First Palin and now Blago. You fall in love much too easily. YOU are the media that is supposed to show us the other side! Put the pom-poms down and get to work.

Genson's a mob lawyer. His job was to keep Blago from blabbing.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-bd-25-jan25,0,5239555.column

But the fact that he is an artist of bull scatology does not mean what he is saying is anything more than, well... bull scat.

If Blago's strategy was to try to influence the jury pool, his attorney, the notoriously shifty Ed Gensen, wouldn't have quit last Friday. I think Blago's just freewheeling it cause he doesn't see that he still has more to lose.

His media blitz provides the opportunity for him to make inadvertent admissions and inconsitent statements that can be used against him in a Federal Trial. Everytime Blago opens his mouth on the subject he is, in essence, testifying.

I also don't think we've seen an end to the indictments. Fitzgerald made the Obama seat controversy public because there was no keeping a lid on it. But he has also been talking to Rezko and his cronies and that may produce more indictments.

Lynn Sweet might really, as you report, know her stuff. But the place she puts this stuff down first is on FOX. The home of made-up statistics, innuendo as lead story and hard-right bias. I would be far more comfortable accepting her viewpoint if it were presented on a more reliable, less self-adulatory network.

Blagojevich has proven that he is capable of making a dramatic and emotional oration -- but he hasn't made the least attempt to defend himself in the appropriate venue, and has blatently put his own agenda ahead of keeping the business of state in order. The vote against him is inside the rules -- vague as they might be -- and definitely made with the goodwill of the people.

Yet you sprang your speech on the proceedings at a time when you could not be asked any questions (why are you afraid of being asked questions in front of a judge?)...

Yet you refused to participate in the setting up of rules for the impeachment proceedings (couldn't think of any set of rules that would actually benefit you, could you?)...

Yet you refused to cross-examine any of the witnesses presented...

Yet you refused to call any of your own witnesses (and yes, you did have the right to call witnesses, if you could find any, to testify on your behalf)...

So innocent. I voted for you, twice, and may you eventually rot in prison for betraying the public trust.

I don't believe that the things revealed when Blagojevich was charged or some of his bizarrely over-the-top recent appearances and statements(not to mention the imputations of corruption that have been attached to him for some time)will have so faded from public consciousness that one apparently earnest speech will change perceptions of him that much. This speech is far from being all that people have been hearing about the governor and the controversies surrounding him.

But there is a huge difference between having the "bullshit gene" and having "chops". Blagojevich's appearance was a "performance", and I'm sorry to see you taken in by its bald attempt at obfuscation.

As you said, he misrepresented the facts in order to create a defense of his deluded take on all this.

How can you give him any credit? And how can you give voters and observers of this so little credit that you think enough people will be taken in by this bag of odorous wind to give him a future in the public arena?

This wasn't a criminal proceeding. It's about ethics and malfeasance and it appears they have him dead to rights. I predict they will convict him in a criminal trial and he will go away. At which point, you will be soooo wrong.

He's got the rhetoric down, for sure, but his hubristic style of defense points to exactly the sense of infallibility that probably got him into trouble to begin with. He's surely got a primo book deal sewn up at this point -- if Sarah "15 minutes of fame wants its time back" Palin garnered a book deal, Blago surely merits one.

WOW! You gotta love all those people who can be convinced the criminal is innocent because he's got the gift of gab. Um ... let's see how many of us can name demonic people throughout history whose oratory can persuade their listeners that their words transcend their evilness. The list is endless -- from Hitler to Madoff -- and now we have the media, with Koppleman saying: "He [Blago] was calm, composed, impassioned, even persuasive." Persuasive? Yeah, we know the devils can convince -- the world has paid dearly for them.

Oh, and then there is this: "...the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet, who really knows this stuff ... 'He was terrific in presenting his side.'"

"He was terrific"??????!!!! Looks like this delusional, corrupt governor is holding some of the media spellbound.

Query: Will the media now try to persuade us that this unscrupulous, degenerate, delusional politician is worthy of a second look because he can talk a good game, that such a “persuasive” speaker deserves a break and second look? As Koppleman says: "What this ultimately showed is that Blagojevich still has some serious political chops." WHAT POLITICAL CHOPS ARE THOSE, ALEX???

Good luck Fitz on moving the venue on you political witch hunt.

This is the problem with our media coverage of such things. Yes, if you only saw the speech today, you saw an earnest-seeming guy getting railroaded by shady politics. The fact of the matter, however, is much different. The media has done a disservice to people outside if Illinois in reporting on Blago. People in the state--people in Chicago in particular--know the deal. This guy has been a terrible governor. His approval ratings were hovering around Bush levels for a long time, long before the senate seat debacle. No one likes him, Democrats or Republicans.

The worst thing that can happen is for this guy to get the "Hey, he's just a regular, good guy" treatment from the media.

Serioulsy, he's an epic fuck up, and should always be remembered as such.