Governor Blagojevich claims he has walled off politics from the state. He wouldn’t even take a political question at the Statehouse during the final week of spring session. He also says fundraising has nothing to do with government operations.

So, I can’t help but wonder why the governor’s chief of staff accompanied Blagojevich to a Washington, DC fundraiser this week. On the governor’s other arm was John Wyma, who has parlayed his 2002 campaign work into a big bucks lobbying career, despite the fact that he is rarely in Springfield.

Meanwhile, the AP has discovered that a qualified pilot who is also a veteran wasn’t even called for a job interview for an opening to fly state planes. Instead, the job went to a congressman’s son-in-law after the governor’s office contacted CMS.

CMS spokesman Justin DeJong said there are sometimes gaps between the time a job applicant’s test is graded and the time it is officially entered into the pool of candidates. He said information must be manually entered into what he called an “antiquated system.”

“Unfortunately there was a lag time between when this gentleman got a grade and when the information was entered into the system,” DeJong said.

The pilot who did get the job, Brian Keen, screwed up his paperwork and wasn’t initially rated as qualified until, apparently, after the guv’s office intervened.

Keen got the job because he was the most qualified military veteran living in the state who was on the list of applicants, DeJong said.

Um, right.

Famed test pilot Chuck Yeager was also on the list, but he was not rated as qualified, DeJong said.

“He flies too fast,” DeJong explained.

OK, I made up that last part.

The pilot who wasn’t hired is a relative of a Topinka ally, so this isn’t as cut and dried as it looks, but these administration explanations are getting weaker by the day.