Proft
You know how I know I've been in Illinois politics too long?
The comedy troupe of Sam Adam Sr. and Jr. was starting to make some sense to me.
For example, during his post-verdict floor show, Sam Adam Sr. said that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald thinks Illinois is a banana republic.
Isn't it?
A banana republic is marked by a politically unstable government ruled by a small and corrupt elite who use the power of the state to collude with favored monopolies in order to line their pockets.
If the fruit fits...
Adam Sr. criticized Fitzgerald's prosecution of Scooter Libby where, as in the Blagojevich case, a conspiracy was alleged but none was proven. I share his view that the Libby prosecution was an overreach into the realm of criminalizing politics.
Both Adam boys constantly denigrated their client during the trial describing Blagojevich as both a terrible judge of character and dumb. Who could argue with those assessments?
But then I caught myself.
Skilled street hustlers are very good at identifying one or two glaring deficiencies of their adversary while admitting one or two of their own to get you nodding along in agreement. That's when they try and slip the fastballs by the jury.
And so came Sam Adam Sr. the fiscal hawk who doesn't want to see precious taxpayer dollars squandered on a retrial. And then Sam Adam Jr. presented himself as a Neighborhood Watch block captain to lament gang violence and, hey John Q. Public, don't you think the U.S. Attorney's Office should be concerning itself with prosecuting drug kingpins?
As if the only thing standing between us and safer neighborhoods is foregoing the retrial of Rod Blagojevich.
In Illinois when it is one branch of the government versus another branch of the government, it is sometimes difficult to figure out which side to trust the least.
However, whatever the failures of prosecutors in the first trial and whatever the cost to be incurred for the second trial, justice demands Blagojevich be re-tried.