I've always enjoyed reading the columns of John Kass, even though he frequently puts his foot in his mouth/keyboard, and even though he frequently speaks as a Republican. Good political writing doesn't require party affiliation to be effective anyway.
Anyway, Kass has been consistently critical of George Ryan while singing hosannahs for Peter and Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzmas indeed. One can pray to all things noodly that U.S. Atty. Fitzgerald is as successful in his 'other' investigation as he was in the Operation Safe Roads
(75 convictions so far).
Chicago Tribune | This verdict no ordinary act of justice
...The bipartisan Illinois political combine--the one controlled by Ryan and Daley--is on the run. It has been on the run since former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) ruined his political career by demanding that the White House appoint a federal prosecutor without any political connections to the combine.U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) is still here. He hasn't been removed, yet. And now is the time for ordinary people to have their say.
Ordinary people who become jurors don't usually make fortunes in public relations. So they don't spin out the too-often-repeated lie that politics as usual is no crime, just politics. Ordinary people don't bestow millions upon millions of tax dollars on their friends in government deals, or send $100 million in affirmative-action contracts to white Outfit-connected stooges, or smirk and play dumb as their family becomes wealthy beyond imagining.
They don't hire unqualified 19-year-old city building inspectors, or build a patronage army in violation of federal court orders to crush any dissenting voice, or purchase millions of dollars worth of office furniture from an 11th Ward family with clout.
Ordinary people don't take free vacations to Jamaica as George Ryan did, or pretend to live on $77 in cash while gambling and drinking and steakhousing their way across the country. They don't squeeze the janitors and the cleaning ladies for Christmas money.
And there's another thing that ordinary people don't do: They don't cover up investigations into the deaths of six children who were burned alive in a crash by an unqualified truck driver who bribed his way to a commercial driver's license.
Kass concludes with this tidbit of witnessed vitriol:
...But on Monday, Ryan displayed the proper combine attitude, by blaming the jury.“The decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service I've given to the people of Illinois over 40 years,” he said.
Clearly, George wanted a payoff. He didn't get the deal he wanted, although I figure that if he receives 10 or 15 years in prison, he'll have been paid in proper coin, since he's a convict now.
As he walked out of the federal building to make his escape in a vehicle, an angry bicycle messenger with prison written on his face started taunting the former governor. The bike man was telling Ryan not to drop the soap in prison, telling him not to become beholden to other guys by smoking their cigarettes.
It was brutal. It was ugly. And Ryan couldn't help hearing.
“You better not take their smokes, you get your own, know what I'm sayin'!” he shouted, straddling his bike, laughing. “Know what I'm sayin'! Governor! Governor!”
Tags: Chicago, /corruption, /Rethuglicans
