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| RYAN: Soon to be free (sort of) |
You
know who you are. The ones who can’t resist a chance to take a pot shot at
former Gov. George Ryan and anyone else whose name they can manage to tie into
his.
HOW
MANY PEOPLE have derived a gag (and an attempted laugh) at the thought of Ryan
and our other convicted former Governor, Rod Blagojevich, being cellmates or
being assigned to some miserly duty in the prison yard?
That
never happened – what with Ryan doing his time at the minimum-security work
camp connected to the maximum-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and
Blagojevich winding up at that facility out in Colorado!
But
it was this week that former political powerbroker William Cellini finally
surrendered himself to federal officials, where he was then sent to the very
same minimum-security facility where Ryan is being held.
For
the time being.
YOU
PEOPLE CAN have your jokes about how the mighty-and-powerful have fallen and
are now sharing space in the same federal facility.
Perhaps
it is a sign of how far the Republican Party has fallen, since back in the days
when they were significant and Mighty! and capable of actually getting things
done, it was with people like Ryan in charge, with people like Cellini using
his business acumen to raise the money that those candidates used to pay for
their campaigns.
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| CELLINI: Soon to be prison power-broker? |
Which
then made them indebted to Cellini – which was the source of his power. He had
the ability to tell people with power how they should use it.
Now,
they two of them are a punch line, rotting away at a Bureau of Prisons facility
in a southwestern Indiana community where “God” is spelled “L-A-R-R-Y B-I-R-D.”
HE
DID, AFTER all, play his college ball at nearby Indiana State University.
But
back to Ryan and Cellini – who aren’t going to be prison-mates for long. For
Ryan is on the verge of leaving the facility where he has spent nearly six of
what should have been his “Golden” years.
Ryan’s
prison term is scheduled to end July 4. But in accordance with standard prison
policy, inmates can be released to a half-way house a few months early as part
of an effort to re-acclimate those individuals to the outside world – which has
changed quite a bit since Ryan went away.
And
the Chicago Sun-Times reported recently that Ryan’s date for release – possibly
to a facility on the West Side – is one week from Wednesday.
ALREADY,
I HAVE been reading the gripes from those individuals who are determined to
believe that any sort of release for Ryan is a political favor of sorts.
As
though the only way those individuals will be pleased is if they learn of a report
that Ryan was killed during a prison riot. Then again, they’ll probably gripe
that it wasn’t violent enough.
If
it sounds like I hold a lot of Ryan’s critics in contempt, you’d be accurate.
It
just seems like certain people are determined to let their venom flow to
extraordinary levels when it comes to our former governor from the Kankakee
area. Which kind of saddens me.
THAT
IS A lot of hatred they have built up, and it likely is preventing them from
getting on with their own lives and achieving something of significance.
And
while I’ll admit that even all these years later, a part of me is skeptical
about the nature of the charges for which Ryan was convicted, I accept that a
jury reached its verdict that has been upheld by various appeals courts.
Ryan
did his time. Just as Cellini is about to do his (he owes the federal
government about one year, and should be free by 2014). Those of us who feel
compelled to spew disgust about this situation ought to look more intensely at
ourselves.
For
while I’m the first person to admit I can appreciate the humor of a tacky
situation, the overkill we’re going to hear in coming weeks and months is
something that will leave me in dismay.
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