Kilmainham Jail (Gaol) by Sean Munson

There’s Politics, there’s politics, and then there’s Rod Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois. He was arrested this morning on a Federal warrant for corruption charges. You can read the press release (PDF) or you can read the whole complaint (PDF).

It reads like a bad novel. Seriously, writers couldn’t make up corruption this blatant, this ridiculous, this hubristic. The blatant “pay for play” and pure escapist’s collusive fantasy, it’s hard to take in without thinking, as my friend PJ does, that Illinois no longer deserves the right to hold free elections.

There are as many as five potential senate candidates listed in the complaint, though none by name. I suspect the big name journalism outfits are attempting to do a game of “who’s goin’ to the pokey” by identifying characteristics from the complaint and attaching them to actual names. This one will likely get uglier and uglier, and may very well taint some of the President Elect’s campaign and advisors before we get too much further.

The Post’s Carrie Johnson has a detailed examination of the situation, and I suspect that this one is going to get much, much uglier before it gets any better.

Just a sampling, so you can see just what kind of Jail this guy belongs in, assuming he doesn’t get strung up by the masses, please check out this choice quote:

“[I]ntercepted phone conversations between ROD BLAGOJEVICH and others indicate that ROD BLAGOJEVICH is contemplating rescinding his commitment of state funds to benefit Children’s Memorial Hospital because Hospital Executive 1 has not made a recent campaign contribution to ROD BLAGOJEVICH.”

Yep. He’s just that sleazy.