[December 10, 2008] St. Louis Post-Dispatch Bill McClellan column: Undermine democracy if you must, but leave Cubs alone Tweet Dec 10, 2008 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" So said Captain Renault in "Casablanca." His words came to mind yesterday when Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested for corruption. Of course, Captain Renault was only feigning outrage, and it was in that spirit that I recalled his words. Truth is, there was nothing shocking about the governor's arrest. As a native Chicagoan, I can tell you corruption is something the citizenry expects from its public officials. Before a resident of Illinois gets too worked up about allegations of this sort, he or she wants to read the legal paperwork. Which is what I did. At first, I saw nothing but good news for the governor. He wanted to sell the Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama. The seat "is a (blanking) valuable thing," he said. That happens to be a fact. Do you know how much money it takes to run for the U.S. Senate? Millions of dollars. Even if you raise the money, you still need to win a primary election just to get to the general election. Furthermore, in electoral politics, you are a captive of fate. Events totally out of your control can cause you to lose. Maybe you have several opponents in the primary and one of them is your ideological twin and you have to share your base. Or maybe you get to the general election and you're a Republican in a Democratic year. Or vice versa. All sorts of things can happen. But if somebody just gives you the seat? Wow. If you get appointed, then the first time you actually run, you're running as the incumbent. It's easy for an incumbent to raise money. An incumbent has automatic name recognition. Incumbency is such an advantage that a lot of qualified people don't even want to run against an incumbent. So you're darned right it's a valuable thing. Nobody in Illinois expects the governor to just give it away. They don't elect fools over there. Blagojevich is not going to get convicted for trying to sell something of value. I kept reading the paperwork. The governor wanted to use political muscle to get some editorial writers fired at the Chicago Tribune. The public is supposed to care about that? I don't think so. A defense attorney would have an easy time with that one. He'd talk about editorial writers sitting in their ivory towers, writing their little editorials, telling people who to vote for. (Or, as an editorial writer might say, telling people for whom to vote.) Why shouldn't a governor use his muscle on these people? Presumably, the trial would be held in Chicago, and Chicago appreciates muscle. It is the city of broad shoulders, the hog butcher to the world and so on. You think editorial writers can quote manly poems like that? No, they're all about fog coming in on little cat feet. But just when I was thinking that Blagojevich could ride this thing out, I came to page 44 of the affidavit. It described a telephone call between the governor and "Deputy Governor A." The call had to do with problems faced by the Tribune Company. I will now quote from the document, but because this is a family newspaper, I will change a couple of key words. "During the call, Rod Blagojevich's wife can be heard in the background telling Rod Blagojevich to tell Deputy Governor A 'to hold up that forking Cubs stuff ... Fork them.' " Fork the Cubs? The good people of Illinois are not going to stand for that! You can be sure that the defense attorney will try to keep that tape away from the jury. "Your Honor, it's probative value is outweighed by its prejudicial effect." But no judge in Illinois is going to fall for that argument. The jury will hear it. I can imagine the U.S. attorney making his closing argument: "On behalf of Ernie Banks, No. 14 on your scorecard but No.1 in your heart, on behalf of Ron Santo and Andre Dawson and Carlos Zambrano and all the rest of them, on behalf of Jack Brickhouse and Jack Quinlan and Harry Caray, this shall not stand!" It would not surprise me if a mob tried to drag Blagojevich out of the courthouse. Why bother to wait for a verdict? No wonder that scalawag favored clemency for former Gov. George Ryan. The governor's goose is cooked. The people of Illinois are not bothered by pragmatism. If you have something of value like a Senate seat, sell it. They don't mind muscle. If an editorial writer is writing snippy things about you, push him aside. But fork the Cubs? With apologies to Captain Renault, I am shocked. The governor's only hope is to turn state's evidence and testify against his wife. Maybe the feds have charged the wrong Blagojevich. To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com. Copyright (c) 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]