Let it be known that the yesterday’s removal of Rod Blagojevich from the office of governor had very little to do with the integrity of the Illinois state legislature. In fact, the case the state legislature made, outside of what they borrowed from the federal complaint, was fairly weak. Quite frankly, the legislature could not have made this happen on their own. The removal was more the result of the media doing its job and the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI doing their jobs.

We voters don’t take much time to get to know the difference between an honest hard-working politician and a sleezy backroom dealer. We owe the media and the U.S. Attorney for hitting us over the head with such thud that we could not ignore it, so that our outrage got the wheels turning in Springfield.

As far as I’m concerned, there is a lot more work to be done. As many as 182 other state elected officials were put in office under the same crooked campaign finance system. And while they all certainly aren’t criminals, a good chunk of them surely are. Its time for us voters to do our job, and demand immediate reforms to campaign finance in Illinois, so we can start to see ordinary people run for office and serve their state, instead of some of these content career politicians who make a career out of doing the wrong thing, except when the spotlight is on them.

Good citizen that you area, make an effort in the next few months to find out what your representatives are up to. Find out who they’re taking money from, and how they’re voting on bills. You might be a little surprised.

Well, instead of resigning with dignity at the start of the week, Blagojevich made a fool of himself and continued to make a mockery of the State of Illinois with his talk show tour. Yet the governor was actually fairly successful in stirring some doubt about the impeachment case against him. Whether or not he did a good enough job giving 20 senators the political cover to vote against his removal from office remains to be seen.

And while I’m not convinced that Blagojevich is any less guilty, I do think he has moved this impeachment from a slam dunk to now more of an easy lay-up.

Blagojevich, oddly enough, has been aided by the U.S. Attorney’s office, which restricted FBI Special Agent Daniel Cain’s testimony to the point of pointlessness, where some pretty significant questions went unanswered. The recordings that were played in court were merely audio versions of what was found in the original criminal complaint and somehow a little less convincing and less shocking when played out loud. And not to mention that nobody has yet come forward and said “I was offered the senate seat in exchange for a bribe”. After three days of testimony, it has become very difficult to escape the fact that there is an element of bullshit to the U.S. Attorney’s complaint and the articles of impeachment. I’m beginning to wonder if this impeachment wasn’t rushed and is now beginning to buckle under scrutiny.

However, I don’t think any of this should stop the senators from voting for removal, because the real question here is, not whether he did anything criminal, but “Is Blagojevich able to effectively carry out the duties of his office”. That answer is clearly “No,” and being an all-around lousy, incompetent governor is reason enough to remove him.

Could today be the day Gov. Rod Blagojevich calls it quits? With his senate trial set to begin tomorrow, and the gov. telling the media all week that he expects to be removed from office and to not get a fair trial, resigning would be the common sense thing to do. But is it the Blagojevich thing to do?

After all, why go through a trial that you’re destined to lose if you don’t have, one that is pretty much designed to highlight what an ass you are and gives the state’s 59 senators a chance to affirm your incompetence as a governor with a floor vote. And while Blagojevich loves a good fight, he is not even going to show up for the trial, nor are his lawyers. Unable to prove his innocence, unable to take some last jabs at his fellow elected officials who have turned their back on him, what does he stand to gain by a trial, at this point?

Perhaps the Blagojevich thing to do just might be to make them do all their prep work, write their speeches, make them gather all the evidence until the eve of the trial, the pull the rug out from under them by resigning right as they are about start, rendering all their work frivolous.

Riding out the week and waiting for the other shoe to drop, however, seems a little too anti-climactic for this governor. Whatever he does, there is little doubt there are many more bizarre antics to come.