Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

School for Scandals: Version 2.1

Will Durst | Posted 03.02.2009 | Comedy


Will Durst

10. Hold a press conference to read a poem. Stay away from the arty crowd like Verlaine, Rimbaud or Sylvia Plath. Pick a heterosexual who didn't commit suicide. Someone classy, like Kipling.

Three Truly Weird Governors, USA

Jamie Stiehm | Posted 02.28.2009 | Politics


Jamie Stiehm

Somehow Palin's speaking pattern, upswept hair, glasses and supreme self-confidence electrified the body politic. Love or fear her, she and her small-town ways could not be ignored.

Blago Is My Embarrassing Uncle Who Won't Shut Up

Erica Heller | Posted 02.28.2009 | Politics


Erica Heller

Watching Blago, the narcissistic, wacko windbag it's been pretty hard to avoid that creeping, familial feeling of rage, shame and scalding irritation.

Advice To Blago: Invoke Caesar

Stuart Whatley | Posted 02.27.2009 | Politics


Stuart Whatley

If only he had invoked Caesar from the start, instead of civil rights heroes whose legacies are so sacred to so many, perhaps he could go down more gracefully (or at least less offensively).

Who Will Watch Government When All The Journalists Are Laid Off?

Geri Spieler | Posted 02.27.2009 | Media


Geri Spieler

Reducing an experienced editorial staff is not the way to go about cutting business costs. When quality suffers, the entire industry is tarnished.

The Traffic of Pay-to-Play Politics

Monica Youn | Posted 02.27.2009 | Politics


Monica Youn

The Bush Administration's DOT succeeded in knocking a sizeable hole in Illinois' ban on pay-to-play deals that the state Senate had attempted to pass in the wake of the Blagojevich scandal.

What if we Held an Impeachment, and Nobody Came?

Jayne Lyn Stahl | Posted 02.27.2009 | Politics


Jayne Lyn Stahl

For shame, America, impeach a guy over extramarital oral sex, but not waterboarding?

Blago is The New Media Pinata. A Whacky Devil. Great Fun!

Blake Fleetwood | Posted 02.27.2009 | Media


Blake Fleetwood

Today, after being impeached by the Illinois House, the Senate is hearing evidence to remove Rod Blagojevich, which it will probably do in the next few days.

Blagojevich 2.0

Lloyd Garver | Posted 02.13.2009 | Politics


Lloyd Garver

What Blagojevich did is so shocking that it could make "Lincoln turn over in his grave." But Caroline getting the seat because of her zillion-dollar fund raising ability wouldn't do the same?

The One-Minute Impeachment

William Klein | Posted 02.10.2009 | Politics


William Klein

The full Illinois House impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich after a zippy ninety minutes of debate. Pretty good -- but I think we can do even better.

How About Some of that Blago to Go?

Kathleen Reardon | Posted 02.09.2009 | Politics


Kathleen Reardon

Blagojevich, by any reasonable standard, ought to be beside himself with embarrassment over the 114 to 1 vote to impeach him. Yet he's reciting Tennyson in front of cameras.

Fox News Ate My Brain (I Swear!) - Of Chaos Theory & Roland Burris

Brian Ross | Posted 02.07.2009 | Politics


Brian Ross

The Fox News spin on Roland Burris was interspersed with video and misstatements of the event, trying to weave in the racism angle, or trying to paint Reid as the bad guy.

Replace Harry Reid?

Michael Fauntroy | Posted 02.06.2009 | Politics


Michael Fauntroy

The Democrats should cut their losses and seat Burris. Perhaps they should cut their losses with Reid, too.

Blagojevich vs. the Senate

Stanley Kutler | Posted 02.06.2009 | Politics


Stanley Kutler

In this contest of wills -- the governor's rightful authority to appoint a senator as opposed to the Senate's power to judge the qualification of its members -- the last word simply belongs to the Senate.

Enough About 'Roland Burris, Good Guy'

John R. Bohrer | Posted 02.05.2009 | Politics


John R. Bohrer

It doesn't matter how clean his record was when he was in office a decade ago or if he didn't pay a cent for his appointment: Roland Burris is a willing pawn in a very corrupt game.

A Lesser Class of Rogue

Allison Silver | Posted 02.05.2009 | Politics


Allison Silver

Though Blagojevich is regularly described as the apotheosis of the shady Illinois politician, he does not come close to the finesse and style embodied by masterful machine politicians. He's no McGinty.

2008: The Year of Audacity

Andrea Chalupa | Posted 02.04.2009 | Living


Andrea Chalupa

We now have something outside ourselves to struggle against. A very real and tangible angst.

ABC's "The Note" Embarrasses Itself on Behalf of Beltway Journalism

Eric Boehlert | Posted 01.24.2009 | Media


Eric Boehlert

Doing its best to prop up the beyond soggy Blago/Obama "scandal," The Note worked feverishly to convince fellow journalists that they didn't make fools of themselves hyping the non-story for weeks.

Blago and Me

Neil McCarthy | Posted 01.23.2009 | Politics


Neil McCarthy

In electoral politics we want to avoid the rich and famous in favor of the modest but qualified. But we make it impossible for anyone but the rich and famous to get the jobs and then keep them.

What Did Obama Know, And When Did He Know it?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson | Posted 01.22.2009 | Politics


Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The Blago-Emanuel and by extension Obama connect in itself would normally be little more than a pinprick distraction except for the long history of corrupt Chicago style wheeling and dealing.

Blago Should Still Appoint Diane Nash

Stephen C. Rose | Posted 01.20.2009 | Politics


Stephen C. Rose

Diane Nash is a pillar of the civil rights movement who happens to be a blue ribbon Chicago citizen and is certainly more qualified than Caroline Kennedy to be a US Senator.

Why Obama Picked Rick

Jonathan Handel | Posted 01.17.2009 | Politics


Jonathan Handel

For a good ten minutes, I puzzled over why Obama would select an anti-gay conservative preacher, Rick Warren, to give his invocation speech. Several reasons occurred to me.

Welcome to the Blagosphere

Thomas Frank | Posted 01.17.2009 | Politics


Thomas Frank

The Blagojevich scandal is widely seen as a heavy blow for the incoming administration, but in fact it's good for Mr. Obama that it happened early on.

Sunday Roundup

Arianna Huffington | Posted 01.13.2009 | Politics


Arianna Huffington

It's been amusing watching the media try to turn a scandal affecting the governor of Illinois into a scandal affecting the president-elect. Every detail was milked for maximum ominousness: a recent handshake between Obama and Blagojevich, a list of favored replacement candidates delivered by Rahm Emanuel, Rahm's "beet-red" face, David Axelrod's work for Blago in the 90s. All inflated to fill a sparse news cycle. But wouldn't it have been weird if Obama hadn't shaken Blago's hand, and weirder still if he'd shown no interest in who his successor would be? Trying to turn any of this into a suspicion of pay-to-play carries about as much weight as the Obama citizenship case. Sorry, guys, but Blagojevich said it all: the Obama people were "not willing to give me anything except appreciation."

Blagojevich Makes Brief Courthouse Appearance

AP | CARLA K. JOHNSON and MIKE ROBINSON | Posted 01.13.2009 | Chicago


CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich met with a renowned Chicago criminal lawyer Saturday as he weighed his legal options on how to fight a s...