Will Blagojevich be one of President Trump’s holiday season clemencies?

The name “Rod Blagojevich” has been all over the place this weekend – what with the fact that Sunday was the 10^th anniversary of the day that FBI agents showed up at the governor’s Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home to arrest him.

40892-424: From days when he was gov

Thereby beginning the saga that resulted with the governor’s impeachment and removal from office, followed with his incarceration at a federal correctional center in Colorado – where he remains to this day.

THERE ARE THOSE who would prefer to forget that Rod ever existed, and would probably hope there is some way his incarceration can be extended beyond his prison term that currently has a 2024 scheduled release date.

But I couldn’t help but notice a Chicago Sun-Times story, quoting one-time Illinois first lady Patti saying she’s holding out hope that her husband will be free and back home with the family for this year’s Christmas holiday.

Which ties into that freakish statement made back by Trump earlier this year where he hinted that he’s inclined to grant some form of presidential clemency on Blagojevich’s behalf.

Remember how much of a stink that stirred up? It was seen as more evidence of how unfit Trump was to be president that he would think Blagojevich was worthy of any form of early release from prison.

ADMITTEDLY, WHEN TRUMP made the statement, he had just done a few other clemencies and pardons – and the feeling then was that Blagojevich could be released from prison any day now.

That part didn’t come true. Blagojevich remains in the suburbs of Denver incarcerated. No one has said or done anything to indicate that activity on Blagojevich’s part is imminent.

At least not publicly. Patti Blagojevich claims she’s heard some things privately. But those could be vague tidbits that her wishful thinking is exaggerating into word of his imminent release.

TRUMP: Is he preparing a pardon?

My gut feeling? Back then, it was that Trump was making outlandish statements related to Blagojevich because he sensed it would “tick off” the Chicago political establishment that dumped all over the former governor and was glad to see him pushed out of the way.

WHY SHOULD ANYTHING have changed?

It may well be that Trump is waiting for a moment when he needs to distract attention from himself and his own activities – something so bad that he needs everybody to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” and think about someone else, instead.

Someone such as Blagojevich, whose actions are going to forevermore be pondered by our political establishment as to just how venal they truly were.

Did he really try to solicit bribes in exchange for political appointments? Was it all just the realities of politicking – extended to a higher level? Or was it just the usual petty political poop; performed by a man who had managed to alienate those who should have been his political allies.

WHICH IS WHY they were more than willing to see him carted off to prison!

All of that is now a decade in our past, although some of us are determined to want to see eternal punishment. I’m not kidding when I say there will be those who will get all upset some six years from now when Blagojevich’s prison term expires. They’ll want to see it extended for whatever excuse possible. Some people are just overly bitter.

BLAGOJEVICH: Wants her husband for Christmas

Patti Blagojevich may well be the only person who cares personally about her husband’s fate. If she led a larger group capable of offering support to Trump to guide him through all the upcoming calamities he’s going to endure, he probably would rush to grant clemency.

But she’s only one. The idea of messing with the minds of Chicago by granting clemency may turn out to be not worth the hassle Trump would get from taking such actions.

  -30-

Is it now in Donald, he Trusts, for Rod?

What a surprise – the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday let it be known it was not inclined to do anything with regards to the case of former governor Rod Blagojevich.

BLAGOJEVICH: Hair color long gone

The governor (a.k.a., inmate no. 40892-424), who is roughly half-way through the prison sentence he’s now serving at a federal facility in Colorado, had hoped the Supreme Court would consider his legal argument that federal judges in Chicago judged him too harshly.

IN HIS WILDEST fantasies, I’m sure they would have given him a prison term so short that it could be said he had already served his time. He’d be going back home to his wife and daughters immediately.

But no, the Supreme Court seems to believe there are no great legal questions that need to be decided in the Blagojevich Affair. Meaning there’s no reason for them to do anything at all.

Which also means that Blagojevich’s 14-year prison term remains in place. That’s the one that (if he qualifies for all the good behavior provisions for early release) would have him out in May 2024.

Just over six years from now. Blagojevich (the governor whose criminal behavior seems to be that he expected to be rewarded for his actions – particularly for the appointment he was entitled to make when Barack Obama gave up his U.S. Senate seat in 2008 to become president) will be free.

CONSIDERING THAT HE’S already served just over six years in prison, it could be said it’s just a matter of time – that the worst of things is over.

Although during those past six years, Blagojevich was clinging to hope that the courts would “see the error of their ways,” so to speak, and give him some ruling that he’d claim to be vindication. Now, he’s going to have to go through the next six years thinking of himself as “just another criminal.”

For it seems the number of legal appeals possible for Blagojevich have run out. Unless he could come up with some new, and previously unknown, evidence, there’s no reason for a judge to consider his case again.

TRUMP: Rod's last-ditch hope for sympathy

And even if he did, the argument most likely would be made that it’s too late; he should have said something earlier in the process.

LITERALLY, ABOUT THE only option for Blagojevich is some form of federal clemency from none other than the president himself.

Considering how erratic the behavior and thought process of Donald J. Trump is on so many issues, there’s certainly no guarantee that he’d be inclined to even consider acting on any measure related to Blagojevich.

I’m also sure that even if Trump were to think of any kind of pardon, it probably would be used to discredit the president. It would be regarded as being amongst his most stupid of actions – and this is a man who during first 16 months of his presidency has made many lunatic decisions. Bottom line? Anybody who needs to rely on Trump for a favor is truly desperate.

Now it’s always possible that a future president could grant some sort of action favorable to Blagojevich. Although that likely would come someday after his release from prison. There’s likely nothing left to be done to get him out of prison early.

DESPITE THIS ATTITUDE, I have to admit it disgusts me the level to which certain people seem compelled to demonize Blagojevich – who during his time as a public official in Illinois was more a goofball than a truly corrupt figure.

Disgusting? Or ha ha-type funny?

In particular, I can’t help but agree with one-time First Lady Patti Blagojevich, who called “disgusting” what I’m sure Gov. Bruce Rauner thinks is a joke (as in, funny, “ha ha”) the filter he paid to have created on SnapChat.

One that allows people to put a comical version of Blagojevich’s now-history coif of hair on a picture of themselves – along with a placard depicting Rod’s federal inmate number.

Maybe the people inclined to rant and rage that Rod Blagojevich was shown too much mercy by the courts will think it funny. Perhaps they’d also like to see an image with a dunce cap superimposed on the current governor?

rod  -30-

How will the Blagojevich tale end?

It will be interesting to see just how seriously the federal appeals court based in Chicago takes the latest argument made by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich – who desperately wants that 14-year prison sentence he’s serving changed to something he considers more reasonable.
 

BLAGOJEVICH: 7 more years?

Perhaps something like time served?

ATTORNEYS FOR BLAGOJEVICH were at the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, spending about a half-hour arguing why U.S. District Judge James Zagel was wrong when he re-sentenced the former governor to the same prison term that he had originally received when found guilty of various crimes.

Admittedly, the court that found some of the charges he was found guilty of to be improper, but also said that those charges were lesser enough that they didn’t automatically ensure a lesser prison sentence.

That caused Zagel to hand down the same sentence, despite the many letters and statements that Blagojevich’s attorneys had presented to make an argument that the former governor is actually a model inmate at the federal corrections facility in Colorado where he has been held since 2012.

Zagel at the time made a point of saying he disregarded what those people thought about Blagojevich’s conduct while in prison because they did not know him back when he was Illinois’ governor and held a position of power that required people to trust his judgment and conduct.

BLAGOJEVICH’S ATTORNEYS ARGUED on Tuesday that Zagel ought to be required to take those people (many of whom are inmates who have had contact with Blagojevich during his incarceration) and their thoughts into account.

“Judge Zagel dismissed it in effect as being irrelevant,” attorney Michael Nash argued before the appeals court. “It is an important factor that should have been considered. The judge dismissed it out of hand.”

I’m not sure how eager the appeals court will be to decide on what amounts to a judgment call on the part of the trial judge.

ZAGEL: Judging the judge's ruling

Because part of what his job includes is to decide what information that comes up during a trial is relevant, and what is not. In some cases, it is his task to keep lesser details from being blown out of proportion, and irrelevant facts from swaying a verdict one way or the other.

I CAN APPRECIATE why attorneys for Blagojevich are eager to have people say nice things about the man; particularly since here in the outside world – and particularly in that political universe known as Chicagoland – the only talk we hear about the man is negative.

Creating the image of a man who no longer poses a threat to our society, or our political structure, is key to making an argument that the five years Blagojevich already has served in prison is sufficient.

Which, if you want to be totally honest, is more time than most people who get politically-connected criminal convictions wind up getting.

If it were just about anybody else, particularly someone with a less-bloated ego than our former governor had, he’d have got the 18 months at a minimum-security facility and he’d be well on his way to turning into a “Whatever became of …” story.

INSTEAD, BLAGOJEVICH SEEMS determined to live on in our mindset at least until that May 2024 date on which he qualifies for early release – provided he really remains as well-behaved an inmate as his attorneys contend he is.

That means several more appearances in coming years by former first lady Patti trying to claim that her man deserves to be free – does she think she’s becoming Winnie Mandela, who spent those decades her activist husband Nelson was in jail traveling the world to argue for his cause?

PATTI: Speaking out for husband

Calling him an “eternal optimist,” Patti Blagojevich on Tuesday told reporter-types of her husband, “he’s always hoping this is going to come out the way it needs to come out.”

The sad thing is I could see where if THAT outcome were to become reality, it would be the nightmare for many of us in society who wish it were possible that we could just quit paying attention to the Illinois political nonsense of those year that is only topped by the state fiscal stupidity of the current era.

  -30-

EXTRA: First lady won’t live in White House, reminiscent of Patti Blagojevich

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Patti Blagojevich when I read the reports saying that incoming first lady Melania Trump has no intention of wanting to reside in Washington at the White House.
 

MELANIA: Wants to be stay-at-home mom in N.Y.

Let’s not forget that when Rod Blagojevich served as Illinois governor, he ultimately became the guy who spent as little time as possible in the capital city, didn’t even like going into the official governor’s office in Chicago and wound up trying to run the state from the office he created for himself at his Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home.

PART OF THE motivation for that was the fact that Patti really didn’t want anything to do with a life in Springfield, and tried to explain it as a desire to keep her two daughters (now all grown up) grounded in real-life.

Similar to how Melania is saying she wants to remain in New York because of her 10-year-old son, Barron. He’s in school, and she wants us to believe that she wants to provide for him the typical lifestyle of a growing boy.

Although considering that the Trumps live in the penthouse apartment of the Trump Towers building in Manhattan, it can be argued that having to reside in the White House might be a step closer to the typical lifestyle the bulk of us live.

Whereas in the case of the Blagojeviches, Patti told the State Journal-Register back at the time her husband became governor, “We’re not Rockefellers, so when Rod’s term or terms as governor is over, we have no means to live like this. It would just be an unnatural thing for us to get used to.”

THE QUESTION REMAINS, “Are the Trumps wealthier than the Rockefellers?”

Forbes magazine has come up with a crude estimate of the Rockefeller wealth at being $22.22 billion in modern-day monetary value, compared to about $3 billion for the Trumps.

Although I suspect Trump thinks he can hold his own financially, and in fact I wonder if Trump thinks that living and working out of his own home and offices instead of the government-provided ones somehow gives him an excuse to not have to comply with all the disclosure requirements we’d normally demand of a president.

 

PATTI: Didn't like the Statehouse lifestyle

Either that, or maybe Trump just thinks the White House is a dive compared to his own apartment or Florida-based Mar-A-Lago mansion.

ALL I KNOW is that if he really feels that way about the White House, I’d hate to think how he’d feel if he ever had to set foot in the Executive Mansion in Springfield.

What with falling plaster, mold developing in spots, rainwater seeping into the Lincoln bedroom and a busted elevator (based on various news reports about the repairs now being undertaken), the sight of it probably would have been enough to scare Trump away from wanting to get into public service in the first place.

  -30-

What you think of Blagojevich situation says more about you than him

One-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich may be “dumbfounded” and “flabbergasted” at the federal court judge who on Tuesday refused to reduce the prison sentence her husband, Rod, is serving.

 

BLAGOJEVICH: Could hair dye restore that mane?

But I can’t help but think that there were many people out amongst the masses who cheered quite loudly when they learned during the lunch hour that U.S. District Judge James Zagel re-imposed the same 14-year prison term that he originally gave to the former Illinois governor.

A FEDERAL APPEALS court in Chicago may have decided last year that five of the 14 counts that Rod Blagojevich was found guilty of were improper and tossed them out.

But that still left Blagojevich guilty of nine criminal counts and prosecuting attorneys at the federal courthouse in Chicago were determined to believe that those counts were the most severe and still amounted to acts worthy of a lengthy prison sentence – and not just the usual 18-month stint at the federal correctional center in Oxford, Wis., that often jokingly is referred to as an “Oxford education.”

It may be that only Patti Blagojevich and the couples’ daughters, Amy and Annie, thought there was a serious chance that Zagel would impose a new prison sentence that would result in significantly-less time having to be served at that correctional center in Colorado, or anywhere else.

Most people were getting worked up at the prospect that the overall sentence would be reduced significantly from the 14-year term to about five or six years – which if it had happened would have basically made his time already served sufficient.

WE COULD HAVE had our former governor back in our midst some time by year’s end.

But Zagel likely made himself popular with the public when he made his own comments – the ones about how he wasn’t swayed by the good behavior of Blagojevich while in prison.

“Those people, Zagel said, “knew him from inside the prison. They don’t know him” like we do in the outside world.

And there most definitely are those in our society vengeful or petty enough to want maximum suffering to take place in this instance. Blagojevich’s case brings out a gut emotion in many of us that goes far beyond the facts of the case.

PARTICULARLY FOR THOSE people who want to believe that just about anything political has a touch of criminality involved, and fantasize for the day that Hillary Clinton, her husband Bill and Barack Obama wind up serving prison time.

And probably think that the time served by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan (just over six years) was also a worthy point to let Republican politicos know what can happen to them if they stray from the conservative ideological line.

So in the end, it didn’t matter much that Patti Blagojevich publicly pleaded for mercy, asking that her husband be set free so that he could at least be a father to the couples’ younger daughter (the elder one is off attending college).

It probably also didn’t matter much that Blagojevich himself was contrite and apologetic and said all the things that legal officials usually want to hear about an inmate feeling contrite and apologetic.

BLAGOJEVICH TOLD US he realized the suffering of his wife and daughters in recent years is his fault, and how much of his past political ambition was improper. “I had a lot of ambition before. I learned that some of that is overrated.”

A comment to which I’m sure some amongst us scoffed and sneered before we go back to thinking of the roughly eight years of time that Blagojevich will still owe to the Bureau of Prisons.

In fact, there may be one significant detail that came out of Tuesday’s hearing at the Dirksen Federal Building – the image of Blagojevich broadcast over closed-circuit television from his prison in Colorado most definitely showed that Rod’s hair has, indeed, gone grey. Which, if he had been free and continuing in politics all these years likely would have happened anyway.

Just look at Obama these days – although he can claim it as being from the stress of having Congressional Republicans thwart his every governmental desire, rather than a fear of being caught in a prison yard brawl!

  -30-

Rod is ‘innocent,’ does anybody care?

It seems that Rosie O’Donnell is finally using her Chicago-based cable television talk show to delve into an issue of concern to those of us who live here.

But I really don’t see what she expects to gain from the show scheduled to air Wednesday – an interview with one-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich who, according to the news reports published in advance of the broadcast, says her husband is “innocent” of all crimes he is alleged to have committed.

SO WHEN FORMER Gov. Rod Blagojevich reports to prison in Colorado in a couple of weeks to begin that decade-long period of time he owes to the federal government, there will be yet another innocent man being held in prison.

I’m sure my sarcasm is dripping ever so heavily from this commentary.

Although it’s not because I’m convinced of the former governor’s guilt on all those charges for which a second jury convicted him of (remember the first that couldn’t make up its mind?). It’s just that I really don’t care anymore to hear a thing about the Blagojevich “saga.”

My question isn’t to Patti as to “How deluded can you be?” It is to Rosie to ask, “Do you really think this will bolster your programs ratings one bit?”

I REALIZE THAT the Rosie O’Donnell show that airs on the cable television channel created by Oprah Winfrey to give her the opportunity to be a television producer and entertainment mogul  -- rather than just host of her own popular program – is not doing as well in the ratings as the people who created it had hoped it would.

When you feel desperate, you do longer-shot things. Even going so far as to put on television yet again the woman who, when she dies many decades from now, will have in the lede of her obituary that she was the first lady who ate bugs on national television.

So anybody who still cares about what Patti Blagojevich (nee, Mell) thinks will get their chance to hear from her (the Associated Press says it will air Wednesday at 6 p.m. on the Oprah Winfrey Network – check your local lineup to figure out for yourself what channel number that translates to in your area).

Somehow, I don’t think there are many people who care much that this is her “first interview” since her husband received that 14-year prison sentence (which translates to just over 10 years of real time).

I THINK MANY people will find something else to do during that hour.

Besides, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday that Patti said she knows what is in her husband’s “heart.”

It isn’t even really much of a relevation that Patti Blagojevich initially thought it was a gag when the FBI showed up at the family home and said they had a warrant for the governor’s arrest.

Since we have known for years that the now-former governor’s reaction to that moment was the un-immortal line, “Is this a joke?”

THIS IS ONE “story” that I desperately want to wither away, particularly since I was never all that enthused about having it occur to begin with.

Because I’m always going to feel that this story was motivated way too heavily by the political partisanship that caused many people to detest Blagojevich, the persona.

And a good chunk of that was motivated by the fact that some people never got over the fact that he defeated Jim Ryan in the 2002 election cycle, and had the nerve to beat up on Judy Baar Topinka come 2006.

BLAGOJEVICH: Soon to be a number

This is a partisan fight that I am glad is over. I don’t want to think about it too much. Not even on March 15 – the date when Blagojevich must be in Colorado to report to prison, or else risk being classified as a “fugitive” whom “the feds”’ will hunt down.

THAT IMAGE MAY amuse certain people. But it does nothing for me, except bother me that I even bothered to write it just now.

And as for the people who are looking forward to March 15 because they want to see Milorod whisked away into a prison (albeit minimum-security), I’d say “Stop it.” Your enjoyment on this matter borders on perverse.

  -30-

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.

  -30-

Blagojevich style history revisionism

I must admit that I have yet to see an episode of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.” So I didn’t actually hear for myself when one-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich referred to former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka as a “kooky old aunt.”

As I understand it, Blagojevich was trying to give an example of how her husband was noble and tolerated a “crazy” old lady who would do and say outrageous things. In theory, that is how her cast-mates on the reality television program should cope with one of their less-agreeable show mates.

IN REALITY, BLAGOJEVICH was the kooky one during that 2006 gubernatorial campaign who came up with those outrageous campaign spots that permanently put the image of Topinka dancing with 16627-424 (a.k.a., former Gov. George Ryan) into many of our minds.

Judy was the blunt-spoken one who was a little more down-to-earth than most political people. That’s not kooky, even if she is likely the only government official who would include jokes about flatulence in her Inauguration Day speech the way she did in 1995?

But a large part of what made Topinka different back when she was an elected official was that she wasn’t a typical run-of-the-mill Republican from the suburbs – even though she is a long-time resident of west suburban Riverside.

She didn’t fit the stereotype. That is what made her “kooky” in the minds of some political people, although to others.

WHEN I REMEMBER the Topinka I encountered during my years as a state government reporter-type, what comes to my mind was a person who actually showed some interest in her job.

She was a long-time state senator from Riverside who then went on to serve 12 years as Illinois treasurer. For the last four of those years, she was the lone GOP official to hold a statewide government post.

Most people who run for the low posts on the Illinois constitutional officers roll (state comptroller and treasurer) do so out of a sense that they are gaining experience for the day when they run for a higher-ranking office.

Current Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes fits that mold perfectly, as does current state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. I don’t doubt that they can handle some administrative duties to oversee the offices that pay state government bills and oversee state financial investments.

BUT TOPINKA (ALONG with one-time state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch) were among a type who actually went out of their way to understand government finances. In fact, there were times they could bore you to death with their knowledge of financial minutia.

Even in responding to Patti Blagojevich’s televised cheap shot, Topinka couldn’t help but point out to reporter-types that she “returned $230 million in unclaimed assets and made a profit.”

Another thing I remember about Topinka was that she was a woman who believed in bipartisanship, to a degree. I can recall the shock at one of her election victory parties when Cook County Board President John Stroger showed up. She invited him – even though he was a Democrat.

Like many Chicago Democratic political people, Topinka always had a strong sense of her ethnic background (from the Czech Republic). She never had the idea that ethnicity was something that needed to be erased in order to be a “real American.”

HER KOOKY IMPRESSION may have been tied to the notion that she would dig out the accordion and play along with polka bands on occasion. Of course, she never (to my knowledge) went on national television like then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton did with his saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show.

Although I remember one time she appeared on a WFLD-TV morning show, and helped to review a film. But instead of giving it stars, she gave it accordions.

But Topinka had her loyalties to the Republican Party.

There was never a doubt of her being a GOP supporter. This is, after all, a woman who seriously believed that Phil Gramm was qualified to be president of the United States (back in 1996, although she was the only Illinois Republican of significance who thought so).

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Patti Blagojevich’s attempt to inject some Chicago political tidbits into a reality television program?

I realize most people who bother to watch this show (I can’t bring myself to do so) won’t have a clue who Judy Baar Topinka is, and won’t care to find out.

But for those of us who do have a clue, I can’t help but think we will find it ridiculous, if not outright absurd, that Patti Blagojevich is calling anyone else “kooky.”

After all, she’s the wacky one who ate the tarantula on television.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: When characters on a reality television program perform prayers asking that “the truth will be revealed” about Rod Blagojevich, you know that something has seriously (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=298836&src=143) gone awry.

Will it be as soon as next year that Judy Baar Topinka has to revise the front page of her website (http://www.judybarrtopinka.com/), particularly the line about how she is, “the last Republican to be elected to a statewide office in Illinois.”

Tougher than a TV jungle, Chicago is

“Politics ain’t beanbag” – the mythical Mr. Dooley.

“Chicago ain’t ready for reform” – former Ald. Paddy Bauler.

“After being in, you know, Chicago and Illinois politics for this many years, the jungle doesn’t seem too scary” – former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich.

Could it be?

Has the former first lady of Illinois managed to come up with the 21st Century’s quote that summarizes how tough and feisty the Chicago political scene is?

IF SO, SHE may very well have made a more lasting contribution to Chicago political history than her husband. He may very well be the first Illinois governor to be impeached and removed from office, but eventually his name is just going to become yet another one on the list of would-be politicos who couldn’t keep themselves out of trouble.

But if the daughter of Ald. Dick Mell has managed to come up with a comment that sticks, she could be remembered for the ages. Chicago politics is tougher than a Costa Rican jungle.

What a concept!

For those who haven’t been paying attention to every word coming from the Blagojeviches these days, Patti made this comment earlier this week while appearing in an interview broadcast by WVON-AM.

FOR THOSE WONDERING why she’d willingly subject herself to media questioning, it was one of those softball-type interviews where the local radio guy was so thrilled to have her on the air that he wasn’t going to start pressing her on details of her husband’s criminal case – or those audio tapes the feds have that show our one-time first lady to be a potty mouth.

Broadcasters at the one-time Voice of Negroes (which is still a significant radio station focusing on community events in the African-American neighborhoods of the South Side) were willing to play along and let Patti talk about her upcoming appearance on a national television program – one that will pay her enough money so that she and husband Rod will be able to feed and clothe their two daughters for a few months while his criminal case is pending in the federal court system based in Chicago.

This, of course, is the same program that originally wanted Rod to appear as a pseudo-celebrity, eating bugs and struggling to survive in a jungle of Costa Rica.

That inspired Patti to say she thinks she can handle the heat of the jungle. After all, she’s coping with the “heat” of the Chicago political scene – which for the past few years badgered her and her husband with repeated questions about his alleged criminal behavior and now wants him to talk about his criminal trial.

ACTUALLY, WE DON’T want him to talk about his criminal trial, most of us want him to admit his guilt and beg for the maximum penalty possible, which won’t happen. But that is an issue for a future commentary.

So what should we think of Patti Blagojevich’s comment (which I think is more interesting than the Legislature considering a measure that would deprive Rod of any royalty payments he may ever receive from the book he allegedly is writing)?

It is a bit of an overstatement, but only because a real jungle setting is much more harsh than the environment at City Hall – even on those days when the air conditioning conks out in mid-August and the building gets incredibly stuffy.

Keep in mind that while the “reality” show that will include Patti Blagojevich is being set in Costa Rica, the “jungle” setting that will be used to shoot the program is going to be a controlled environment.

SHE MAY GET dirty, sweaty, and literally have to eat a bug or two.

But she’s not going to have her life put at risk, the way anyone who wandered into the real jungle would be. So yeah, the Chicago political scene probably is a more hazardous place for the Blagojeviches than the outdoor television set being used as a Costa Rica jungle.

But it has just enough of a sense of exaggeration to be catchy. It could be the kind of comment that sticks in peoples’ minds. If the officials at WVON have any sense, they ought to do everything they can to document the fact that this comment was made during one of their live broadcasts.

Maybe even make the audio available somehow (put it on their website, so that people could make a click and hear Patti herself compare “da Hall” to “da jungle.”

IN FACT, A part of me is inclined to think that Patti has topped both Bauler and the Bridgeport bartender character created by Finley Peter Dunne in coming up with a line that tries to summarize the Chicago political scene for the ages.

Then again, Bauler set the gold standard for corruption quotable quips. What other city has a line that summarizes their character so succinctly?

Of course, the ultimate quotable line in Chicago doesn’t relate to City Hall or politics. It refers to our police.

As put by the long-time Mayor Richard J. Daley – “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

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