Another Broken Blago Promise
Book fails to name names
By STEVE RHODES
Updated 1:40 PM CST, Thu, Sep 10, 2009
Blago promised a tell-all.
And like fools seduced by political dish, we believed him.
Sure, he's a serial liar. We still thought we'd get some Springfield dirt.
Tabloid stuff. Legislative affairs, drunken escapades, brown paper bags filled with cash. Illicit lobbying.
Give Blago credit; he knows which buttons to push when it comes to this publicity thing.
In the end, though, we're left disappointed by a book we had such low expectations for in the first place.
"Despite promising for months to name names and spill the dirt on Illinois politics, Blagojevich does very little of that," Capitol Fax impresario Rich Miller writes in his review of "The Governor."
Oh, he hints in a couple of places: A legislator allegedly offering a campaign donation in exchange for appointment to Barack Obama's Senate seat.
But he doesn't name the supposedly prominent political ally who sounds an awful lot like Emil Jones or anyone else in any scheme, drunkfest or sexcapade.
He does rehash his obsession with the Madigans, and it's true that Michael Madigan is state government's immovable object. That won't matter when a jury considers the evidence against the former governor.
Way back in March, Blago publicist Glenn Selig said that "some people in high places" wanted to block the book.
Doubtful.
All this book does is confirm Blago's status as a nitwit; it does little to implicate others in nefarious deeds.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Sep 9, 2009 7:02 AM CST
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