The Blagojevich Rules: Pay to Play in Illinois

The Big Lake Next to Chicago Bubbles from the Waste On Down

Patrick Fitzgerald Zeros in and Fires the Deep Shit Gun

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich never heard his alarm clock this morning. He woke instead to a 6:00 phone call from US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the pasty-skinned attack dog who had a tightly wound warrant for Blago's arrest. The pack of salivating federal agents waiting outside Blago's door suffered from a queasy anxiety that a gubernatorial cloud of corruption might be released like nerve gas or biological warfare. Fitzgerald knew the risks, so he was taking precautions, having collared greaseballs in high places before. Scooter Libby, for one. The Fitz Man also damn near tagged the one and only Turd Blossom himself, Karl Rove. The Rover escaped indictment only by dining on oysters and tamales the night before the Feds arrived. His skin was so slick with oil and sweat that even Patrick Fitzgerald, armed as he was with Spidey strength and radioactively generated burrs in his fingertips, could not hold the man down long enough to pin anything on him.

This time around, Fitzgerald would take no such chances. "Take off your clothes," he instructed Blagojevich by phone. "Meet us at the front door in your birthday suit, and we won't strip search the wife and kids, if you come quiet-like." Fitzgerald knows it is important to talk Chicago when you're in Chicago. The Blago case was Chicago through and through.

The sleepy-headed Blagojevich, whose prodigious hairdo has been known to trap small birds and cause shifts in the political winds of central Illinois, likely wandered down the front stairs scratching himself, shedding the few garments he'd worn to bed. There might not have been that much to shed. A stream of strong smelling rumors suggested the soon-to-be-former Governor sleeps in the buff as a testament to his naked attempts at selling everything in sight for political and personal gain.

The only shocking detail in the Blago case is that the governor does not seem to have seen this indictment coming. This despite the fact that his name and sorry reputation had been smeared across every newspaper in the state. Fitzgerald reported that Blago did not believe the call was real, asking "Is this a joke? Fitzgerald assured him it was no joke. They had the goods and were ready to use them.

The Boy Guv must have figured he was made of Teflon, cut in the mold of one Ronald Reagan, who hailed from Dixon, Illinois, went on to California and then the Presidency. In some ways Blagojevich resembles Reagan with the pile of hair and the disaffected smile, but Republicans are better at the money for power game. Reagan skated off into history with his reputation intact despite that nasty Iran-Contra deal engineered by head sleazeball Oliver North.

By contrast, Blago made even the investigators sick. He was so busy phone-sexing over the prospect of landing a cushy union job for a cool $300K, he could not imagine there were wire taps on everything but his cereal spoons. The FBI agents say they could barely stomach the levels of corruption they were hearing and wanted to barf. Many did so on more than one occasion. That meant there would be hell to pay when the Feds arrived at the house. No respectable FBI guy likes to walk around with puke on his tie.

Had they arrived with a little less angst in their hearts, they probably would have thrown a towel over the poor bastard as they led him out of the house. Instead they led him out in cuffs. Blago eventually appeared in court wearing a stylish turtleneck and tapered black sweat pants over white socks. Those were probably the only clothes the Feds had left in the interrogation room.

As Blago went to face the judge, he slapped the backs of the prosecutors, laughing out loud that he'd "done nothing wrong." The comments sent a whole new line of FBI studs puking in the aisles. Fitzgerald simply played it cool despite all the theatrics and excitement. He was seen poking his finger into the pocket of his jacket like a prosecutorial gun. "Pow pow," he mouthed.

The rap sheet on Blago includes brazenly trying to sell the US Senate seat appointment he is supposed to fill, requiring everyone under the sun to contribute to his campaign war chest and leveraging himself and his wife into high-paying, cushy jobs. But the galling finale came when Blago literally tried to bribe the Chicago Tribune into firing writers who'd criticized him in proposed exchange for helping the Trib try to sell the Chicago Cubs.

Therein lies the problem. Everyone knows the Cubs choked in the playoffs. No one wants to buy them. The city stumbled around in fits of depression for weeks after the Cub swoon. Everyone that is, except Barack Obama, who was saved by the fact he is a White Sox fan.

Down at the Billy Goat Tavern the souls of cast off journalists from the Old Tribune rose like smoke from the bar chairs at news of the indictment. Even the whorish ghouls from the Rupert Murdock days of the Chicago Sun Times shrieked around the place spitting invectives in 80 point type. Shards of bygone newspaper profitability went skittering across the pavement to land at the feet of Michigan Avenue passersby who were amazed! at the fact that change had finally come to Chicago. Now it hurt like hell. The days of the 3^rd Estate are numbered indeed, but they held on just long enough to clobber Blago into childish submission. Everyone in the world of journalism enjoys a good old political smackdown.

The party is truly over for Rod Blagojevich. He abused the public contract and grossed out the FBI with whatever kind of financial phone sex he favored. The Boy Wonder will soon be the Boy Prisoner. He may soon enough become a cell mate to former Governor George Ryan (R) unless the old cadger earns a grandiose pardon from none other than George W. Bush, Republican Angel of Mercy, who may someday need his own lawyer with a halo if the truth ever gets out about Iraq and the rest of his reign.

It's truly a sad day in the Land of Lincoln. Politics threatens to turn Lake Michigan into a steaming cesspool of greed, corruption and nepotism run amok. The River Green that flows each St. Patricks day will look cleaner than the pond by the City of Big Shoulders.

Down south in Springfield, even the pigeons are too depressed to peck seed. A shit-laced wind stinking of gubernatorial arrogance pours across the stubbled corn of central Illinois. Great flocks of migrating cranes take a pass on landing in a state so rife with wretched stink and sad tales. It will take a long season of retribution before creatures of such purity and beauty will think to touch down agin. The sun is scheduled to come up over Illinois tomorrow. We'll see if it has a price tag on it.