Blagojevich, In Chart Form

The New York Times has a great chart of Gov Rob's corruption links, in a style that anyone who has watched a season of The Wire can understand.

A few notes about Illinois politics. Number one - we don't really have a two party system here. We acknowledge such a thing exists, but we haven't bothered to go down to the store and pick one up for something like a few decades. One part of this is the odd demographics - Chicago is wildly Democratic and makes up the major amount of the state population, while the rest of the state is rural and somewhat purple, but mostly leans Republican. In part because of this disparity, the Illinois Republican Party hasn't been a truly functioning organization for some time.

I mean, they ran Alan Keyes. Alan Freaking Keyes. Against Barack Obama. This is after they fired their own guy for having a sex affair with his own wife (Jerri Ryan for you Trekkies, by the way). Whenever my dad complains about Obama, I like to remind him that the keystone cops which make up the so-called opposition are partially to thank for his meteoric rise. They just made it so darn easy.

Second, corruption is often viewed in shades of grey, especially in the Windy City. That said - nobody is looking at Rob B right now and thinking this was business as usual. The general concept is benevolent dictatorship. Sure, you get your political machine - but the city stays healthy and the roads get cleaned on time. And in the city, this largely works. On a state level, it looks like the train fell off the rails some time ago (since this is our second bout of scandal in as many governors).

Personally, I think think they guy might be slightly insane. Anyone who thinks that they can sell off a senatorial position, and if that fails take it for themselves in the hopes of a Presidential bid in a few years ... and that none of that will raise an eyebrow...

I mean, yikes. Get the guy out of office and on some meds.