Out of the blue, Rod Blagojevich decides to play dead. He thinks, "Maybe they'll throw me in jail for a few weeks and forget the rampant criminal enterprise that was my administration."
It's just the latest weirdo outburst in a saga only slightly less crazy than the Charlie Sheenathon.
Blago comes out of hiding and asks a judge to sentence him, skipping the retrial. That would be great if there weren't 20-plus charges still pending. Always the martyr, Blagojevich is trying to couch this as a money-saving move.
"Just forget those charges, I'll go quietly and we all win!"
It doesn't work that way. Let's compare it to another famous Illinoisan: Al Capone. Everyone knows Capone was a murderous bootlegger. The man was responsible for countless crimes. But the government could only convict him of income tax evasion. It was enough to get him off the street and into Alcatraz.
But hard evidence against Capone was scarce. In the Blago case, the state has audiotape of the ex-governor shaking down and threatening anything with a pulse. We don't need to connect the dots because there's a straight line from Blago's mouth to his eventual jail cell.
It doesn't matter whether Blagojevich is sentenced today, tomorrow or three weeks from now. More guilty verdicts are coming. And he's going to be locked up for a very long time.
