Archives for January 2009

He's back! Just as one former Chicago politician was attempting to put a serious, sober and ethical face on American leadership, Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois (watch my report here) has been reminding us that it doesn't have to be this way.

With typical understatement he's been comparing his arrest in December on corruption charges to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, calling it a "complete surprise". We might have guessed as much since, on the day itself (the arrest day, not the bombing which brought America into World War Two), he'd responded to the FBI raid by asking "Is this a joke?".

Blagojevich's impeachment trial opens in the Illinois Senate today. Later he'll face a criminal trial on various charges, most notably trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat. He has told the AP news agency he has no intention of mounting any defence at the impeachment because he feels the process is unfair.

"Give me a right to call witnesses, give me a right to subpoena witnesses and documents, to properly prepare a case - and I'll be the first one there," said Blagojevich. Otherwise, "I'm not going to be a party to a process like that. And if it means I have to sacrifice myself to a higher cause, for the people of Illinois and for the principle of due process and the right to call witnesses, then so be it."

His lawyers have been complaining they can't question people they claim would help his case, such as President Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. This will be a relief to Obama's avowedly ethical White House, which wants to maintain as much distance as possible between itself and Hot Rod.

And his antagonists in his home state? "The reason is they want to get me out fast so they can put a huge income tax increase on the people of Illinois," said the governor, who reiterated he would never resign.

He added that he'd turned to religion to help cope with the pressure. "I'm not the first person this is happened to, all you have to do is read the Bible and see other people who this has happened to."

While I couldn't find any direct references to previous Illinois governors in the Good Book, Blago is mentioned a couple of times in the splendid "America All Better", the current satirical show from Chicago's Second City. The theatre troupe, which spawned generations of U.S. Comedians from Joan Rivers to John Belushi to Tina Fey, is in excellent fettle and leaves one questioning why, in comparison, so much satire on American TV remains so weak.

It is of course hard to satirise Blago. Today he apologised for the colourful language he's accused of using in wiretapped conversations saying he would have used different words had he known he was being taped. As the wiretap has it: "F***in' golden!

Enjoy a brief clip of Second City's "America All Better". Blago doesn't feature but the main character is supposed to be Chicago's Mayor Daley, the man at the heart of the City Machine (who, you should note, has never been charged with any offence). He also has a reputation for interesting locutions.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

They are the Lennon and McCartney or, to talk American, the Rogers and Hammerstein, the Lewis and Clark and the Jack Benny and Bob Hope of modern journalism. The names Woodward and Bernstein inspired tens of thousands of us hacks to approach events from a slightly different perspective, a longer view and the scarcely concealed hope to be portrayed on film one day by the likes of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the men who brought down the President. And while that may be a simplistic recalling of the events which did for Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal it's also fundamentally accurate. It was their dogged pursuit of the story behind the story which led to the impeachment proceedings and the resignation.

First as a student and later as a young journalist, I followed Watergate in what these days is known as real time i.e. I saw it unfold as it happened nearly four decades ago. With ever-growing avidity we watched incredulous as Tricky Dick Nixon, this stage villain from across the Atlantic, declared he was NOT a crook and that there'd be No Whitewash At The White House. Of course he was lying and was proved to be lying, which left us feeling even more thrillingly outraged and self righteous.

By the time that Nixon was long gone and Hollywood took over the story, I was working in the Holy City (Liverpool) on local radio, doing the daily grind - or rather the night shift. I remember going to see All The President's Men at the Odeon one Sunday afternoon, watching in awe as Redford and Hoffman met Deep Throat in glamorous underground car parks, followed the money and started to knock the dominoes down. At the end, exhilarated I was desperate to go to work.

Read the rest of this entry

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Chicago - Handpicked by Chicago's disgraced governor, unabashed to be so publicly rejected when he first rolled up to Capitol Hill, Roland Burris is an individual with a thick skin and superabundant self confidence. Mr Burris is the new senator for Chicago, Barack Obama's old seat. It's the one the Governor is alleged to have been touting around for a huge cash payment. That's one of the reasons Governor Rod Blagojevich is now facing criminal charges for corruption.

While Blago fights that case and protests his fxxxin' innocence, he's outflanked his detractors by using gubernatorial authority to appoint the unlikely Mr Burris to the seat. In all his 71 years Mr Burris has achieved many things. We know this because his accomplishments have been chiselled in marble on the large mausoleum he's had built in a Chicago cemetery.

Beneath the name BURRIS we read the heading "Trailblazer", an interesting word when you spot the very modest, traditional grave next door (a tenth of the size?) and see that it's occupied by Jesse Owens, the Hitler-defying Olympian.

Mr Burris, we read, was Illinois's first African-American attorney general and the state's first African-American comptroller. His memorial even notes Mr Burris was the first African-American exchange student to Hamburg University in Germany from Southern Illinois University in 1959.

Read the rest of this entry

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Barack Obama began the week by saying how sad it felt to be vacating the home where his children had grown. Well poignancy has its place but, in political terms, the president elect must be delighted to leave, unscathed, Chicago and the state of Illinois. Is it the most corrupt of all 50 states? As the Justice Department man put it when announcing the indictment of the current governor: if it's not the worst, it's certainly a contender.

I'll be in the Windy City next week reporting on the murky world of the Chicago Political Machine. But for now, the allegation is that under Hot Rod/Blago/Governor Rod Blagojevich business and government practice in Illinois was no less corrupt than it had been under his three predecessors who've served jail terms since 1970. Indeed, if the charges stick (and he insists he's innocent) Blago may well be the most egregiously corrupt governor. A record holder!

Somehow Obama has emerged from Illinois without blemish. There's no suggestion he knew anything of Blago's alledged attempts to sell his Senate seat ("It's f***in' golden! I'm just not giving it up for f***in' nothing!" - according to the affidavit - download it here (pdf)). And Obama's closest political aides, Valerie Jarrett, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod - all veterans of the Chicago school of politics - will, if he is found guilty, have missed Blago's apparently brazen hustling. In those circumstances the question will surely be asked how did these, the sharpest political brains in the country, fail to see what was happening in their home town? It's a big question and a potentially embarrassing one for all concerned.

While we mull over that let's leave the final word to Illinois' greatest contemporary playright, David Mamet, a writer whose characters are almost as profane as Governor Blagojevich and his First Lady on the wiretap tapes.

"I am from Chicago and, so, having been disillusioned with politics at an early age I do not become involved," said Mamet. "The only reason I vote is because they pay me."

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?