* It’s a pretty darned slow news day out there. But a longtime source just told me, “Hey, at least you have the Blagojevich trial.”

Um, not so much. WLS…

Once through security and after replacing his belt - which all have to remove for search - he spotted a shiny copper penny on the floor.

WLS court reporter Holly Garland mentioned to him it was likely a “lucky penny,” Blagojevich promptly picked it up and handed it to Garland.

Returning the penny to him, Garland said, “you’ll need this more than I,” at which point he took it back, said thanks, and clasped his hands around it.

Sun-Times…

A potential juror who was questioned for Rod Blagojevich’s retrial this morning, noted on her jury questionnaire that she had a potential conflict in May.

“You don’t want to miss Oprah on May 10?” Judge James Zagel asked the woman.

Zagel asked if she had one ticket to attend the Oprah Winfrey Show, whose days in Chicago are numbered.

“Four tickets,” she corrected him.

Tribune…

Referring to a questionnaire one woman juror filled out, Zagel noted she had mused about the difficulty of sorting out the credibility of witnesses who cut a plea deal to testify for prosecutors, something that will play out in the Blagojevich trial.

“There’s no machine that can tell you when they are truthful,” said Zagel, noting that’s what juries must figure out.

The process of sorting out conflicting claims and credibility at the trial is not unlike being a mom, the judge continued. “It actually may not be that dissimilar from the decision you had to make many years ago when you had to decide which child was telling you the truth,” he explained.

AP…

A federal judge is questioning everyone from a painter to a teacher to a quilt maker as part of the jury selection process in former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial.

In interviews that lasted about five minutes each, U.S. District Judge James Zagel asked 13 potential jurors Monday morning about how much they followed Blagojevich’s trial last summer.

* About the only “news” was a new filing by the prosecutors involving one of Blagojevich’s TV appearances…

The Blagojevich prosecutors are seeking to introduce an appearance by the former governor from January 27, 2009, on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.”

The prosecutors want to play the tape, to prove that Blagojevich should have know that his activities were improper. […]

Prosecutors say they need to play that tape, to “rebut the defendant’s defense that he did not realize the nature of his conduct, and that he had ‘no idea’ he could not do what he did.”

Transcript…

MADDOW: Do you agree that it would be wrong, it would be criminal for you to try to exchange Barack Obama’s U.S. senate seat, that appointment, for something that would be of value to you. You agree that that would be wrong.

BLAGOJEVICH: Oh, absolutely.

MADDOW: Yeah. Did…

BLAGOJEVICH: A personal, you know, one for the other personal gain?

MADDOW: Yeah.

BLAGOJEVICH: Absolutely.

MADDOW: And you didn’t do that?

BLAGOJEVICH: Absolutely not.

Actually, Rod, you did.

Busted.

…Adding… From the government’s motion…

The government cannot predict with certainty the contours of the defense to be presented in the upcoming retrial. In the first trial, however, defendant attempted through cross-examination of government witnesses to suggest that he did not know, and had no way of knowing that his conduct was unlawful because, among other things, none of his advisors told him that was the case, and because such conduct was not unusual.

From his own lawyer’s comments at the last trial…

Tell me one piece of evidence that came in here when he said, no, on such and such a date Quinlan said “no, it’s illegal,” or on such and such a date, “Governor, that’s illegal, you can’t do that”? Tell me one time? Just one time. Have them play one tape. You had about 5500 conversations and not one did they play for you where they say, “you can’t do this Governor”? It’s the exact opposite. This man had no idea that you couldn’t do it because everybody told him he could, and not only could, should, and not only should —