago named a creep that would be an embarrassment.)
Don't get me wrong here, I am not defending Blago. But if we are focusing our anger only on him, and him alone, we are turning a blind eye to all of the rest of the scumbags who have made their careers into profiteering scams at the expense of the people they were elected to serve.
If we look at it one way, he was the first to thumb his nose at Obama. And by the looks of things so far, I think he pretty much got away with it.
Holy Crap! Chicago politics is corrupt? I personally admire how the "everybody does it" defense works in Chicago 95.8% of the time.
Sunset is correct of course; we have far too many scumbags riding the magic carpet at the taxpayer's expense. This is what happens when the people elect a community organizer. In Obama's case, he brought with him the entire Chicago southside. What did we expect?
What we observe happening in Chicago won't change for as long as the people of Illinois accept corruption as a political norm. If the people are corrupt, then so too will be every one of their institutions.
I think your theory is pretty sound, although it could be far more nefarious! Seeing as how Blago was already under investigation before the O was elected, maybe he figured he was better off with "his guy" in a position of power (and pardon).
Knowing Fitz was investigating, maybe Obama tried to ramrod his pick past Blago, figuring he was in no position to bargain, and Blago became outraged and decided to pushback by first asking for something then after being nabbed, threatening to release a few skeletons against the new admin (Rezko and other figures).
We already know the investigation done by his admin on their dealings with Blago was proven to be less than truthful, so there's some there there.
Blago is so cartoonishly corrupt he's almost sympathetic in a weird way. But this feeling must be fought--it's the same thing that got Obama elected.
IOW Mustang, we get what we deserve. The founders knew that the strength of our republic lay in the moral and ethical fiber in each one of us, and especially our leaders.
We all knew that Rezko, Jarrett and Raum would never testify. The rant seemed to be "just politics as usual, move along, nothing to see here". Fitzpatrick is a strange character, I don't think he wanted Rezko et al to testify.
The 11-1 jury, I heard something, don't know if it's true, that the one holdout was a descendant of some crime boss or thug politician (not sure what that has to do with anything) and may have had sympathies to Blago and she wanted "clear cut evidence on everything", which of course there was not.
Not good for the Dems for this to go on...
Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
If there really was a relative of some crime boss on the jury you have to question Fitz' voir dire skills. Either that or the fix was in from day one. From some direction.
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