GIVE THE GUY A GOLDEN PARACHUTE…. As long as Rod Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois, the state’s political system is effectively halted. What’s more, the avenues for resolution appear blocked — Blagojevich apparently isn’t going to resign, the Supreme Court isn’t going to oust him, and impeachment is off to a rather slow start. There’s also no progress at all with filling Illinois’ vacant Senate seat — the governor knows he can’t appoint someone, and there’s waning support for a special election.
Something has to budge, and it starts with a change at the top. But how to get rid of a governor who wants to stick around? Eric Kleefeld directs our attention to a very outside-the-box idea from Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown, who suggests the people of Illinois “steal a page from the governor.”
Just how much money do you think it would take to persuade Blagojevich to get the bleep out of the way?
I’m serious. Big corporations do it all the time. They’ve got a screw-up executive in the way, and they need to make a change. To save time and trouble, they pay him to get lost. It could be worth a try.
I assume Brown isn’t really serious, but it’s hard not to admire just how clever this idea is.
Reading the criminal complaint against Blagojevich, and going through the text of the recorded conversations, it’s obvious the governor wants a lot of money … in his bank account … sooner rather than later. When he’s recorded saying, “I want to make money,” his motivations aren’t exactly cryptic.
Indeed, while trying to figure out how to cash in on the Senate vacancy, Blagojevich describes a scenario in which he could become the head of some progressive organization that would — you guessed it — pay him a lot of money.
With this in mind, if Illinois wants to get rid of Blagojevich, Illinois would have to give him what he wants. Apparently, that’s cash.
Now, paying the governor to go away is obviously not a realistic scenario. But as outside-the-box thinking goes, I like it.
