By Steve Rhodes
Geez, you gotta get up pretty early in the morning to keep up with our impeached governor these days. He’s already appeared on Today and Good Morning America. The View is next, with Larry King Live tonight.
* “On the Today show, the Illinois governor also likens himself to Nelson Mandela,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Well, that makes sense. Mandela could tell him how to pass the time during a long prison bid.
* “Blagojevich Considered Oprah For Senate Post,” USA Today reports.
A) Once he realized it would help him with the jury pool
B) In a meeting with his PR team over the weekend
C) In exchange for a $1 million campaign contribution and a job for his wife
* “Blagojevich Trial To Begin Without Him,” the Boston Globe reports.
He’s too busy appearing on TV talking about . . . his trial. One thing this does is guarantee that his message gets out – unfiltered by the rules of the proceedings- alongside the message of the state senators trying him. So in a way, he is appearing at the trial.
* Hey, wait – is Blago allowed to leave the state? Apparently so, because he’s in New York City today. Isn’t he a flight risk?
* Other TV shows you can expect to see Blago on.
Programming Note
I’ll be live-blogging Blago today over at NBCChicago.com – if I get off my shift in the Grand Crossing District in time.
Me Me Me
“A governor who rejects a clemency petition without reading it because he doesn’t like a lawmaker who supports a pardon, as Blagojevich has reportedly done, suggests narcissism, [Chicago psychologist Scott] Ambers said,” the Springfield State Journal-Register reports. “Other evidence includes Blagojevich withholding funds from a children’s hospital until he gets a campaign contribution, as federal prosecutors allege, then lining up people with health problems at a press conference, aiming to show he’s compassionate, he said.
“There’s also Blagojevich pondering a run for the presidency in 2016 and mulling whether he can trade a U.S. Senate seat for a Cabinet position, as prosecutors contend.
“‘The disorder is characterized by a lack of empathy for others, often fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance,’ Ambers said. ‘What generates the contradictions is the narcissist looking at every situation and making a calculation: What’s in it for me?'”
Them Them Them
John Kass suggests again that the governor is far from crazy.
“The governor wants the witnesses who may be called to testify in federal court to lock themselves into statements in the state Senate, so those statements may be later attacked,” Kass writes.
Good idea, but too late.
Editorial Support
Blago’s calls for the city’s editorial boards to take up his cause resulted in predictable editorials on Sunday assuring the governor they think the proceedings are fair. Just so you know.
The View
What, no Elisabeth Hasselbeck today? That sucks!
And Barbara Walters is appearing from Los Angeles.
Whoopi: “And it’s Rod Blagojevich who is with us today, we have lots of questions for him!”
Go get him, Whoopi!
And here he is!!!
Weird, it’s Blago talking to a TV screen with Walters!
Walters: “Are you really seeing yourself as one of the great martyrs of history?”
Blago: “No, that was taken out of context . . . ”
But then he says he was talking about folks who suffered a “similar experience.”
Walters: Presses him on the wiretap about having this thing that’s golden . . .
Blago: “Taking snippets of conversation out of context . . . ”
Walters: “But did you say those things?”
Blago: “Under no circumstances was I trying to sell a senate seat.”
Walters: “Did you say those thing?”
She’s really going after him.
Blago: “Whatever the tapes are, they’ll come out and speak for themselves . . . ”
Pushes line about wanting to bring Emanuel to the trial that he’s boycotting.
Walters: “You have not now denied that somewhere along the line you said those things.”
Blago: “I can’t confirm or deny anything until I’ve heard those tapes . . . ”
COMMENT: She should ask if he wanted a Trib editorial board member fired.
Walters: “I realize that even though you have this opportunity and you’re going to be on other television shows that you’re never going to answer this.”
Asks how he managed to get caught knowing he was probably under surveillance.
Blago: “What’s happened to me is the sensationalizing of this . . . ”
Walters: Says wife was going to be on today, but “yesterday we were told that she canceled on the advice of her family.” Quotes Dick Mell saying Blago uses everybody.
Blago: “I think you’re taking something like that out of context.”
COMMENT: No, that’s pretty much the way Mell feels.
Blago: Rehashes landfill issue.
Blago: “My wife is a big fan of your program, she would have loved to be here.”
COMMENT: Is Patti finally listening to her father and not her husband?
Walters: Mayor has called you cuckoo, approval ratings at 7 percent, you say this is about taxes, “For the sake of the state, for your own dignity, wouldn’t it be better if you resigned?”
Blago: “No, that would be the worst thing I could do . . . ”
Says it would disgrace his children.
“It’s all about raising the income tax in Illinois before Memorial Day . . . ”
Back to the bringing in witnesses gambit.
Walters: “When we return I will be joined by my colleagues and we will have more with Governor Blagojevich.”
Commercial
“When I say Hillshire, you say Farms!”
“Hillshire!”
“Farms!”
“Go Meat!”
More View
Blago’s on the couch!
Sherri Shepherd asks about Oprah.
Joy Behar: “All you get out of that is a car, by the way.”
Blago: blah blah blah
Behar: “On some of the tapes, you and your wife are potty mouths. Not that I have anything against that.”
COMMENT: Please, is this how you are going to spend this opportunity?
Blago: Says wife picked up bad language from him; he was raised in tough Chicago neighborhood.
COMMENT: Unlike Patti.
Whoopi: “It feels a little bit like people aren’t taking you seriously.”
Blago: Back to the witness thing again.
COMMENT: Please, already! C’mon, Viewsters!
Blago: Misstating the rules again.
Shepherd: Refers to the Clinton impeachment.
Blago: Senate is just trying to run me out of town “because I went around them” on this legislation and that.
COMMENT: Isn’t that illegal?
Shepherd: So you’re saying this is a conspiracy against you?
Blago: “It’s because I did things for people.”
Whoopi: You’re saying you aren’t given the right to defend yourself . . .
Blago: Refers to 6th Amendment . . .
COMMENT: This isn’t a criminal trial. They’re blowing it.
Whoopi: “Where the hell is the Supreme Court?”
COMMENT: This is a fiasco. It started out promising, but degenerated into ridiculousness.
Behar: “He does a fabulous Nixon impression, do it for us!”
Blago: “Who told you that?”
Behar: “Somebody told me! Do ‘I am not a crook’.”
Laughs all around. Yes, it’s so funny.
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See you later at NBCChicago.com.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: A better view.
Posted on January 26, 2009