Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Fallout

In the wake of the recent arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich there appears to be a number of people who my also be losers in this scandal. Number one on the Republican hopeful list is , of course, President Elect Barack Obama. The Rethug machine is already trying to put Obama in the Blago camp. "Tarred" as you will, with the taint of Illinois politics in general. Jesse Jackson Jr. has been outed as Senate Hopeful #5 and has had a presser where he insisted he had no designs to buy the Senate seat.
There is one person who has no direct connection with Blogo's corruption but is the one who is going to get the biggest screwing out of it: Former Illinois Governor George Ryan. Ryan was convicted of corruption several years ago and has been in prison since 2007. He currently resides in a federal correction institution in Terre Haute. He has been prominently listed as one of Bush's number one pardon choices. No less than Dem Senator Dick Durbin has pushed for George's release. Some how it seems unlikely that even the increasingly out-of-touch Bush White House would be tone deaf enough to pardon the previous Felonious Governor in the wake of his own Justice Dept trying to send the current Gov to the same big house.
So, it would seem, Ryan will take it on the chin. Or, considering his current living situation, lower.