CHICAGO--Even those most cynical about politics here, who buy into the facile notion that nothing is legit, are moved to demurely ask, "Do you fu**ing believe this?"
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich seems to have pulled his own Guantanamo; blindfolding himself to all playing out around him. As a result, we all have a graduate school primer on how so much of politics work, and an ultimate challenge facing Barack Obama.
Since 2004, there have been many reports about criminal investigations into the nitty gritty of the Illinois system, which one columnist sees as nefariously run by an interlocking group of private and public bigwigs he tags The Combine. They've focused on appointments to state boards, the seeking of contracts, lobbying fees and the steering of pension fund business, among other routine acts.
At the center are agencies that are both little known to the general public and critical to the mundane but high-stakes decisions of government most anywhere. They make decisions about whether a hospital can expand, who'll get lucrative bond business and on letting contracts for everything from highway concrete to toll road pizza parlors.
The governor, whose predecessor is doing time in what the country singers call the Crossbar Motel, knew full well that 13 people in and around state government have been indicted or convicted, and about how key fundraisers and even his own wife had been implicated (due to questions about real estate commissions she received from politically-connected clients). And, yet, he vented and bragged and plotted on his home telephone even after word got out that he was being secretly tape-recorded.
In so doing, he apparently forgot about the wondrous, ancillary benefits of public parks, expansive parking lots and dank alleys. Even in this age of declining personal privacy, they do afford the Tony Sopranos of the world a chance to discreetly transact their business.
But there was the governor on the phone, padding the coffers of Sprint or AT&T, while exhibiting a seemingly remarkable mix of recklessness, compulsiveness, vanity and hubris.
If Abe Lincoln wasn't necessarily rolling in his grave, as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald suggested was the case with an image both vivid and banal, you can imagine the clicking of heels in at least the Chicago FBI office as they listened to audio far surpassing anything to be found on the financially beleaguered combine of Sirius and XM radio.
And, at the heart of it all, is money -- as is the case in about 49 other states, regardless of all the television chatter Tuesday about a peculiarly "Chicago" brand of corruption.
Whatever the sources of the governor's angst (perhaps significant legal fees from the tony law firm he's now ditched), the obsession with how to "monetize" his post-political life was as unabashed as his seeming desire to beat an imminent new state ethics law. The law would make the so-called pay-to-play schemes harder and limit political contributions by those doing state business.
What he reveals is a rather commonplace craving of a few too many in public life. They get to party with the high and mighty, even impact their lives, but never really feel part of the club, of the true propertied class. They sit in their executive offices, with so many nice perks but without the filthy lucre they see possessed by those of equal, maybe clearly inferior, acumen.
"Where's mine?" they say.
And that brings us to Obama.
By most accounts, the Obama-Blagojevich relationship is a cool one. And, for sure, one can imagine many in the Obama camp thumbing their noses at the governor and his somewhat craven, tacky ways; all of which give the aura of an early, too cute-by-half David Mamet hustler.
They are, after all, emblems of a new politics.
Sincerely wish them luck when they get to Washington and face the most potent force in the District of Columbia: the lobbyist- and lawyer-led status quo. It's an army enriched by generic PowerPoint presentations, Rolodexes of decades-old chums and quid-pro-quos, and many a late dinner in a Capital Grille corner booth.
And many of their names are probably to be found on the mile-long list of Obama contributors, part of that record-busting grand total of $750 million. They are nothing if not pragmatic.
And just like Rod Blagojevich knows that a vacant U.S. Senate seat is "a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing," these folks know the value of access, influence and changing -- or not changing -- laws and regulations. Obama will see many of their faces as he looks up from his TelePrompter at the Inauguration.
They are the many other reasons for Honest Abe to be rolling.
