Just another step in the federal effort to break Blagojevich in any way possible

Perhaps Friday was the day that reality finally registered with Rod Blagojevich.

A reality check ... 



If it didn’t, then I don’t know what it will take for him to realize the predicament that his life has devolved to.

BLAGOJEVICH HAD TO appear in court on Friday, where U.S. District Judge James Zagel set bond for him at $450,000 – unless he’d rather spend his time incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center until the time comes that he is sentenced to a prison term for his convictions on 18 assorted charges.

Since I doubt Blagojevich wants to live in the triangle-shaped building that allows residents only a thin slit window view of the South Loop, he’ll come up with the money to post bond, whose point is to ensure that Rod and Patti don’t decide to take a European vacation, then suddenly decide NEVER to return to the United States.

It is to ensure he doesn’t flee.

Now it is true that Blagojevich is busted financially. The only reason he’s going to be able to keep himself out of a jail cell while awaiting sentencing is that the book value of his home in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood and a condominium in the District of Columbia (from his six years as a member of Congress; he doesn’t live there anymore) is sufficient enough that he can put them up as bond.

IN FACT, THE reason for Friday’s court hearing was that Blagojevich had not followed the letter of the law when it comes to filing paperwork with the federal government indicating the value of his assets – which these days are little more than the house and the condo.

Now I know there are those individuals who want to think that Blagojevich somehow “won” on Friday, because Zagel refused to go along with the bond request that prosecutors wanted.

... for both Blagojeviches



One Million Dollars!!!!!!

That is the kind of bond that is set for the most vicious criminals who go on serious crime sprees. It would have added to Blagojevich’s notoriety, and may have been so high that Blagojevich wouldn’t have been able to achieve it.

HAVING A BOND so high might well have turned Blagojevich into a guy who makes his court appearances in prison garb, rather than in a nice suit with his loving wife at his side.

Which I’m sure the most intense political ideologues would have been completely happy with.

But this was a blow for Blagojevich. Since the fact that has come out in all this talk about Blagojevich’s housing is that he and Patti are trying to sell both of them.

Speculation is that the couple would like to buy a condominium in Chicago, which is where Patti would live with the couple’s two daughters while Milorod serves whatever time he ultimately receives in prison.

EXCEPT THAT IF the house and the D.C. condo are committed to his bond, there’s no way the couple can even think of selling them.

And when one considers that the federal government likely will try (and succeed) to confiscate both pieces of property once Blagojevich is sentenced, there isn’t going to be anything left to allow them to find something respectable in the way of housing for the Blagojevich family once the former governor’s address changes to a federal correctional center.

The people who have their twisted thoughts of Patti Blagojevich (who herself may be so tainted these days by her husband that she’s probably unemployable) being forced to beg her alderman father for permission to live with her daughters in his basement may well find that reality comes very close to what ultimately happens to Illinois’ former first family.

Considering that Blagojevich is the man who seriously claimed to be “stunned” at the thought that a jury could find him guilty of so many charges, I wonder if the reality of how intensely he is going to be busted financially is the jolt of reality that gets through to the man whom so many of his political colleagues considered to be “delusional” during his time in office.



NOT THAT THIS phenomenon is unique to the Blagojevich case.



Where some wish ex-Gov. currently resided



I have always believed that people watching legal proceedings should pay more attention to the fines imposed against defendants than to any prison time. Because the fine is something that the federal government can collect upon even after the sentence is served.

If set high enough (and one can be assured that it will be in the millions of dollars for Blagojevich), it can ensure that anything of any financial value is lost, and that they remain in debt even after getting their freedom.

That alone could be a significant factor in the likelihood that Blagojevich and family will leave the Chicago area after his anticipated prison sentence is complete. He may not be able to afford to live in the city any longer.

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Meeting Chicago's Mexican population just as important for Calderon as UN or "Arnold"

When this week is over, Mexico President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa is bound to have some unique memories of his first official visit to the United States.

He’s going to be able to have seen Harvard Yard and the United Nations. Calderón will have met with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (one of this country’s highest-ranking Hispanic politicos), and he’s also going to be able to get his picture taken with Hollywood celebrity-turned-“governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger.

AS FAR AS the public perception is concerned, his Chicago stopover scheduled for Tuesday has the potential to be the weak end of the Calderón U.S. tour.

To me at least, a meeting with Gov. Rod Blagojevich pales by comparison to the other pseudo-celebrities he will be meeting. You’d think we could at least dig up Oprah Winfrey to add some Chicago glamour to an official state visit.

Yet the Chicago appearance, if not as politically sexy as the other stops on his five-day visit, also has the potential to be the most important. Mexico President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa participated in ceremonies Sunday allowing the Mexican Air Force to show off its strength, just before leaving for a five-day tour of the United States where Calderon hopes to show off his political strength on behalf of Mexican citizens now living in the United States. Photograph provided by Mexico President's office.

Calderón is going to get a chance to meet face to face here with that unique breed of Chicago’s ethnic soup – the Mexican-American, who accounts for roughly one of every six Chicagoans. (It is when combined with Puerto Ricans and other Latino ethnicities that Hispanics account for 26 percent of the city’s population).

THE PRESIDENT OF Mexico is going to attend a rally at Lawndale High School that officials expect to be attended by about 700 people, many of whom are the children of immigrants who make up the population of the Little Village neighborhood on the near Southwest Side.

Officially, Calderón says he is coming here this week to remind U.S. government officials that Mexican citizens who have emigrated to the United States have rights as human beings – rights which he believes are sometimes neglected by federal officials who cite national security as a reason to single out Mexican people.

Yet if that were his only concern, Calderón would have had his flight go directly from Mexico’s Federal District to the District of Columbia. He could have spent his time trying to influence the D.C. politicos and perhaps get a state dinner in his honor at the White House.

Instead, Calderón is bypassing Washington to see the actual countryside for his first official U.S. visit. By escaping the D.C. “Beltway,” he’ll get to meet up with people of Mexican descent scattered across the country.

WHEN ONE CONSIDERS that Chicago has had a sizable Mexican population since the end of World War I, there would be no way he could skip over, “La Ciudad Segunda” on his U.S. tour.

To those people who attend the rally, the event has a chance to be a life-long memory. Regardless of what one thinks of the government of Mexico, common decency implies that you show a certain amount of respect for a nation’s leader – similar to how some people think it is absolutely disrespectful to the United States of America to be overly critical of George W. Bush.

And to someone of Mexican descent who is struggling to comprehend a strange new language and customs while also working a crummy-paying job (or two), the notion that your motherland’s leader has not forgotten your plight can be a boost.

It is even an event of significance to people like myself who were born in Chicago and have to go back a couple of generations to find the immigrant presence in our family trees.

ALL TOO OFTEN in the past, there was an attitude among the Mexican population remaining in Mexico (usually the upper classes whose lives were so financially secure they had no reason to think of leaving) that the people fleeing to the United States were disloyal to their country.

While I see my two grandfathers as being courageous for leaving behind everything they ever knew in life to try to build a new life in a foreign land (the farthest I have ever strayed from Chicago was a five-month stint living in the District of Columbia), Mexicans of a certain generation would lambaste them as cowardly.

Hearing firsthand from Mexico’s leadership that we have not been forgotten is reassuring. It is nice to know that another piece of past ignorance is being put aside.

Personally, I want to hear what Calderón has to say, in part because I am enough of a government junkie to find the inner workings of Mexico’s version of Democracy to be intriguing. Calderón’s 2006 election was as controversial to Mexican citizens as George W. Bush’s 2000 election was to U.S. citizens.

BUT I ALSO am interested in seeing how U.S. officials respond to having Calderón rub the plight of Mexicans in the U.S. “in their faces,” so to speak. Will he get openly hostile reactions from some social conservatives who, “don’t want no Mexican” telling them what to do?

Will he get polite applause, then have his words forgotten once his return flight slips south of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande? Or will someone heed his words and actually try to do something of significance toward immigration reform – other than building a concrete barrier along the southwestern U.S. border that will come to be graffiti-ed to the point that it will resemble the Berlin Wall of old.

There is one part of the Calderón U.S. tour that I wish I could be present for – the finale in Sacramento, Calif., where he will meet with Schwarzenegger at the governor’s California Statehouse office.

SCHWARZENEGGER, HIMSELF AN immigrant from Austria, is on record as favoring the U.S./Mexico border barrier along with tougher restrictions on Mexican emigration. Will he try to justify his views with Calderón? Or will the California first lady (Kennedy cousin Maria Shriver, an ‘Obama girl’ of sorts who disagrees with his choice of John McCain for president) manage to get Arnold to hold his tongue?

It is particularly interesting that Schwarzenegger is such a high-profile governor that he can get a foreign president to come to him, rather than having to link up with Calderón when the Mexico president visits Los Angeles.

I can’t imagine a Mexican president making a similar trip to Springfield, Ill., where the last Mexican official to visit the Illinois capital city was former Agriculture Secretary Francisco Labastida – and that was 10 years ago.

EVEN WITH BLAGOJEVICH’S bloated sense of self-importance, I can’t imagine our governor having the nerve to demand that foreign leaders come to his turf.

Of course, since Gov. Rod does not put in much time at his offices at the Statehouse in Springfield, Ill., or at the Thompson Center in Chicago, Calderón would have to make a trip to the Blagojevich residence in the Lincoln Square neighborhood.

You have to admit, watching a presidential motorcade try to wend its way through the streets of the one-time German ethnic enclave (which is slowly going upscale) in search of the gubernatorial bungalow would be an unforgettable site.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Mexico President Felipe Calderón’s U.S. visit (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-calderon_09int.ART.North.Edition1.450f3b1.html) is meant to promote (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/world/americas/09mexico.html?ref=americas) good relations between the United States and Mexico.

Calderón says his government is trying to crack down on drug trafficking taking place (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mexico-president-interview-feb07,1,3288667.story) between the two countries.

Mexican presidents traditionally visit the United States during their first year in office. But Calderón's U.S. tour was delayed due to floods that struck Mexico. You may not (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071210/nino-martinez) have paid much attention, but it was as devastating to the morale of Mexico as Hurricane Katrina was to the U.S.

Calderón will use this site (http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/en/) to promote his visit, and other initiatives.

A defense (of sorts) for Rod Blagojevich

Illinois’ governor is too parochial.

He never leaves his hometown.

He makes no effort to build working relationships with his political colleagues. By snubbing them, he’s only ensuring himself a more difficult time politically when trying to pass his public policy dreams into law.

That’s what snide political observers used to say back in the 1990s about then-Gov. Jim Edgar when he used to do his one-day-a-week routine in Chicago, then spend as much time as possible in his office at the Statehouse in Springfield.

But Edgar managed to do his job with his routine, and that's why I find it a tad ridiculous to hear similar charges made now against current Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Political observers used to say Edgar spent way too much time at the Statehouse, favoring Springfield at the expense of the rest of Illinois -- particularly Chicago.

Now, people say Blagojevich spends too much time in Chicago, refusing to have much (if any) direct contact with government officials who work at the Statehouse or in the capitol complex.

They used to say Edgar’s difficulties in getting his goals passed into law (remember education funding reform’s failure?) were due to his refusal to ply support from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the city’s business community.

Political people now speculate part of the reason there is a severe stalemate in state funding for mass transit is because Blagojevich won’t put in the time to build ties between himself and the two legislative leaders – House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones – who ostensibly are his allies.

Of course, I can remember Edgar being dumped on just as bad many times by his alleged political allies – then Senate President James “Pate” Philip and House Speaker Lee Daniels.

Blagojevich admits he doesn’t spend much time in the offices maintained for him by the state at the Statehouse, the Thompson Center in Chicago AND at the Executive Mansion in Springfield.

Citing family concerns and the needs of his two young daughters, Blagojevich actually works from home or from an office in his home neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side, saying that modern communications technology allows him to be in contact with state officials from just about anywhere.

He’s got a point.

Illinoisans are going to have to adapt to the notion that a governor should not be sitting around a fixed office in Springfield, which has been Illinois’ capital city since the days of Abraham Lincoln solely because of its location at nearly the physical center of the state.

It is feasible in the 21st Century to oversee Illinois government from Chicago, the metropolis that drives the state’s economy and is the reason that Illinois stands far above its counterpart Midwestern states on the shores of the Great Lakes.

Some even argue the capital city of Illinois should be Chicago, since it would put state government operations in the same area as two-thirds of the state’s population. Fortunately for Chicagoans, serious talk of shifting the capital to the Second City went up in flames along with the city in the Fire of 1871, since the thought of a second set of political geeks hanging around Chicago in competition with the City Council is more political punishment than any one city deserves.

Chicago-centric talk upsets political people who come from outside of Chicagoland. They see it as a Blagojevich snub of rural Illinois, although their parochialism reeks more than anything of partisan politics.

Rural Illinois is the land of the Republican Party, with some local organizations dating back literally to the days of Lincoln. Democrats are largely irrelevant in local politics and locals have a hard time comprehending how Illinois can be so solidly in the Democrat column for federal elections. Blagojevich’s election in 2002 broke a 26-year string of Illinois governors from the GOP, and that is what really bothers the critics.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Former Gov. Jim Thompson lived in a Chicago home for the last 12 of his 14-year stint as governor, and spent much of his time working out of his Thompson Center office (although the building back then was known as the State of Illinois Center). Thompson didn’t get anywhere near the grief that Blagojevich does.

But Thompson had the “R” after his name and was the former federal prosecutor who sent governor Otto Kerner (a Democrat) off to prison. Many rural political observers semi-seriously refer to Blagojevich as “Public Official A” and speculate that an ongoing government corruption investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago will result in the governor’s indictment.

There are legitimate reasons to question the gubernatorial service of Blagojevich, a journeyman state legislator and backbench member of Congress who reached Illinois government’s top position primarily because of the connections he acquired by marrying into a Chicago political family.

But getting all bent out of shape because of where he lives and goes to work is not one of them. It just makes one look like a rube.

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