Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment circus, I mean trial, is well underway and the embattled lawmaker is trying his best to "razzle-dazzle" us away from understandingon what he is accused of.
So far, the Illinois governor has refused to take part, calling the trial “a trampling of the [US] Constitution.” His lawyers have labeled the impeachment a “lynching,” and declared a week ago that they wouldn’t take part.
Mr. Blagojevich has missed every deadline for requesting or challenging witnesses or evidence. He appears instead to be trying to make his case via a national media blitz, hiring a PR firm and appearing Monday on the TV programs “Good Morning America,” “The View,” and “Larry King Live.”
“It makes you wonder what’s going on. Blagojevich has a rationality all his own,” says Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois in Springfield.
Among the possibilities: His legal team doesn’t know how to defend him and, by not showing up, hopes to argue that it’s an unfair system; or it wants to focus its efforts on the criminal trial, because almost everyone expects the impeachment trial to result in a conviction, Professor Mooney says.
It’s also possible that Blagojevich has simply run out of money to pay lawyers, lacks a staff to develop a coherent strategy, and has let deadlines slide by without knowing what to do, he adds.
“Who knows what goes on in his head,” says Mooney, echoing the thoughts of many Illinoisans as they watched their governor relaunch his PR campaign Friday with a press conference and radio and newspaper interviews. In them, the two-term Democratic governor suggested that the impeachment process was part of a scheme by the legislature and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn to raise income taxes in the state and to oust him because of his independent streak.
Lead defense lawyer quits
Blagojevich also called on local newspapers – particularly the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times – to defend him and to attack the trial in editorials. The plea was not without irony, as the Tribune noted in an editorial Saturday, in that part of the criminal complaint against the governor alleges that he tried to have members of the Tribune’s editorial page fired this fall for criticizing him.
The media blitz appears to be one reason Blagojevich’s lead lawyer, Ed Genson, quit Friday, saying, “I never require a client to do what I say, but I do require them to at least listen.”
At the heart of Blagojevich’s arguments is his position that the trial is stacked against him and denies him the means to effectively defend himself.
Public must see trial as fair
Although the Senate is permitted to set its own rules for the trial, the proceedings still must be perceived as fair, say many observers, so that the office of governor isn’t weakened by a dangerous precedent. In that sense, the lawmakers have been thrown a bit of a curveball by the governor’s apparent refusal to participate.
“If that [refusal] persists, it’s a source of considerable disappointment and concern,” says Dawn Clark Netsch, a former Illinois comptroller, candidate for governor in 1994, and currently a law school professor at Northwestern University.
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