My Governor Got Led Away in Handcuffs, and All I Got Was This Lousy Newspaper
Be glad you're not Rod Blagojevich. In addition to having a terrible haircut, he's going to go down in history as the worst politician in the history of Illinois politics--a high bar to pass, but one he's passed handily. Trying to sell the Senate seat of the next U.S. President for personal and political gain? Check. Threatening to hold back funds to a children's hospital? Check. Attempting to extort a six-figure salary for your wife? Check. Somehow thinking that all this could be flipped into a post-Obama presidential run? Check.
Reading through the fourteen-page complaint issued today by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald--who's now able to scratch off the second notch in his "brought down an Illinois Governor" column--paints an absurdly cartoonish portrait of a corrupt politician. Blagojevich as the Wile E Coyote of corrupt politicians: running just fast enough to not notice he'd abandoned solid ground for sky long ago.
In Illinois, of course, we can laugh it off--we're painfully used to this sort of thing. It's not a stretch at all to say the only real surprise from today was what took so long. And, hey, the last Governor had a hand in giving dirty licenses to school bus drivers so, you know, withholding $8 million from a children's hospital does seem like the logical next step.
But really, you know Blagojevich moved into an entirely different realm of awful when, as the Chicago Tribune reported in early November, his people called Tribune owner Sam Zell and demanded the firing of editorial board members in return for assistance in selling the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs.
I mean, dragging the Cubs into...
Full stop.
That didn't happen.
Oh, the phone call happened--it's in Fitzgerald's complaint--but the Tribune report about it? They were silent. When handed a story that would possibly have brought down Blagojevich, the Chicago Tribune clammed up.
Instead, we're reading about the calls for the first time today, thanks to Fitzgerald:
Intercepted calls allegedly show that Blagojevich directed [Chief of Staff] Harris to inform Tribune Owner and an associate, identified as Tribune Financial Advisor, that state financial assistance would be withheld unless members of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board were fired, primarily because Blagojevich viewed them as driving discussion of his possible impeachment. In a November 4 phone call, Blagojevich allegedly told Harris that he should say to Tribune Financial Advisor, Cubs Chairman and Tribune Owner, "our recommendation is fire all those [expletive] people, get 'em the [expletive] out of there and get us some editorial support." On November 6, the day of a Tribune editorial critical of Blagojevich , Harris told Blagojevich that he told Tribune Financial Advisor the previous day that things "look like they could move ahead fine but, you know, there is a risk that all of this is going to get derailed by your own editorial page."
Read that over again, and think about this: You're a newspaper. The governor of your state--a governor who has had the stink of corruption on him for years--has his people call you up and directly state that they'll help you out if you fire members of your editorial board. It is a phone conversation that not only wipes its ass on the ethical lines it crosses, it also treats the First Amendment like it's optional. And you don't report it? Why?
There's only one reason: Zell was entertaining the offer. Fitzgerald's complaint, again:
In a November 11 intercepted call, Harris allegedly told Blagojevich that Tribune Financial Advisor talked to Tribune Owner and Tribune Owner "got the message and is very sensitive to the issue." Harris told Blagojevich that according to Tribune Financial Advisor, there would be "certain corporate reorganizations and budget cuts coming and, reading between the lines, he's going after that section." Blagojevich allegedly responded. "Oh. That's fantastic."
If it was fantastic a month ago, Blagojevich must have been downright ecstatic yesterday, when Sam Zell announced that the Tribune Company was entering bankruptcy protection. Hell, Blagojevich must have thought, I just wanted a few people fired and Zell's going to take the whole paper down instead.
Be glad you're not Sam Zell. Zell, a man with an unfortunate choice in facial hair, bought the Tribune company less than a year ago, leveraging billions of dollars of loans to do so. Anyone with half a brain might have questioned the sanity of buying a newspaper company in 2007, but Zell jumped in with both feet, promising to restore the glory of the Tribune and its properties, including the down-but-not-out LA Times and the co-star of the final season of "The Wire" (a show Blagojevich clearly never watched), the Baltimore Sun. It didn't last long. Within months, the Tribune Co was offering buyouts to the journalists at its papers, hoping to dig their way out of the hole they were in.
We know where that story ends: with the New York Times breaking the news that Zell was filing for Chapter 11. Times is tough all over.
Was Sam Zell really willing to sell out the Tribune's editorial independence in order to help unload the Cubs? Nobody knows--at least, nobody's talking. The statement issued by Tribune editor Gerould Kern (several steps below the level of folk that Blagojevich was talking to) makes no direct mention of Zell's part in the corruption investigation:
On occasion, prosecutors asked us to delay publication of stories, asserting that disclosure would jeopardize the criminal investigation. In isolated instances, we granted the requests, but other requests were refused.The Chicago Tribune's interest in reporting the news flows from its larger obligation of citizenship in a democracy. In each case, we strive to make the right decision as reporters and as citizens. That's what we did in this case.
Gerould is talking about some other story, not this one. There was no possibility of jeopardizing Fitzgerald's investigation, because this story didn't need it; the wiretap wasn't involved: Blagojevich called them! The Tribune could have and should have run the story of Blagojevich's call to Tribune Tower in 200 point type. They should have printed it in Rod's own blood. They would have brought down a sitting governor the same week that they were trumpeting the win of Obama. They would have pushed the Tribune's brand into the stratosphere, at just the time that it needed it.
But they didn't. Faced with a defining moment in journalism--this was the kind of story that we would have taught in journalism schools for years--Sam Zell decided not to do the right thing. It's not surprising--the guy is a waxed mustache away from tying a damsel in distress to a railroad track after all--but it's still a shock.
When you walk into the lobby of the Tribune Tower, you're dwarfed by the etched words of legends. They speak of the importance of journalism for a functioning democracy; of the imperative to speak truth to power. One, from Thomas Jefferson himself, reads "our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that can not be limited without being lost."
That lobby is for sale now. Zell wants to turn the building into condos.
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Will Obama be a good President, or a lousy one? Who knows?
But what has that to do with what's going on in Chicago (and more than likely should be going on is one heckuva lot of other places)?
We elect these people (party means nothing) and the re-electt. and re-elect...
Naturally the temptations to corruption are there, and, the longer they are there, they become almost overwhelming.
It's gonna happen.
The solution? Figure it out for yourself.
What lousy newspaper are you referring to....Wonder if it is different than the one I get.
It is about time to start a whole new government...
Maybe there should br an accountability committee that required a lie detector test about
every 6 months for all the politicians.
This might keep some of them from being so tempted to get blinded by the
taxpayers money. A little bit of power goes a long long way.....
Most everyone posting seems to have an attitude that this type of corruption is Chicago centric. Are you kidding? I live in Oklahoma, the center of the so called "Bible Belt" and there is always some type of scam or kickback. In the seventies, when my family moved to Tulsa, I was 14 when the newspapers and tv stations were screaming about voter fraud. All 77 counties, with both Dem and Rep County Commissioners, were found to have excessive voter fraud. A nice pack of those county commissioners were sent to prison. Various politicians, both local and national, have been sent to prison for various crimes. Lately, the issue has been with Oklahoma State Senators not paying their taxes. Several had not filed taxes in more than 5+ years. The speaker of the Oklahoma State Assembly had to step down because he "forgot" to file taxes.
Wake Up!!! Chicago is a great city. Every city has problems. Every state has problems. Criminals are in every element of society. Business, church, Boy Scouts, schools, etc. I could go on forever. I am originally from the San Francisco area. I love San Francisco, but I also know that the prisons are full in California because of every type of crime. Don't be naive.
This is not just a Chicago or Illinois problem.
So then an expansive somewhat different slant on authority politics in Chi-land one of the major stinky political cess-pools in the U.S. of A. We need ask how isolated is this Cook County scenario from other areas in our now being exposed political grab-bag democracy.
WE were the first global nation to lead in a democracy that easily led into making it look good on the surface but take what you can get underneath, the measure of politics being disclosed in more and more of our country.
Yet the upside is we can't fix the problem until it is comprehended and there seems to be a whole lota comprehension agoin on now in our shifting consciousness. A major polarity contrast in an area that provided our best hope for presidential anti-corruption, Obamamania, also shows another mafiosi type governor and his above-the-law concept.
We shall overcome as you young ones take the reins in leading us out of a morass of illegitimate payola so common to the political scene and our growing jest of a two party system that argues over the split up of funds.
Politics as they have been are changing as we follow the money into the coffers that arranged the flow thru big-mouthing how they represent us, for hidden in the growing idea of how we create our own reality is the why should we let another think they can create reality for us?
Great piece of writing, Daniel. Thank You!
How much money is being laundered, how many tax writeoffs concealed, in the Zell Trib bankruptcy?
Zell always treated the Tribune like one of his real estate purchases - gutting it, selling off the parts. I'd have been shocked if he even understood the implications of being asked to reign in his editorial staff and either went to the FBI or gave it to his staff to blaze it across the headlines.
Clean up chicago then on to wash..
Cooke County is notoriously corrupt. I wonder if Tony Rezko was trying to line the governpr's pockets to get a pardon. Or was he convicted on Federal charges? Maybe he could buy him a house.
@poomplet
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Actually, this is a vivid, timely example of how it doesn't matter which side you're talking about;
It is NEVER good to have one party controlling everything!
Outsiders don't understand; since G.Ryan went to the pokey, Democrats occupied the Gov. mansion, State Senate, Cook County and the City of Chicago; THEY HAVE IT ALL.
But, shockingly, State govt became 10x MORE 'effed up....Cook County has run amok, and Daley...well, he's Daley.
I thought I wanted a super-majority for Obama, but as a moderate, I'm actually a bit relieved there will be a little check 'n balance. George Ryan's shenannigans make some people forget that the state (and Chicago) ran rather well under Jim Edgar's (GOP) 2 terms as governor. A moderate, he was respected by dems & GOP alike. He got things done...he RETIRED with a 65% (or more) approval rating..
Maybe all this will tug at his sense of duty & he'll give it another go. PLEASE!
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Very well said. So well, in fact, it needs to be quoted in it's entirety.... And I agree completely. Corrupt and pathetic behavior is not the sole domain of the Democrats OR the Republicans..
Many who rail against the GOP on a constant basis would do well to keep that in mind.
It's refreshing to see someone who can put aside partisan bigotry and give credit where credit is due..
Kudos...
Michale.....
I hope Sinker writes more articles. I have lived in Chicago my entire life and I am sick of being constanly repulsed by the suffocating atmosphere of corruption. Sinker did not pull any punches, we need more columnist of his honesty.
Would a news story about the Cubs debacle have brought down Blagojevich? I don't think so. There have been calls for his impeachment for over a year now at least with ample cause and yet nothing is done. You'd think today's news would automatically trigger the impeachment process but there are still high-profile people Like Sen. Durbin who won't even call for his resignation. What's it going to take?
See Daniel Sinker's Profile
there has never been a single provable instance of Blago making a shakedown call though. With the calls to Zell, there were--he was calling INTO A NEWSPAPER. Yet the newspaper didn't report it. Would it have forced an impeachment? Probably not. But it would have tossed gasoline onto an already smoldering fire.
Granted. We've been like the proverbial frog in the saucepan. The water has been heating steadily but no single outrage has caused the frog to jump. Until now (hopefully).
Sarah Palin suspended building permit requirements in Wasilla while she was still mayor, so that her husband's buddies (several of whom worked on the skating arena in town) could "help" him build their dream home. She killed other peoples' corruption and good ol' boys networks so she could form her own. Gotta give her credit for entrepreneurial spirit.
Are you kidding? Palin's friends helped build their house, and that's somehow equivalent to putting a Senate seat up for sale, shaking down a childrens' hospital, and contravening the 1st Amendment by extortion of a newspaper to force more favorable coverage? And more.
She just got that pipeline deal signed, BTW. She opened the bidding to competition, bypassed the old boy network, got a better deal for the state of Alaska, and finally got the pipeline underway after years of inertia. You'll be thanking her for lower utility rates in a couple of years.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081208/obama_palin_081208/20081209?hub=CanadaAM
Gov.Blagojevich will finally sing the late Elvis Presley's song - Jailhouse Rock !
As a former resident of Illinois all I can say is, "What a great place". I mean, if you're going to do it, go all the way. Is horrible hair a pre-requisite to political corruption these days? I was quite disapointed that on the long list of notorious embezzelers or whatever ,no one included the Sec of State back in the late 60's who keeled over after a lifetime of service and when his home was searched they found hundreds of shoe boxes stuffed with money sent in to pay for drivers license fee's. Ah the good ole days - taking the money and walking was so much easier.
Thanks for the that!!
Indeed, truly Wil E. Coyote of the governor to _repetitively_ offer all that governor's office action at a price.... and to DARE the media to tape him "publicly or privately" (shades of Gary Hart!), - in, as you point out, a state where the _previous_ governor had just recently gone down to Attorney Fitzgerald's previous, relentless investigation!
Fitzgerald only the guy who all but painted a bulls-eye on the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House (and actually hit that bulls-eye right through the heart, but for the appalling neo-con complicity of Speaker Pelosi, who pretended not to notice that the Vice President's Chief of Staff was, 'hello? convicted of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice, and Republicans by comparison impeached Bill Clinton for lying, not about outing an entire CIA undercover organization, but about a short-lived affair!)
Forget the image of Wil E Coyote treading empty blue sky - the one running through my mind is one of Mr. Coyote setting a huge boulder as a trap to squash the road-runner, only to find himself standing exactly on that spot with that hapless bug-eyed look , as the boulder comers roaring down to flatten him!
Life imitates art, indeed!
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