Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I would be remiss if I didn't make a post about dickbag par excellence, Rod Blagojevich, the very-soon-to-be outgoing Governor of my home state of Illinois.

Commentary: What was Blagojevich thinking?

"(CNN) -- In the great annals of "What Was He Thinking?" (political edition), the case of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich sets a new standard -- for its breathtaking stupidity, venality and illegality.

Here's a fellow who knew he was under investigation for "pay to play" schemes, who then allegedly continued to extort campaign contributions -- and more -- without any thought that someone was actually watching. . .

. . . The stupidity (I'm running out of synonyms here) is only compounded when the governor decides it would be a good idea to raffle off Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. And, if no one bid high enough, then he just might take the seat himself. "If ... they're not going to offer anything of value, then I might just take it," the governor said.

Later, the governor put it more, er, succinctly: The Senate seat "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing.""

Now, I've made no secret here that I'm a nominal Democrat. But in Illinois, as I've been saying since I very first started this blog, we are treated to basically a one party system, which breeds some of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians in America, and incidentally, in the world.

Illinoisans are not surprised by the "G Rod's" arrest and disgrace. That hammer has been about to fall since mid-2007. What's shocking to me, as it is to the commentator in the CNN piece above, is how utterly and thoroughly stupid, how pathetically and transparently corrupt Blagojevich's actions were. This man is a former prosecutor. HE KNEW HE WAS UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION. This jagmoe even went so far as to dare the Feds to wiretap him!- which they did, and via which they have produced what HAS to be some of the most embarrassing and incriminating transcripts in the history of corruption investigations. (I say embarrassing to address the way most of Illinois feels right now, Blagojevich himself seems to be blissfully free of shame.)

Take Gov. Dickbag's (D-IL) response to Team Obama's suggestion that Obama advisor Valerie Jarret fulfill the Senate seat left open by Barack's ascendancy: "ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them."

What's truly appalling about the venality of our soon-to-be-outgoing Governor, is that he still maintains his innocence. It seems clear that Blagojevich was so used to this style of "governance," so utterly devoid of a moral compass, so completely corrupted by pay-to-play politics, that he may not even realize that what he did is wrong. For a man to dare the Feds to wiretap him, say this shit on a wiretapped phone conversation, and then CONTINUE to proclaim his innocence; this suggests a person who is so stupid, and so corrupt, that he has forgotten or is simply ignorant to what everyone else in America would believe to be dirty, disgraceful politics.

Blagojevich's crimes are smaller in scale that the Bushies' of course, but there is a distinctly Bushian brand of stupidity and venality surrounding this whole sorry episode.

Asta la pasta, Governor Dickbag.