Taken Into Custody

We woke up this morning to the news that Governor Rob Blagojevich had, as the header says, been "taken into custody." The reporters weren't exactly sure about what the story was, but they knew that the Feds had been out to Blago's house and left with him. I won't go into the details here--this story has been all over the news, and the blogs, and the rest of the Internet, and everything that hot stories tend to be all over--but this is pretty unbelievable to me. It's not unbelievable that the governor was arrested, because pretty much everybody I talk to has believed him to be corrupt for ages, and it was hardly a secret that Patrick Fitzgerald was investigating him. But for him to be so blatant in trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat is just staggering to me. The pure arrogance that he believed he could do such a thing with impunity. I'm not sure that he so much believed he wouldn't get caught as that it wouldn't make any difference if he did. I guess now's our chance to find out.

It appears to me that, posting bail aside, Blago is ready to go full-speed ahead in finding a replacement for Obama. It's his pick--and his pick alone--until he's no longer in office. Although resignation seems to be the responsible move to make, I think we can assume that responsibility is essentially irrelevant to Blago and take that option off the table. He's still apparently waiting for the right price (an empty senate seat is "golden," after all). Will the Illinois legislature rise to the occasion of getting him out of the way before he names a name, or will state legislators consider this business as usual themselves? They've got to appear as if they're concerned, but they may not really be. What they likely will be, though, is afraid that Fitz might turn his X-ray vision on them next, so we may discover that appearances are everything. In the meantime, test your skill and see how easy it is to tell Blago from Tony Soprano (here's a hint--Tony Soprano's quotes are better written).