The case of Rod Blagojevich reveals that I have limited understanding of the human psyche. This guy is unbef*kinglievable! Read this story by the Associated Press that just came over the wire.

Blago guest stars in ‘Rod Blagojevich Superstar’. By RUPA SHENOY. CHICAGO - Standing on a chair with his arms raised as if he were being crucified, ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich opened a comedy show Saturday evening lampooning the rise and fall of his own political career.
Blagojevich, who has pleaded not guilty to wide-ranging federal corruption charges, made what one cast member described as a “surreal” guest appearance on The Second City’s “Rod Blagojevich Superstar.”
The show, a takeoff of the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar,” was supposed to end June 14. But production officials extended the show—which portrays Blagojevich as greedy, tactless and hair-obsessed—to Aug. 9 because performances kept selling out.

A full house cheered as Blagojevich, who was removed from office in January, appeared on stage.
“Where were you when I was impeached?” he asked the audience.
Blagojevich is accused of scheming to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat and using the muscle of the governor’s office to get campaign donations. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Before the nearly hourlong show—which includes duets with an actor portraying U.S. Sen. Roland Burris—the ex-governor told the audience he hadn’t seen the production before, but assured them it was “fictitious account” of his life.
Blagojevich, who was wearing a suit and tie, also worked in an endorsement of his wife, Patti, a contestant on NBC’s reality show “I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!”
He asked people to vote for her to remain on the show, which asks viewers to decide which quasi-celebrity should leave a Costa Rican jungle.
NBC had wanted the former governor on the show. But U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who is presiding over Blagojevich’s corruption case, refused to let him leave the country, so his wife joined the cast instead.
“In the tradition of Chicago politics, you can vote ten times,” Blagojevich joked. “Vote early and often.”
As soon as Blagojevich left the stage, cast members launched into a song that asks, “What kind of idiot sells a Senate seat?”
In the show, Patti Blagojevich was portrayed as cutthroat and foul-mouthed. One of the songs was an expletive-laden version of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”
The former Illinois first lady, who has not been charged with wrongdoing, was famously labeled a “potty mouth” after the FBI said it recorded profanity-laced rants against critics of her husband.
When Blagojevich returned to the stage for the improv portion of the show, he was asked what he thought of the rock opera.
A grinning Blagojevich had two words.
“It’s b———-,” he said.
Blagojevich told stories of his time in office. In one, he claimed that while he was governor, he liked to call the Chicago Cubs coaching staff to offer pitching advice.
Actors then used the stories as prompts for skits while Blagojevich watched them unfold.
Blagojevich spokesman Glenn Selig has declined to say how much Blagojevich would be paid for the Saturday appearance, but said the former governor will make a donation to Gilda’s Club, a cancer support organization founded by Gilda Radner, a comedian and Second City alumna.
Actor Joey Bland, who portrayed Blagojevich by wearing a black turtleneck and helmet-like black wig, called it “the most surreal day of my life.”
A few audience members guffawed as Blagojevich earnestly thanked the cast for making people laugh, but he assured them he was being serious.

Update June 28, 2011: Jury convicts ex-Ill. Gov. Blagojevich at retrial

By MICHAEL TARM and KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press
14 mins ago

CHICAGO - Rod Blagojevich, who rode his talkative everyman image to two terms as Illinois governor before scandal made him a national punch line, was convicted Monday of a wide range of corruption charges, including the incendiary allegation that he tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
The verdict was a bitter defeat for Blagojevich, who had spent 2 1/2 years professing his innocence on reality TV shows and later on the witness stand. His defense team had insisted that hours of FBI wiretap recordings were just the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud.
He faces up to 300 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines are sure to significantly reduce his time behind bars.
After hearing the verdict, Blagojevich turned to defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky and asked “What happened?” His wife, Patti, slumped against her brother, then rushed into her husband’s arms.
Before the decision was read, the couple looked flushed, and the former governor blew his wife a kiss across the courtroom, then stood expressionless, with his hands clasped tightly.
The decision capped a long-running spectacle in which Blagojevich became famous for blurting on a recorded phone call that his ability to appoint Obama’s successor to the Senate was “f—-ing golden” and that he wouldn’t let it go “for f—-ing nothing.”
The former governor spoke only briefly with reporters as he left the courthouse, saying he was disappointed and stunned by the verdict.
“Well, among the many lessons I’ve learned from this whole experience is to try to speak a little bit less, so I’m going to keep my remarks kind of short,” Blagojevich said, adding that the couple wanted “to get home to our little girls and talk to them and explain things to them and then try to sort things out.”
Blagojevich, who has been free on bond since shortly after his arrest, becomes the second straight Illinois governor convicted of corruption. His predecessor, George Ryan, is now serving 6 1/2 years in federal prison.
The case exploded into scandal when Blagojevich was awakened by federal agents on Dec. 9, 2008, at his Chicago home and was led away in handcuffs. Federal prosecutors had been investigating his administration for years, and some of his closest cronies had already been convicted.
“The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said before a bank of television cameras after the arrest.
Blagojevich, who was also accused of shaking down businessmen for campaign contributions, was swiftly impeached and removed from office.
The verdict provided affirmation to Fitzgerald, one of the nation’s most prominent prosecutors, who had condemned Blagojevich’s dealings as a “political crime spree.” Mentioned at times as a possible future FBI director, Fitzgerald pledged to retry the governor after the first jury deadlocked on all but the least serious of 24 charges against him.
This time, the 12 jurors voted to convict the 54-year-old Blagojevich on 17 of 20 counts after deliberating nine days. He also faces up to five additional years in prison for his previous conviction of lying to the FBI.
Blagojevich was acquitted of soliciting bribes in the alleged shakedown of a road-building executive. The jury deadlocked on two charges of attempted extortion related to that executive and funding for a school.
Judge James Zagel has barred Blagojevich from traveling outside the area without permission. A status hearing for sentencing was set for Aug. 1.
Federal guidelines and previous sentences meted out to other corrupt Illinois politicians suggest Blagojevich could get around 10 years in prison. But judges have enormous discretion and can factor in a host of variables, including whether a defendant took the stand and lied. Prosecutors have said that Blagojevich did just that.
After his arrest, Blagojevich called federal prosecutors “cowards and liars” and challenged Fitzgerald to face him in court if he was “man enough.”
In what many saw as embarrassing indignities for a former governor, he sent his wife to the jungle for a reality television show, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here,” where she had to eat a tarantula. He later showed his own ineptitude at simple office skills before being fired on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”
To most Illinois residents, he was a reminder of the corruption that has plagued the state for decades.
For the second trial, prosecutors streamlined their case, and attorneys for the former governor put on a defense—highlighted by a chatty Blagojevich taking the witness stand for seven days to portray himself as a big talker but not a criminal.
Richard Kling, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law who watched much of the trial, said the defense had no choice but to put Blagojevich on the stand, even though doing so was risky.
“The problem was with some of his explanations,” Kling said. “It reminded me of a little kid who gets his hand caught in a cookie jar. He says, `Mommy I wasn’t taking the cookies. I was just trying to protect them and to count them.’”
Prosecutors dropped Blagojevich’s brother as a defendant and cut down on the number of charges against the ousted governor. They summoned about half as many witnesses, asked fewer questions and barely touched on topics not directly related to the charges, such as Blagojevich’s lavish shopping or his erratic working habits.
Blagojevich seemed to believe he could talk his way out of trouble from the witness stand. Indignant one minute, laughing the next, seemingly in tears once, he endeavored to counteract the blunt, greedy man he appeared to be on FBI wiretaps. He apologized to jurors for the four-letter words that peppered the recordings.
“When I hear myself swearing like that, I am an F-ing jerk,” he told jurors.
He clearly sought to solicit sympathy. He spoke about his working-class parents and choked up recounting the day he met his wife, the daughter of a powerful Chicago alderman. He reflected on his feelings of inferiority at college where other students wore preppy “alligator” shirts. Touching on his political life, he portrayed himself as a friend of working people, the poor and elderly.
He told jurors his talk on the wiretaps merely displayed his approach to decision-making: to invite a whirlwind of ideas—“good ones, bad ones, stupid ones”—then toss the ill-conceived ones out. To demonstrate the absurdities such brainstorming could generate, he said he once considered appointing himself to the Senate seat so he could travel to Afghanistan and help hunt down Osama bin Laden.
Other times, when a prosecutor read wiretap transcripts where Blagojevich seems to speak clearly of trading the Senate seat for a job, Blagojevich told jurors, “I see what I say here, but that’s not what I meant.”
The government offered a starkly different assessment to jurors: Blagojevich was a liar, and had continued to lie, over and over, to their faces.
Lead prosecutor Reid Schar started his questioning of Blagojevich with a quick verbal punch: “Mr. Blagojevich, you are a convicted liar, correct?”
“Yes,” Blagojevich eventually answered after the judge overruled a flurry of defense objections.
The proof, prosecutors said, was there on the FBI tapes played for jurors. That included his infamous rant: “I’ve got this thing and it’s f—-ing golden, and I’m just not giving it up for f—-ing nothing. I’m not gonna do it.”

Update December 8, 2011

Blagojevich gets 14 years in prison for corruption

By MICHAEL TARM and DON BABWIN, Associated Press
45 mins ago
CHICAGO – Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against criminal charges became a national spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday, one of the stiffest penalties imposed for corruption in a state with a history of crooked politics.
Among his 18 convictions is the explosive charge that he tried to leverage his power to appoint someone to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat in exchange for campaign cash or land a high-paying job.
Judge James Zagel gave Blagojevich some credit for taking responsibility for his actions, but said that didn’t mitigate his crimes. The judge also said Blagojevich did good things for people as governor, but was more concerned about using his powers for himself. The former governor admitted his crimes and apologized in court earlier in the day.
“When it is the governor who goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn and disfigured and not easily repaired,” Zagel said.
As the judge announced the sentence, which includes a $20,000 fine, Blagojevich hunched forward and his face appeared frozen. Minutes later, his wife, Patti Blagojevich, stood up and fell into her husband’s arms. He pulled back to brush tears off her cheek and then rubbed her shoulders.
On his way out of the courthouse, Blagojevich said it was a time to be strong, to fight through adversity and be strong for his children. He said he and wife were heading home to speak to their daughters, and then left without answering any questions.
But during the nearly 19 minutes that Blagojevich addressed Zagel, his children and what he has done to their lives dominated his plea for mercy.
Because of his crimes, “I have jeopardized my ability to protect my children,” he told the judge. “My children have had to suffer. I’ve ruined their innocence.”
The twice-elected Democrat received by far the harshest sentence among the four Illinois governors sent to prison in the last four decades. He is the second in a row to go to prison; his Republican predecessor, George Ryan, currently is serving 6 1/2 years. The other two got three years or less.
Blagojevich, in a last plea for mercy, tried something he never had before: an apology. After years of insisting he was innocent, he told the judge he’d made “terrible mistakes” and acknowledged that he broke the law — even as he maintained that at the time he did not know he was breaking the law.
“I caused it all, I’m not blaming anybody,” Blagojevich said. “I was the governor and I should have known better and I am just so incredibly sorry.”
But Zagel gave him little leeway.
“Whatever good things you did for people as governor, and you did some, I am more concerned with the occasions when you wanted to use your powers ... to do things that were only good for yourself,” Zagel said.
The judge said he did not believe Blagojevich’s contention, as his lawyers wrote in briefings, that his comments about the corruption schemes were simply “musings.” Zagel said the jury concluded and he agreed that Blagojevich was engaged in actual schemes, and the undeniable leader of those schemes.
“The governor was not marched along this criminal path by his staff,” Zagel said. “He marched them.”
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 15 to 20 years, which Blagojevich’s attorneys said was too harsh. The defense also presented heartfelt appeals from Blagojevich’s family, including letters from his wife and one of his two daughters that pleaded for mercy.
But the judge made it clear early in the hearing that he believed that Blagojevich had lied on the witness stand when he tried to explain his scheming for the Senate seat, and he did not believe defense suggestions that the former governor was duped by his advisers.
The 54-year-old was ordered to begin serving his sentence on Feb. 16. In white-collar cases, convicted felons are usually given at least a few weeks to report to prison while federal authorities select a suitable facility. Blagojevich is expected to appeal his conviction, but it is unlikely to affect when he reports to prison.
Most of the prisons where Blagojevich could end up are outside Illinois. One is in Terre Haute, Ind., where Ryan is serving his own sentence. In prison, Blagojevich will largely be cut off from the outside world. Visits by family are strictly limited, Blagojevich will have to share a cell with other inmates and he must work an eight-hour-a-day menial job — possibly scrubbing toilets or mopping floors — at just 12 cents an hour.
According to federal rules, felons must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence a judge imposes — meaning Blagojevich wouldn’t be eligible for early release until he serves nearly 12 years.
Going into the sentencing, many legal experts said the governor — who became a national punch line while doing reality TV appearances such as “Celebrity Apprentice” while his legal case unfolded — was likely to get around 10 years. A former Blagojevich fundraiser, Tony Rezko, recently was sentenced to 10 1/2 years, minus time served.
Prosecutors have said Blagojevich misused the power of his office “from the very moment he became governor.” He was initially elected in 2002 on a platform of cleaning up Illinois politics in the midst of federal investigations that led to the prosecution and conviction of Ryan.
Defense attorneys have said Blagojevich has already paid a price in public ridicule and financial ruin, and had proposed a term of just a few years.
Blagojevich’s sentencing came just days before his 55th birthday on Saturday, and nearly three years to the day of his arrest at dawn on Dec. 9, 2008, when the startled governor asked one federal agent, “Is this a joke?” In a state where corruption has been commonplace, images of Blagojevich being led away in handcuffs still came as a shock.
It took two trials for prosecutors to snare Blagojevich. His first ended deadlocked with jurors agreeing on just one of 24 counts — that Blagojevich lied to the FBI. Jurors at his retrial convicted him on 17 of 20 counts, including that he demanded a donation from a hospital executive in return for increased state support for children’s health care, and seeking to extort donations from a racing executive in exchange for quick approval of legislation.
FBI wiretap evidence proved decisive. In the most notorious recording, Blagojevich is heard crowing that his chance to name someone to Obama’s seat was “f—-ing golden” and he wouldn’t let it go “for f—-ing nothing.”
Blagojevich clearly dreaded the idea of prison time. Asked in an interview before his retrial about whether he dwelled on that prospect, he answered: “No. I don’t let myself go there.”
In the same interview, Blagojevich also explained that the family dog Skittles was bought after his arrest in to help his school-age daughters, Amy and Annie, cope with the stress of his legal troubles. He said he joked with them that, “If the worst happens (and I go to prison), you can get another dog and call him `Daddy.’”
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Associated Press writer Deanna Bellandi contributed to this report.