Governor Gone Wild: Blagojevich Busted

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a scandal-plagued Democrat who among
other things was preparing to appoint a senatorial successor to
President-elect Barack Obama, was arrested Tuesday by FBI agents on
what can only be described as breathtaking charges of corruption.

Needless to say, this is more than just another bust of another
allegedly crooked governor of a state that has sent a good many of
chief executives to prison -- including Blagojevich's predecessor,
Republican George Ryan.

What are the ramifications?

First off, Obama is going to face questions about Blagojevich, a
fellow Chicago pol with whom the president elect served in the Illinois
statehouse during the period from 2003 to 2005 when Blagojevich was
governor and Obama was a state senator. The president-elect is not
saying much beyond a standard "it's a sad day for Illinois"
lamentation.

Obama would appear to be on pretty solid ground, as he was never
particularly close to the governor. But the right-wing echo chamber
will go wild about the fact that the two were in the same room with one
another dozens of times and knew hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the
same people -- including unsavory characters such as Chicago fixer Tony
Rezko.

Intriguingly, one of the charges against Blagojevich is that he
demanded appointment for himself as Secretary of Health and Human
Services in the Obama administration -- apparently in return for
appointing a senator who would be to the president-elect's liking. That
raises the prospect that either Obama or members of his transition team
may have cooperated into the federal investigation of the governor's
activities. Certainly, Obama fans will hope this turns out to have been
the case.

What is clear from the transcripts of tapes contained in the 76-page
indictment is that Blagojevich was not satisfied with the response from
the Obama team. The governor was overheard saying of the transition
team: "they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation.
F**k them."

At another point, the Blagojevich used the same epithet with regard to Obama himself.

It appears that the governor sought various and sundry benefits for
himself, his wife and his campaign in return for Obama's seat.
Blagojevich is quoted as saying that a Senate seat "is a f**king
valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

Reflecting on the governor's actions and statements, US Attorney
Patrick Fitzgerald declared, "The breadth of corruption laid out in
these charges is staggering. They allege that Blagojevich put a 'for
sale' sign on the naming of a United States senator..."

One of the allegations is that the governor offered to appoint a
favorite of organized labor in return for a top-level union job.

And it just gets uglier.

As Fitzgerald says, "(Blagojevich) involved himself personally in
pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual
sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample
editorial voices of criticism."

That final reference is to an alleged scheme by the governor and his
chief of staff to demand the firing of editors of the Chicago Tribune
-- a newspaper that has long been critical of Blagojevich -- in return
for state aid for the financially-troubled Tribune Company's sale of
Chicago's Wrigley Field.

What emerges is a picture of a governor gone wild -- up to and
including scheming to shakedown billionaire's Warren Buffett and Bill
Gates -- and the FBI reportedly has the tapes to prove it.

The question, of course, is who if anyone will go down with the governor.

In addition to Obama, many Illinois politicians with national
reputations are going to be facing questions about their relationships
with Blagojevich.

Included on the list will be Illinois US House members Danny Davis,
Jesse Jackson Jr. and Jan Schakowsky, all of whom served in the House
with Blagojevich before he became governor and all of whom have been
angling for appointment to Obama's seat. Jackson, for instance, met
with Blagojevich on Monday.

If Jackson was cooperating with the investigation, he could come out
as a hero, and perhaps a senator. Certainly, there will be speculation
about that prospect because of the timing of the arrests of Blagojevich
and his chief of staff Tuesday morning.

Any pol who spoke with Blagojevich will likely be on those FBI
tapes, and if conversations took a corrupt turn then the investigation
could spread far beyond the governor's office.

Perhaps the most intriguing twist in the whole sordid tale is this:
Blagojevich's arrest makes it likely that someone else will be
appointing the next senator from Illinois.

If the governor is forced to resign -- or is impeached -- his office
would go to Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, a veteran reformer and
rabble-rouser who has often, although not always, been at odds with
Blagojevich. (In fact, Quinn's record over the past several decades has
been one of battling the the Illinois political and corporate
establishment. He won the nomination for his current post by upsetting
the candidate of Blagojevich and the Democratic machine.)

As word of the federal investigation of Blagojevich and his aides
spread in recent weeks, Quinn was outspoken in demanding that the
governor "come forward and level with the people of Illinois."

Frankly, if Quinn is empowered to select Obama's successor, both
Illinois and the Senate will be better served. Of course, a special
election would be an even better option -- and that democratic route
seems to have been opened at the encouragement of Illinois Senator Dick
Durbin.

That's the bottom line: No one should mourn for Blagojevich.

Rather, we should be interested in answering all the questions about corruption in Illinois and
about when and if Pat Quinn will be in a position now merely to send a
new senator to Washington -- or to arrange a special election -- but to
begin cleaning up the mess in Springfield.