Blagojevich will be on TV again (sort of); does he want to control image?

Rod Blagojevich will crop up back in our minds in a couple of weeks when a judge at the U.S. District Court in Chicago decides whether he ought to have his prison sentence reduced.

 

An embarrassing-enough day for ex-gov

But it doesn’t mean that Blagojevich will physically be in our presence.

SINCE BLAGOJEVICH IS being held in a federal correctional center in Colorado, he will remain there on Aug. 9 while legal activity takes place in the Chicago courtroom of Judge James Zagel.

It will be the modern-day miracle of television and a closed-circuit connection that will allow Blagojevich to express any thoughts he has about his legal predicament without actually having to be in the courtroom.

We may well get Blagojevich family or friends speaking in person on his behalf. But we won’t get to see in person the wrath that five years of federal prison life have brought down upon the governor who likely considered himself to be the ultimate “Elvis person.”

He will remain at the prison during his court hearing. Which strikes some as odd because they remember the Blago ego that would have naturally have made him want to be the center of all attention.

SO WHY WOULD Rod choose not to be transported to Chicago at the federal government’s expense?

The smart aleck in me wonders if Blagojevich enjoys the thought of a courtroom full of spectators with their attention focused on a television screen with his face filling it up.

It would be (sort of) like the old days. Back when our whole state paid attention to his every bizarre move and when some people actually took seriously the notion that he would someday be presidential timber.

 

The image Blagojevich would rather have; being one of the masses with fantasies of a Cubs World Series this season and dreaming of a chance to throw out the first pitch prior to a World Series game

Does Blagojevich fall asleep these days to dreams of how Hillary Clinton is offering him advice and support after she congratulates him on the crushing primary election defeat he administered to her in the 2016 primary election that exists only in his mind?

COULD IT JUST be that Blagojevich didn’t feel compelled to return to Chicago at this time because it would be under less-than-desirable conditions?

He’d be an inmate. He’d be in the brightly-colored jumpsuit meant to make him stand out in a crowd in a humiliating manner.

Heck, he’d be shackled. The resulting image would probably feed the fantasies of many a conservative ideologue whose life is so pathetic that they have nothing more to live for than the misery of other people.

And worse of all, we’d all wind up getting the answer to the question many of us have had since we learned of his regular use of hair dye to maintain a youthful look – How old does Rod Blagojevich look in reality?

COULD THE THOUGHT of being seen with all that grey hair (he will turn 60 come Dec. 10) be too much for him to bear? Does he want to maintain that vision of himself that we all became used to a decade ago with the primped-up hair?

Which may be the reason that one of the few details that has come out about Blagojevich’s time in prison is that he participates in a band of inmates who envision themselves as rock ‘n’ rollers.

 

Is this Blagojevich's biggest fear?

Literally calling themselves the “Jailhouse Rockers” in memory to the old Elvis tune. That image, he can handle. Which makes me suspect that Blagojevich’s worse nightmare is something similar to that of the late New York-area gangster Henry Hill.

Who in being portrayed by actor Ray Liotta at the end of the film “Goodfellas” told us, “I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

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Could Beavers be political equivalent of ‘Goodfellas’ gangster Henry Hill?

My imagination is running amok about what this weekend will be like for one-time political person William Beavers – who has until Monday before he must report to a federal corrections institution unless he wants the label “fugitive” attached to his name.

BEAVERS: Counting down the days

Somehow, I just don’t see the man and his ego spending these final days of freedom in prayer and quiet solitude.

I DON’T KNOW if he’ll have the nerve to show up at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Ind. – the place where he got into his legal trouble because he used money from his campaign contributions to gamble with.

The gambling isn’t what technically got him into trouble with the IRS. It was the fact that he didn’t report the contributions as income; which would have made it legal, but also would have required that he pay more in federal taxes.

But the idea of a weekend of gambling and some booze – a wild bash before climbing into the back of a limousine Monday morning and telling the chauffeur, “Now take me to jail” (a la actor Ray Liotta’s “Henry Hill” character in the film “Goodfellas”).

Be honest! It would be totally in character for the man whose stylish suits (“finely tailored” was the way he would describe his attire) were among his characteristics – along with an ability to verbally take on anybody about him with whom he did not agree. Although I'm not claiming to have any hard-fact as to what Beavers did with his final days of freedom.

BUT THE OVER-THE-TOP nature of this situation would be worthy of this entire case, where Beavers will get to spend the next few months in a minimum-security correctional center.

He’ll be free by Independence Day. In fact, he may well be free by Memorial Day. He can celebrate his freedom with a picnic somewhere that theoretically is meant to pay tribute to those who died while defending the concept of our nation’s continued existence.

The real-life Henry Hill

Attorneys for Beavers did try to persuade a federal appeals court to let the one-time Chicago Police officer, 7^th Ward alderman and Cook County commissioner to remain free while the legal appeal of his criminal conviction is pending.

Those justices who heard the argument ruled this week against Beavers’ request, although they did agree to put Beavers’ appeal on an expedited schedule. There could be a ruling on the legal merits by sometime in February.

WHICH COULD MEAN Beavers could be free sometime around Valentine’s Day – if the court is at all sympathetic! If not, he’ll have to serve the entire six-month sentence, which would mean freedom sometime in the spring.

Six months isn’t the longest period of time. Although having to serve it in a prison facility, even one that is minimum-security, isn’t the most pleasant experiences one can have.

Particularly if/when his fellow inmates get word of the fact that he was a cop for just over two decades.



Liotta's 'schnook' take on Hill

For those people who are somehow convinced that Beavers is getting off lightly with such a sentence, I’d retort that he’ll still suffer. Particularly since I’m sure the man who turns 79 come Feb. 21 will wind up having the IRS on his case for the rest of his life – ensuring that the federal government gets its fair share of whatever future income he generates in the future.

THAT MAY WELL be the hardest part of the rest of Beavers’ life. He’s the flashy, outspoken guy who thrives on the public attention. Yet he’s not going to get any of that any more. He has become the political equivalent of gangster Hill.

For as Liotta’s “Hill” character described his post-organized crime life in "Goodfellas," “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

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