I hoep they throw him in prison for a long long time. What a nasty person.
great
now we have TWO high-ranking illinois political positions up for sale
this dumbass just dropped the price by doubling the supply
god this recession sucks
Wow Long profile from Chicago Magazine.
Several people I spoke to resorted to colorful, four-letter language when describing the governor. The list of printable insults included “greedy,” “dumb,” “paranoid,” and "phony.
In January 2007, the freshly reelected governor began the legislative session gung ho to flex his political muscle. Right after election day he demanded that lawmakers pass a budget that included his multibillion-dollar universal health care plan, proposing to pay for it by levying a gross receipts tax on businesses—the largest tax increase in state history—and by selling off the state lottery and borrowing more from pension funds. Blagojevich didn’t get a single vote for the tax proposal in the Illinois House, which rejected it 107 to 0.When Blagojevich tried but failed to persuade Mike Jacobs, the Democratic state senator, to support a face-saving vote on his health care plan, Jacobs says the governor “blew up like a ten-year-old” and threatened to ruin his political career. “I told him, ‘I’m your friend, but I can’t support you on this one.’ He stood up and said, ‘We’re never going to be friends. I will do everything in my power to make sure you don’t return to this building’”—meaning the statehouse. Jacobs told reporters at the time, “If this governor would have been in East Moline, Illinois, at one of my local taverns, I would’ve kicked his tail end.”
Privately, a few people who know the governor describe him as a “sociopath,” and they insist they’re not using hyperbole. State representative Joe Lyons, a fellow Democrat from Chicago, told reporters that Blagojevich was a “madman” and “insane.” “He shows absolutely no remorse,” says Jack Franks, the Democratic state representative. “I don’t think he gives a damn about anybody else’s feelings. He tries to demonize people who disagree with him; he’s got delusions of grandeur.”
Man, I wish Canadian politics was this entertaining. All we get is a threat of a vote of no confidence. Bah!
Ya know, where were all these people when he was running? I was in Chicago when he ran and won, and all these people talking about what a sociopath and corrupt politician didn’t make a peep during the campaign, and in fact supported his run.
The article mentions that he was pretty unremarkable (in the personality sense as well as the accomplishment sense) as a state legislator. His powerful father-in-law engineered his run. Once he got the Gov’s mansion he went off the rails.
Would anyone have cared about the corruption charges back then? Heck, I heard that Clinton guy with $90k in his freezer only barely lost recently. People will do anything for their tribe!
Just imagine what else the dude has been doing? I wonder how many politicians in today’s climate go into politics to serve the citizenry and make a difference and how many go in purely for fame and fortune. [Insert cliche about how far we have come since the days of our founding fathers].
Gotta love Illinois politics. Land of Lincoln and Capone.
The part I find amusing is exactly how dumb do you have to be to get caught admitting the truth about what every pretty much politician does as a matter of course. Daschle, Lott, etc. all managed to land post-office private sector jobs without outright discussion of bribery; sheesh, it’s not hard.
Daschle and Lott could offer political advice and access, they could get ridiculously high-paying private sector jobs even without any kind of quid pro quo. Blagojevich, on the other hand, wanted $300k per year to be a worthless lump, and that takes some serious cajoling and arm twisting.
$300,000 a year? The Los Angeles school superintendent gets that much every year.
I dunno, lots of worthless politicians get cushy jobs, and often for stuff they did before retiring. I give you Dan Quayle.
Dan Quayle is Chairman of an international division of Cerberus Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm, and president of Quayle and Associates. He is an Honorary Trustee Emeritus of the Hudson Institute.
I dunno, given the state of the stock market today, Dan Quayle’s investment advice was probably as good as anyone else’s!
Plus, you’d have total deniability. “Yeah, I know, I took a bath on ERTS, but, ya know, my investment counselor was Dan Quayle.”
How can the dude not resign? Is he claiming he was misunderstood?