{"id":6518,"date":"2009-01-29T23:13:35","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T06:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6518"},"modified":"2009-01-29T23:13:35","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T06:33:23","slug":"blagoneovich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6518","title":{"rendered":"Blagoneovich"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite quote of the entire Blagojevich scandal goes to Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago<\/a>: “We have this thing called impeachment and it’s bleeping golden and we’ve used it the right way.”<\/p>\n

That’s some high-quality snark, my friends.<\/p>\n

Rod Blagojevich is no longer the Governor of Illinois, thanks to a unanimous, 59-0 vote in the State Senate. He was also barred from running for public office in Illinois, though I assume that’s a formality, as Blagojevich polls just below pond scum in popularity.<\/p>\n

I was born in Illinois, and spent the first six years of my life there; as my dad likes to say, it’s a good state to be from, as that means you’re not there anymore. While Blagojevich’s scandal was brazen and bizarre, it’s not unusual. As Gov. Pat Quinn now takes the reins, he knows that if history is any guide, he’s got a fifty-fifty chance of ending his term in jail. Three of the previous eight governors did, and Blagojevich appears likely to be the fourth. Illinois politics is built on the patched-up foundation of the Daley Machine<\/a>, a cancerous, Superfund-worthy lot of patronage and corruption. And it’s not just on the Democratic side; the most recent Governor to go to jail was Republican George Ryan, who was also, until about 5 p.m. this afternoon, the most recent ex-governor.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean that all, or even most, politicians in Illinois are corrupt. As in most states, most politicians are there for basically the right reasons, doing what they can to help their constituents. Those men and women now need to assert themselves — demand clarity and openness, demand that the men and women to serve in the state house are men and women of moral clarity. And the citizens have to demand it as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite quote of the entire Blagojevich scandal goes to Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago: “We have this thing called impeachment and it’s bleeping golden and we’ve used it the right way.” That’s some high-quality snark, my friends. Rod … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}