Secret Reasons Illinois' "Blago" Impeached?

2009-02-21T22:40:00.000-08:00

Removing twice-elected Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from office, without his having been convicted of a criminal act, sets a dangerous precedent and makes future officeholders vulnerable to the capriciousness of his or her political opponents. Not bound by the strict rules of evidence and testimony that constrain a criminal court, Illinois lawmakers recklessly chose to disregard some fundamental principles of American jurisprudence: the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and the right to confront accusers.

It all started when Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney, neoconservative and insatiable headline-grabber, secretly bugged the Democratic Governor’s telephone, then dispatched the FBI to arrest him pre-dawn. He charged Blagojevich with talking about selling Obama’s Senate seat in exchange for money or a job. But as CBS news analyst Bill Geist says, “Show me the money! Show me the victims!” There’s nothing more common in politics than horse-trading over a political vacancy.

Fitzgerald held a press conference to assert that he’d never seen a more heinous betrayal of the public trust than Rod Blagojevich’s. By so characterizing evidence he’d yet to present in open court, the prosecutor violated the Justice Department code of conduct for making a public accusation.

Overnight, the 52-year-old Blagojevich found himself transformed into a national laughingstock, the victim of perception and mass psychology as opposed to anything having to do with the underlying merits of the case against him.

The media abandoned any pretext of impartiality and joined the chorus of those making fun of the Governor, even ridiculing his shortness of stature and his hair. They derided Blagojevich for exercising his First Amendment right to speak out and defend himself. Even liberals sneeringly called the Governor juvenile names.

Illinois legislators used the fact that criminal charges have been filed against Blagojevich as an excuse to impeach him, while simultaneously citing the pending criminal case as an excuse not to allow him to produce witnesses or evidence to defend himself. Several members of the bipartisan impeachment committee made prior comments in the proceedings that showed bias. The Roman arena was a fairer place.

Fitzgerald never really explained why Blagojevich was targeted. It doesn’t seem to have involved the direct solicitation of a bribe, for the grandstanding Fitzgerald would certainly have said so if it had.

Intriguingly, the accusations by Fitzgerald came the day after the Governor ordered all Illinois state agencies to suspend business with the Bank of America because the company received a multi-billion dollar bailout and yet took actions that caused the closing of a factory in Chicago, throwing people out of work.

Patrick Fitzgerald is the guy whom some feel mishandled the Valerie Plame case, and let Dick Cheney off a possible impeachment hook. Plame was the CIA agent outed by the Vice President’s office as punishment when her husband, Joe Wilson, exposed the Bush administration’s false assertion that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger to build a nuclear bomb. All that caper amounted to was the final justification for the Bush administration to inveigle us into the war with Iraq, which has now cost a million lives. Fitzgerald had a straight shot at Cheney; all he had to do was turn his chief of staff, Scooter Libby. Instead, perhaps having had a midnight call from Darth Vader, he settled for Libby himself.

Moments after Blago was kicked out of office, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, upon assuming the Governorship of Illinois, withdrew police protection for Blagojevich and family, which was not only vengeful but unprecedented.

The son of a Yugoslav immigrant held as a Nazi prisoner during World War II, Rod Blagojevich earned a law degree at Pepperdine, had been a prosecutor and a Congressman. As Governor, he helped balance the budget, won legislative approval for universal health care for children, banned discrimination against gays and lesbians, won several minimum-wage hikes, and helped senior citizens acquire cheaper prescription drugs from Canada — a plan emulated by other Governors but also one of the grounds for his impeachment.

Blago’s wife, Patti, has also lost her job at a homeless agency.

Midwest Today (Neal Lawrence)

Secret Reasons Illinois' "Blago" Impeached?