I Hope the People and Legislature Of Illinois Will Have More Patience Than the People of NY

[NashVegas]

When the dust was all settled, it was shown that calls for Eliot Spitzer's resignation were premature, at best, and political assassination at worst.

I hope IL people will wait for more information to come in before they start making demands.

[pnwmom]

1. Taped conversations exist, according to Fitzgerald. This doesn't seem

comparable to the Spitzer situation in any respect.

[Phred42]

2. The Downstate Reich-wing will be in high gear on this

as a payback if nothing else

[Renew Deal]

3. Are you kidding?

Spitzer's resignation was premature? He's a crook. The only reason he didn't go to jail was cause he resigned. If you want to be in a party of criminals, join the republicans.

[NashVegas]

7. If Spitzer's Case Had Gone To Trial

It would have fully exposed the political corruption of the Bush administration's Justice Department.

[Occam Bandage]

11. Patrick Fitzgerald is leading this investigation. Is he a Bush toadie now?

[Renew Deal]

12. Yes, because they made him f*** his hooker.

:banghead:

[mdmc]

25. This is true

Spitz's identity was illegally leaked...

[mdmc]

24. Actually, he wasn't the target of the investigation

He was collateral damage that we leaked to the press...

It was a political takedown that he deserved.

[madokie]

4. To me it sounds like the gov was/ is only a dem in name

Sorry I couldn't remember how to spell his name.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. Patience? We've been assuming this would happen for at least 2 years.

[NashVegas]

8. Hey, Fine

But don't think, not for a single minute, this little show wasn't sped up because of his threats to cut the state off from doing business with BoA.

[Occam Bandage]

10. Or perhaps because of his threats to sell the Senate seat for cash.

That could have been it, too.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

13. He's been running a pay-to-play operation for years now.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't the first time he put the screws to a bank.

[Raskolnik]

30. Nonsense. You have cause and effect backwards.

This "little show" was in the pipe long before BoA was a gleam in Blago's eye. He knew his time was short, and pulled a political stunt to try to drum up public support.

Don't fall for it.

[NashVegas]

14. Yeah Well

What we're seeing here is the equivalent of Naomi Klein's "Crisis Capitalism" applied to politics. You've been waiting two years? Won't kill you to wait a week or two, then.

[Robbien]

26. Starting into this mess, Blago had a 4% approval rating. We hated the guy

He deserves no respect nor patience.

[Raskolnik]

31. What would waiting a week or two accomplish, other than exponentially

increasing the liklihood that someone in Obama's staff would say something ill-advised on tape, thus opening up a huge can of worms for Obama?

[tabbycat31]

6. NY is not exactly known for patience

[Occam Bandage]

9. No. This has been three years of investigation.

The first shit started coming out in '04. Two thousand and fucking four. His entire administration has been a corrupt one.

[surrealAmerican]

27. Exactly.

The two situations are in no way comparable. Everybody here in IL knew an indictment was "on the way" for years now.

[Crabby Appleton]

15. I don't nt

[apocalypsehow]

16. Hmmmm. The Feds let folks surf the internet while awaiting arraignment?

:shrug:

I guess they don't call it "Club Fed" for nothing....

[NashVegas]

17. I Beg Your Pardon?

[WillowTree]

18. It's been a three year long "rush to judgement".

Illinois has given this slug more patience than he ever deserved. It's time for him to be out of office. We tend here to hope our legislature moves as fast as possible.......like today. He's a crook and we want him gone.

[NashVegas]

20. If You Knew He Was a Crook

You should never have voted for him.

[WillowTree]

22. Who said I did?

You don't know a whole lot about Illinois politics, do you?

[Raskolnik]

32. You're not terribly familiar with Illinois politics, are you? n/t

[melm00se]

19. if the reporting of what is on the tapes

is accurate, that is pretty damning evidence

[NashVegas]

21. But Is It Convictable?

That's an important question.

The Federal Government leaked information about Eliot Spitzer, and never charged him with a crime. It was patently obvious they did this to ruin him, politically.

Karl Rove lied on the government witness stand multiple times, and Fitz never arrested Rove.

Blago's been arrested, at least, but some are pointing out that Fitz doesn't have a whole lot of evidence of any actual crime and questioning why no grand jury.

People need to stop and think these things through and not rush into the political equivalent of Naomi Klein's "Disaster Capitalism."

[Raskolnik]

29. "Some" haven't read the complaint or listened to Fitzgerald's press conference if they think

that there isn't a whole lot of evidence of actual crimes.

[melm00se]

33. while the goal of the DOJ

is to secure convictions, there are times, and I think this is one of them, where they can't stand on the sidelines and wait for the crime to be committed when there is quite a bit of evidence pointing to the future commission of a crime, especially when it involves government officials acting in their official capacity. Better to jump now and preempt the likely crime and run the risk of sullying one man than allow the crime to go forward and risk much larger and wider scandal.

In this case, if Blago did go through what the evidence indicates in relationship to the Obama's senate seat and sold the Senate seat to the highest bidder, by the time the crime is committed the new Senator would be appointed and you run into the situation of "what to do?". While that Senator could be expelled, the record shows that the last successful expulsion vote occurred in the 1860's and in today's highly polarized political environment, there is no guarantee that a 2/3 majority vote would happen (hell they couldn't nail Huey Long).

[mdmc]

23. NO.

Spitz was all about punishing the johns of prostitutes.
He was a hypocrite that would have crippled NYS until he was kicked out.

[Raskolnik]

28. The people of Illinois have been more than patient for the last few years

waiting for this investigation to wrap up, and Blago to be indicted.

This arrest was not out of the blue by any means.