My newspaper column this week deals with Gov. Blagojevich and his relationship with state contractors (see this for more.)

The Bloomington Pantagraph finally puts Kurt Erickson’s column online, and it’s a doozy.

People are supposed to laugh at clowns. That’s why clowns exist.

Clowns put red bulbs on their noses and shoot water out of flowers into the unsuspecting faces as their audiences.

“Ha, ha,” we all say. What a delightfully silly diversion.

But what happens when the clown doesn’t deliver?

The reference is to Governor Blagojevich. Ouch.

Rep. Larry McKeon has an Op-Ed in today’s Sun-Times that hauls Andrea Barthwell, former deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, over the coals for lying about his medical marijuana legislation.

Doug Finke takes a few whacks at the guv for missing a public event in Decatur and paying off an Illinois trucking company to stay here. He also knocks the CrossBloggers for listing a bunch of white people in its “Today in Black Rock History” series.

John Patterson over at the Daily Herald has a worthwhile and readable piece about pension funding.

The Southtown’s Kristen McQueary has a light piece today about Lincoln’s home and the Jesse Jackson duo, senior and junior.

Greg Hinz at Crain’s has an amusing and illuminating column about the proposals of two legislative “mushrooms.”

When it comes to power and glory, the Illinois General Assembly has two distinct castes: the Four Tops and the mushrooms.

The tops, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, determine what happens, when it happens and who gets to do it. The other 173 elected legislators — the mushrooms — get to labor in the dark like their namesake fungi, surviving on whatever compost falls from above.

Even mushrooms can grow good ideas, however. Two of the best so far this year concern what to do about payday lenders and the zillion-percent interest they charge customers, and how to drag local government into the Internet era.

And, finally, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher has an interesting piece today about Alan Keyes and his daughter Maya.