Give the Blagos credit: They certainly know how to come up with novel ways to make money for a couple of folks who are unemployed.
The latest gambit is a defamation lawsuit that Patti Blagojevich filed on Thursday against an official from the Chicago Christian Industrial League, where she used to work before she was fired.
The basis of her suit?
A claim by the agency's Rick Roberts that Patti is using an e-mail list from the CCIL to hawk her husband's book.
"The last thing we need is to have Mrs. Blagojevich showing poor judgment and unethical behavior," Roberts recently told the Chicago Tribune. "Our list is proprietary."
Patti says that the league had no outreach list when she was hired to use her political connections to raise money; she contends that she dumped her personal e-mail list into the league's lap and has every right to use it.
Roberts, though, has said that league donors were upset to be contacted by Patti regarding her husband's book.
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The real question though, is this: Is it really possible to defame Patti Blagojevich at this point?
Well, that might not technically be the legal question, but that's not what this seems to be about.
Patti's attorney, Jay Edelson, told the Tribune that "What we want Mr. Roberts to do right now is retract the statement and offer an apology. If he's willing to do that, we're 80 percent there."
The other 20 percent, we can safely assume, is some sort of cash settlement.
How very Blagojevichian.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
