The corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (upper photo) is already shaping up to be a political circus, promising to lay bare the underbelly of Chicago politics.
Corruption in Illinois politics is nothing new. Four former Illinois governors, one Republican and three Democrats, served prison terms. Illinois is surly the only state in the union where former governors made license plates.
Obama has been involved in separate attempted Senate seat “fixes.” The first was with whoever the White House selected to negotiate with Blagojevich to take the Senate seat occupied by Obama - which is what this trial is all about. The second was the Andrew Romanoff case in Colorado (see third and fourth links below). The third was the recent Joe Sestak affair in Pennsylvania.
Now we know why Obama made that last trip to Chicago cutting short his gulf trip to less than three hours and skipping out on the traditional presidential duty at the Arlington Cemetery tomb of the unkowns.
He needed to get his “ducks in a row” before the Blagojevich corruption trial. 
One wonders how much influence Obama will have over how Patrick Fitzgerald (lower photo) plans to handles the prosecution.
Obama will probably not testify. However among those who may take the stand are senior White House staffers Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
From one commenter:
Blagojevich probably has hidden paperwork in various safe locations and with people he trusts.
Maybe he has even given it all to a 'conservative' investigative journalist, as no Democrat could be trusted to write objectively about material damaging to the Democratic Party.
He has probably made it clear that he doesn't plan to be the next Vince Foster nor does he plan to be the fifth Illinois governor to end up in prison.
Everyone who could be adversely affected by the Blagojevich trial are high-profile Democrats. It will be interesting to see how left-leaning special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald goes after Blagojevich while trying to minimize the political damage to Democrats.
Will this go on as long as the Bill Clinton impeachment trial? How much of the Blagojevich trial will be made public?
If most of the proceedings are reported in the media it will be interesting to follow but at the same time it will be sad to witness another dark period in Democratic Party politics.
Link here, here, here and here.
A picture of my cave
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