{"id":2692,"date":"2008-12-11T09:20:01","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T14:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2008-12-11T09:20:01","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T14:20:01","slug":"theater-of-the-absurd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/11\/theater-of-the-absurd\/","title":{"rendered":"theater of the absurd&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20081211\/ap_on_re_us\/illinois_governor;_ylt=AhqUpkeju9tHslHKuexDWbms0NUE\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Illinois leaders ponder what to do with governor<\/strong><\/a><br \/>  By DEANNA BELLANDI and CHRISTOPHER WILLS<br \/>  Associated Press<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">&#8230; It was unclear what incentive the governor had to give up his office. A resignation might make him appear guilty. The office also gives him a certain amount of clout, which can help him raise money for his defense. <strong>[State Senator] Radogno said it&#8217;s possible Blagojevich would use his resignation as a bargaining chip with prosecutors and agree to step down in exchange for leniency<\/strong> &#8230;<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">I have read some nutty things in my life, but this comment tops the list. Two days ago, we read that the Governor of Illinois was using his power to appoint Barack Obama&#8217;s U.S. Senate successor for personal gain. There was even an &quot;interactive graphic&quot; in the <strong>New York Times<\/strong> showing the various options he proposed &#8211; a Federal appointment, a 501-C-4, Board appointments for his wife, Campaign Contributions, etc. Now, he&#8217;s going to work <em>business as usual<\/em>. and we hear that he has no <em>incentive<\/em> to <em>give up office<\/em>. Christine Radogno, the Republican Minority leader of the Illinois Senate, tells us that he needs an <em>incentive<\/em> to step down &#8211; that he may use <em>his resignation<\/em> as a <em>bargaining chip<\/em> for <em>leniency<\/em>. It appears that in Illinois, political power has become a personal currency to be used at the bargaining table.<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">It hardly seems to me that including Governor Rod Blagojevich in the negotiations about how to get him out of office quickly makes any sense at all &#8211; since the whole point of this saga is about the abuse of power. I&#8217;d recommend a contingency of armed guards as an alternative to bartering. If you get caught cheating in Las Vegas, they don&#8217;t sit down and talk to you about what it will take to get you to leave the Casino.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illinois leaders ponder what to do with governor By DEANNA BELLANDI and CHRISTOPHER WILLS Associated Press &#8230; It was unclear what incentive the governor had to give up his office. A resignation might make him appear guilty. The office also gives him a certain amount of clout, which can help him raise money for his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}