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Jewish World Review August 18, 2010 / 8 Elul, 5770 Dead Meat walking, but heat to be applied again By John Kass
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
You've got to be bleepin' kidding me. If his tongues were a pair of hands, then Rod Blagojevich could have played three-card Monte with his mouth on Tuesday and made a few bucks. Because he conned at least one member of his federal jury into cutting him a break in his corruption trial, Blagojevich was convicted of only one count out of 24. And within minutes, Gov. Dead Meat was down in the lobby of the federal building, appealing to the next jury pool in the retrial sure to come. The man who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his suits is reaching out to potential jurors from the inner city who live in high-crime areas. He talked fast and he talked loud. But not under oath. "This is a persecution!" he cried, his wife, Patti, at his side. "We have police officers who are being gunned down on the streets! We have children who can't play in front of their homes in the summertime because they might get gunned down!" After using the recent murders of police officers and children as metaphoric shields, Dead Meat charged shamelessly forward. "And we have a prosecutor who has wasted and wants to spend tens of millions of our taxpayer money to keep persecuting me, persecuting my family, take me away from my little girls," said Dead Meat. The slain cops, the babies gunned down, the neighborhood people suffering in fear, all of them are his playthings now. The man will say anything (but not under oath) and expect you to buy it. And why not? Someone on that jury bought it, at least one, for the big racketeering count that caused all the deadlock. But it sounds like the majority of the jurors were ready to convict. And they asked U.S. District Judge James Zagel to send them a copy of the jury oath they'd taken at the start of the trial, the one where they swore to "render a true verdict in accordance to the law and the evidence, so help me God." Just picture them in the jury room in those last hours, waving that oath in the face of the holdouts, the bitterness in the room, with Dead Meat hanging with his lawyers, preening, planning future moves. In court, waiting for the verdict to be announced, many jurors stared straight ahead, stone-faced, perhaps embarrassed. But since at least one bought the joy juice Dead Meat was selling and swallowed it whole, he has no reason to change his tactics now. There is a temptation to think that whatever comes out of his mouth is spontaneous. But it isn't. It's calculated. It's political. And if the federal building were a barnyard, then he was the cock hopping up on the dunghill, crowing thunderously at the sun. "Let me also point out that we didn't even put on a defense! And the government still couldn't prove its case," he said. As the twice-elected former governor of Illinois left with what he probably thinks of as his dignity, I could only imagine other Illinois politicians with federal pressure on them, deciding that if they're ever indicted by a grand jury, they'll play it out the Blagojevich way. They'll beg for their own radio talk show. They might even let TV personalities touch their hair, and send their wives off to some Costa Rican jungle to eat bugs for money. It worked for Dead Meat, this politicking to the jury pool, appealing to the lowest common denominator. Come to think of it, isn't that what politicians do for a living anyway? U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who will take the blame for the failed prosecution, said his office would immediately seek a new trial on the other counts. Fitzgerald offered his own appeal to the future Blago jury by praising the deadlocked jury's hard work and personal sacrifice. It was in sharp contrast to the emotion Fitzgerald showed after Blagojevich was arrested on charges he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama. Back then, almost two years ago, Fitzgerald spoke forcefully of Abraham Lincoln rolling in his grave, and how the feds had been compelled to stop a "political crime spree" in progress. On Tuesday, Fitzgerald was less lyrical. "We intend to retry those charges in the near future," he said, before walking away. In the courtroom, it was Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar who expressed the emotion after Zagel suggested prosecutors decide whether to take another whack at Dead Meat. "It is absolutely our intention to retry this," Schar said, growling. "Whether it's the next time or the time after." But the next time or the next, they'll probably do things differently. You can bet that they'll call other sexy, forgotten witnesses, like Obama's convicted real estate fairy Tony Rezko. And the Blagojevich criminal defense team will turn up the volume, especially the rascally Adam Family, crafty old Sam and son Junior. They'll use reporters to reach out to the next jury while thumping those who have likened their client to a roast turning over coals. "I'm not talking about you guys," old Sam told the TV cameras. "I'm talking about the columnists." Nice try, Sam. But he's still Dead Meat. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Comments by clicking here.
© 2008, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. |
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