I spent a few hours re-reading the federal criminal complaint against Gov. Rod Blagojevich and chief of staff John Harris late last week. As I did, one image kept coming to mind again and again: Howard Hughes.
Hughes, of course, was the kabillionaire whose aides allowed him to die an emaciated, bedsore-ridden mess. Instead of really taking care of him, they indulged his insanity, mainly for fear of losing their jobs.
The federal complaint is far from a complete document, but it paints a picture of a bunch of enabling hangers - too timid to tell the man “no.” I always knew they were sycophants, I just never realized that they went to such extremes.
For instance, one of the governor’s Washington, D.C., consultants whom Blagojevich has paid millions throughout the years, is caught on tape actively indulging the governor’s mad fantasy of a deal that involved appointing President-elect Barack Obama’s preferred Senate replacement in exchange for a job heading up the Change to Win organization, a splinter group of the AFL-CIO. The consultant apparently didn’t discourage Blagojevich’s bizarre plan to have Obama-connected billionaires fund a 501(c)(4) organization that Blagojevich eventually could run.
Blagojevich and Harris are on tape discussing the idea of appointing the estimable Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters to the Senate seat. Blagojevich said that if it looked like he was going to be impeached, he could count on Peters to give up the seat “and let me parachute over there.” Replied Harris: “You can count on (Peters) to do that.”
Almost the entire complaint reads like that. It was “Yes, governor. Yessir. Okeedokee,” to the goofiest schemes imaginable. “Deputy Governor A stated that it is hard not to give the Secretary of Energy position to a Texan, but with Rod Blagojevich’s coal background it might be a possibility.” Like Barack Obama ever would make Rod Blagojevich his energy secretary.
Instead of telling the governor his plots were not just silly, but flat-out crazy and maybe even illegal, they humored him right until the end.
There are a couple of mild push-backs. “Adviser A,” a former deputy governor who now is a lobbyist (and I’m pretty sure I know who he is), suggested that appointing a certain controversial wealthy person to the Senate in order to help Blagojevich raise money might not be a fantastic idea. “Adviser A responded that it would be hard to put Senate Candidate 6 in the Senate seat.”
But by the end of their discussion, Adviser A and the governor allegedly were talking about finding somebody close to this possible appointee. “Adviser A agreed to find out who is close to Senate Candidate 6.” (Just to be clear here, there is no indication whatsoever that “Senate Candidate 6″ was ever informed of this conversation.)
Their guy, the man who made them what they are today, was falling off the deep end and endangering them all, yet they allowed him to carry on. Blagojevich is to blame, of course, but his so-called friends ought to be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
There are some other interesting little tidbits in the complaint that haven’t come to light. For instance, the governor and his D.C. consultant discussed appointing Attorney General Lisa Madigan to the U.S. Senate as a way of “getting more done as governor.”
Independent sources say the governor was convinced he could cut a deal with House Speaker Michael Madigan, Lisa’s father, on the appointment that would allow him to pass a capital bill, enact grand new health-care programs and do all sorts of other wonderful, pie-in-the-sky things. One very well-placed source claims the governor even settled on the Lisa Madigan appointment idea the day before he was arrested.
Mike Madigan hasn’t returned the governor’s phone calls in years, and Lisa Madigan did not enjoy life as a legislator. How the governor even could imagine such a scheme could succeed is beyond all reason.
And John Wyma, who made millions lobbying the governor, is seeking immunity, according to the complaint, “in exchange for (Wyma’s) truthful information.” The footnote claims that Wyma (identified as “Individual A”) is a “subject, but not a target, of the criminal investigation concerning activities at the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.” That gives you some idea of what might possibly have brought Wyma into the fold.
- Ghost - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:06 am:
Given the number of people who have resigned, it appears the Gov was removing those who did not indulge his schemes. It appears Filan may have been the only person who may have ocasionaly said no to the Gov. who is still around.
- Cassandra - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:16 am:
The Sun Times is suggesting that he may decide to stay on while signing off on a special Senate election.
- Ghost - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:19 am:
It is pretty clear he needs the income. Blago’s press people love to play games with words. the Gov said he will not resign; but they have not said he won’t be taking som kind of paid administartive leave (or attemtpting to).
What would be interesting is if somone offered him that as a deal to step aside. paid leave until such time as he is impeached (or convicted if that happens before the end of his term).
Then there is something in it for the Gov so-to-speak.
- Ahem - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:19 am:
Very cogent piece, Rich.
- Fan of the Game - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:21 am:
Unless something changes drastically, I can’t see a resignation.
And you are right, Rich. He wanted “Yes” men (and women) to surround him. I tuly believe he “suffers” from megalomania, and anyone who wouldn’t agree that his hairbrained schemes were brilliant, were asked to leave.
We all saw the Emperor in his new clothes, but the delusions of grandeur blinded him to himself.
- RBergman - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:29 am:
When are some of the powers-that-be going to give up the absurd idea of an immediate special election.
Both the US Constitution and the IL Constitution give the power of interim appointment to the Governor, with the advice and consent of the IL Senate; then at the next general primary and election a new Senator is chosen to fill out the term.
Illinois doesn’t need months and months of costly delay; immediate Impeachment is the route to go.
- The Doc - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:31 am:
In light of his significant financial problems, and the news that he’s likely to retain Ed Genson as his defense attorney, resignation and the forfeiture of his salary appears highly unlikely at best.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:35 am:
Stick to the topic please. There will be threads for all of these comments.
- Ahem - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:36 am:
You can see a photo on the Trib site right now that proves that Blagojevich actually does have a forehead.
- South Side - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:37 am:
Sorry, your right. Thanks
- Plutocrat03 - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:37 am:
chuckle.. “…hairbrained….”
There is always a great temptation to be surrounded by yes men/women. That supports the illusion that you are doing the right thing.
The danger is that when you begin to operate in that kind of echo chamber you lose contact with the real world.
- Shelbyville - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:38 am:
Where did the gov. go to HS? I would like to hear from people that have known him all of his life. Has he changed or was he always just superficial?
I asked a knowledgeable MD about the governor once and he said that he didn’t think there was a mental problem, he thought he was just dumb. I have not asked him recently, though.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:40 am:
I highly suspect Senate Candidate 6 is Blair Hull. We didn’t hear much about #6 til now.
- Cowgirl - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:42 am:
RBergman, it would appear that Illinois politicians need to actually read the constitution that they swore to uphold and defend.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:46 am:
I don’t know the guy at all, so over the years, I’ve asked on this blog if there was anyone around him who could speak truth to power or simply tell him he was wrong. The answer was always “no.”
More than Hughes, whose advisors actions and motives were more sinister at the end, I’m reminded of Nixon and his crew: Haldeman, Erlichman, Colson, Dean et. al.
Read the Nixon tape transcripts, and these posterior-planting mediocrities indulged his every whim and, more ominously, stoked his dark side. Kissinger, too, to a lesser degree.
With Nixon it was both sad, because he was a brilliant man, and dangerous, because of his position.
Both he and Blago needed grownups around to tell them “no.” All leaders do.
- OneMan - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:49 am:
I have always felt virtually every political type should have a guy who’s biggest role would be to listen to the pols ideas and ask ‘Are you high?’ and then force them to defend the idea.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:53 am:
OneMan- In Medieval days the “fool” was the only one allowed to tell his Highness the truth. And he did it in the form of a joke.
- Amy - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:53 am:
Quite interesting, Rich. the interaction of subordinates with a hard to handle elected is an important aspect of governing. typically, there are lots of “yes elected official” people surrounding, and any naysayer gets isolated not just by the elected but by the bootlickers.
- vole - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:54 am:
The list of enablers would not be complete without mentioning the IL state senate leader and the supersized power that resides in that position.
- this voter will remember - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 8:54 am:
The Governor has always been delusional. I can almost imagine him thinking that he did nothing wrong and he will be vindicated in all these ‘silly charges’ that the ‘bad man (Fitzgerald) is saying about him. GET HIM (and his minions) OUT OF OFFICE.
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 9:00 am:
Although I agree in principal with much of your theory of Blago’s staff being too timid to tell him he is losing it, I think there is more to it than trepidation-I’m thinking greed and lust for power
Guys like Harris and some of the other top dogs loved the fact that they could run the show while the Governor sat at home and thought weird thoughts. Tell him what he wants to hear, shake down some contractors for the Gov’s campaign fund and they were virtually omnipotent.
If your a crappy employee, there is nothing better than a corrupt boss who doesn’t come to work.
- Speaking at Will - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 9:06 am:
There is a story up on the NYTIMES today that has this funny note.
“Mr. Blagojevich, 52, rarely turns up for work at his official state office in Chicago, former employees say, is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/us/politics/15blagojevich.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
- Family Affair - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 9:20 am:
The enabling sycophants were not just internal government administration folks, but external people as well, including family. The criminal complaint, as well as other press reports certainly point to his wife as not just an enabler, but also a facilitator who shared in the financial enrichment that his style of “government” provided.
How about his brother? Taking over as Chairman of the campaign apparatus presumably gave him an inside look at where and how much of the money was being raised. You would think that a brother in this position would have slapped him silly and re-instilled some religion into the man in terms of his modus operandi. It makes you wonder whether some of the Governor’s ethical shortcomings were not shared family traits, given how this was allowed not only to commence but then also rage out oc control; virtually completely un-checked.
If Debra Mell and Patti are as close as they seem to have appeared over the last several years, then she certainly must have known to some degree what was happening here; even if she was not privy to all of the details. Even if the Patti heard on tape; as reported in the criminal complaint, was not the Patti she knew, people don’t un-ravel like that over night.
It could be that the financial pressure certainly had gotten to both of them and was no doubt reaching a boiling point, but in cases like this it is clear that there should have been a family intervention from one; or both of their families long before it had gotten to this point.
It seems painfully evident that both of their judgement had become clouded and they had lost ability to effectively reason. The old axiom about finding yourself in a hole; and recognizing the time to stop digging seems to come to mind.
While having no knowledge of any addiction by any of the participants in this soap opera, it appears on the surface that they all could have benefitted from a 12 step program to attempt to acknowledge the problems and initate recovery from the damage that their individual and collective dysfunctional behavior was imposing on their family.
I’ve never been a supporter of this Governor; politically or otherwise, and while I take no glee in what’s happened to him here I also realize that the overwhelming majority of these wounds have been self-inflicted and many instances he has no one to blame but himself. I also recognize that many innocent people have been hurt along the way, and for that, both he, and any other co-schemers or perpretrators should be allowe their due process and if convicted then punished to the fullest extent of the law.
God help those two little girls however. They are innocent victims to what’s happened here and they are too young to understand the totality of what’s happening to their family, other than perhaps what’s taking place at the immediate moment. I suspect that they don’t have the emotional maturity to fully grasp what is yet to come, and how this will effect them in so many different ways for years and years to come.
These two innoocent little girls may very well pay for their parents mistakes for the rest of their lives; and as a consequence I’ve prayed for them everyday.
Of all the enablers and sycophants in this entire soap opera however the one’s I have to question most are those family members that let this runaway train come off the tracks without appearing to intervene and protect the Governor and his family not from their political enemies, but rather from the demons within.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 9:31 am:
It is unbelievable that hundreds of people who knew Blagojevich and his illegal activities as well as numerous other impeachable offenses, did nothing to call him out!
This doesn’t even include an entire political party that is supposedly in official opposition to him!
It is digusting that Rod Blagojevich was nominated - then re-nominated with everyone shutting up in public over what a nutjob gas bag he is. What kind of leadership does the Illinois Democrats have? What good is their nomination when it can be given away to someone so criminally delusional as Blagojevich? Why should we ever trust this party?
If we cannot trust the people around Blagojevich to do the right thing, then we are far more screwed than we think we are. This is not an issue of a handfull of criminals running Illinois - is it an issue that criminals are running our state, and no one thinks it can, or should be stopped!
We have lowered our expectation to legal definitions. We cannot hold government leaders accountable if we are first forced to fight off their teams of lawyers and tribes of brown-nosers. If something is wrong - it is wrong! We must hold the people we elect to a higher standard than ones they can twist to fit their legal arguments.
Everyone goes! Instead of trying to find the crooks in this Administration - look for the few innocents and run the rest out of office. Isn’t that what we are supposed to use elections to do anyway? They are supposed to give us reasons to support them, not give them reasons for them to not cling to office!
Listen folks - government is no solution when it becomes the biggest problem we face. Don’t like markets, fine - then you should be fighting even harder to clean up government. As for the rest of us, I’d much prefer slashing these bozos, their budgets, their agencies, and returning the power and wages taken to Illinoians.
The Illinois Democratic Party is a poster child to why government should not be running your life!
- Bass Man - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 9:55 am:
Include in the sycophant chorus Agency Directors appointed (paid up)by our Criminal in Chief, and a host of other executive staff members who should also be penning their resignation letters. The sorry fact is that it’s taken just shy of six years to get to this point, and it’ll take another six years to unravel the mess and clean out the rats that have been eating the food stocks of state government. Thanks Gov!
- Bookworm - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 10:17 am:
The more I read about this whole mess, the more I am reminded of the description of Hell that C.S. Lewis made in his introduction to “The Screwtape Letters”:
“Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern… an official society held together entirely by fear and greed. On the surface, manners are normally suave. Rudeness to one’s superiors would obviously be suicidal; rudeness to one’s equals might put them on their guard before you were ready to spring your mine. For “Dog eat dog” is the principle of the whole organization. Everyone wishes everyone else’s demotion, discrediting and ruin; everyone is an expert in the confidential report, the pretended alliance, the stab in the back. Over all this their good manners, their expressions of grave respect, their “tributes” to one another’s invaluable services form a thin crust. Every now and then it gets punctured, and the scalding lava of their hatred pours out.”
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 10:24 am:
As a small defense for these people, they may have needed their jobs to pay the bills and feed the kids. In this administration, there was every evidence that speaking truth to power could get you (and everyone you know) fired! While it is a fair criticism to suggest that an aide or adviser should have the ethical fortitude to stand up, it becomes more complicated if a distant relative who has worked for the DNR or IDOT for 30 years might lose their job over something you did. (I’m not talking about someone with a make-work job here, since the State is one of the largest employers in Illinois and has positions in every county, almost everyone has a relative who is a state employee.)
- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 10:50 am:
I worked in the Guv’s office for a year and I can say that I was astounded by the dichotomy that existed between his senior staff’s tremendous intellectual abilities and their willingness to challenge his “hair”-brained policy schemes. The truly absurd part is that most of his staff members would privately blast his ideas, but none of them had the integrity or fortitude to confront him. I would also contend that this is not the first time that an “en masse” resignation has been considered. Anyone with political or business aspirations should take note of this case and reference it when they are selecting their senior advisers.
- Leave a light on George - Monday, Dec 15, 08 @ 3:24 pm:
“If your a crappy employee, there is nothing better than a corrupt boss who doesn’t come to work.” Phineaus you are so correct.
“Include in the sycophant chorus Agency Directors appointed (paid up)by our Criminal in Chief, and a host of other executive staff members who should also be penning their resignation letters” Bassman I worked for one of those directors and you decribe him to a T. I told my direct supervisor I wanted nothing to do with the director or his crew- they were crooks. When indictments come I’m sure I’ll be proved right.