UPDATE: In a brief statement, a Chicago Police Department official confirmed that eight computers and a safe were stolen from Blagojevich's lawyer's office. "The content of the computers we have no knowledge of, nor do we care about," he said, which makes absolutely no sense to us.

From the Trib:

Chicago police are investigating a burglary at the law offices of the attorneys for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, sources said, and are trying to recover computers containing discovery evidence in the sweeping corruption case.

Someone broke into the offices of laywers Sam Adam and his son, Sam Adam Jr., in the 6100 block of South Ellis Avenue, sources said, and stole computer equipment. At least one of those computers carried copies of secretly made tape recordings in the case, sources said.

How very Nixonian! Blagojevich has called himself "the anti-Nixon"; we can't really figure out at this early stage whether this break-in cements or undermines that characterization. Since the material stolen is reportedly discovery evidence, and therefore just copies of what the prosecution has, our completely uninformed gut is telling us that this was staged in order to give Blagojevich cover to start leaking extended portions of the incriminating wiretaps—something he has repeatedly said he looks forward to doing. Either that or he dumped all his mob-related files on his lawyer for safekeeping. Of course, it could just be a random break-in, just like everyone thought Watergate was at first. But for some reason, we're disinclined to give Blagojevich the benefit of the doubt.

When beloved former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to Obama's Senate seat, because Burris is black and because Blago could, we all thought, at first, that Blago had selected a competent public official, just to ensure an easy political victory on his way out of office. This Burris fellow is a former Illinois Attorney General! He is well-respected! How boring!

But no, Blago would not do that to us. Blago so loved the United States Senate that he appointed it a crazy egomaniac with a giant stone shrine to himself.

And so, at a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing last week on the subject of "czars," Burris asked a lot of very important questions about the Constitution. Dave Weigel has the full transcript, and all of it is worth your time. But, wow, any portion of it is worth quoting.

[Burris:] Every president's going to go through it. I don't even know how we in the Congress can legally - I mean, I heard the distinguished ranking member say that we passed a law. We can pass a law and say there's going to be a position in there, but I don't think the Congress can tell the president who to put in that position.

I mean, if we do that, then I think that we're violating the separation of powers. I mean, this is what we get into. And you can create a position. What happens if - what happens if the president says, "I don't want to appoint anybody as secretary of state. I'm going to use the undersecretary as an acting secretary"?

Is there a law that would require us or require the president to appoint a secretary of state? Is there? Is there?

CASEY: A law that requires the president to appoint a secretary of state?

BURRIS: Yes.

CASEY: Specifically, there would not be a law requiring him to do that. Now, of course, if he wants the functions that you vested in a secretary of state performed, he - he probably has to do…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But there is no law that says he has to even appoint a secretary of state, is that - am I correct?

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: There's a statute that says there's a position - a secretary of state position…

CASEY: Right, right - shall be appointed in the following - yes - I'm unaware of any…

(CROSSTALK)

BURRIS: But is there a law that says the president has to make that appointment?

CASEY: Not that I'm aware of.

After admitted cocaine-user and celebrity comedian Al Franken disappointed everyone by turning out to be a smart and serious US Senator, we must rely on Burris even more to entertain us with examples of how broken and useless the United States Senate is.

(Speaking of Czars! The Senate continues to refuse to confirm anyone Obama appoints to anything and then complain when he hires people they didn't confirm.)

[Photo: AP]

• There's high-flying drama in the house of Oprah. One of the talk show queen's personal flight attendants filed a lawsuit in which she claims she was inappropriately fired over bunk "mile high" claims. Other attendants, including Gayle King's daughter, claimed that Corrine Gehrls and pilot Terry Pansing had sex during a flight, but both parties denied it — and passed a lie detector test. Still, Oprah refused to give them their jobs back and now Gehrls wants $75,000, which she could find in Oprah's couch. [Us]
  
  
• Irritatingly cute singer Michael Buble has found a new lady love — his music video vixen, Luisana Lopilato. She speaks little English. Score! [Page Six]
  
  
• A hearty congratulations to Christina Hendricks, our favorite Mad Men redhead, who was married this weekend. We're sure our invitation got lost in the mail. [ET]
  
  
• Prison's taking its toll on Roman Polanski, whose lawyer says he's "depressed." And that depression will no doubt deepen if he's extradited. [THR]
  
  
• Penelope Cruz won't say if she's pregnant, but she wore a loose-fitting dress, which in Hollywood code means she is. If only all of life's big announcements were so easy. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Emmy Rossum, who's reportedly sleeping with Counting Crows front man Adam Duritz, says she understands why "chicks dig him," which is funny, because we can't imagine why... [People]
  
  
• Madonna's brother, Christopher Ciccone, fancies himself an artist. [Page Six]
  
  
• Finally! After being denied the chance to be on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will now live his reality show dreams on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. Now, isn't it time we all make more concrete rules about who exactly counts as a "celebrity." [Chicago Tribune]
  
  
• Kourtney Kardashian's unborn child will be a boy. [NYDN]
  
  
• Dannii Minogue, Kylie's less famous and less talented singer, made an off-hand remark about an X Factor star's sexuality, apologized profusely, but people still want her head. [The Sun]
  
  
• Late reality star Jade Goody's ex-husband, Jeff Brazier, vowed never to let her widower, Jack Tweed, see Goody's children again because he's a no good drinker with anger problems. Fair enough. [Daily Mail]

Perhaps, for a former fundraiser for disgraced Governor and media whore Blagojevich, Christopher Kelly, has left this world, the apparent victim of what cops say could be a self-administered overdose. That seems to be a tragedy. But is it?

Kelly, who refused to rat out his pal Blago, was brought to the hospital on Friday and told cops that he had overdosed on drugs, although the officer who took that statement later said he couldn't confirm such a report. Fair enough, but that does nothing to quiet murmurs about known gambling addict Kelly's death. This guy, who was pronounced dead on Saturday, had loads to lose, and not only over his devotion to Blagojevich:

...At the time of his death, Kelly had run up thousands of dollars in personal debts was believed to be strapped for cash.

He was facing three years in prison for hiding $1.3 million in income, including company money he used to pay gambling debts that he wrote off as business expenses. He was facing five additional years for taking part in an $8.5 million fraud involving roofing work on United Air Lines and American Airlines hangars at O'Hare International Airport.

Of course, considering Kelly's relationship with old Blago, some are wondering whether the investigation led to Kelly's so-called suicide.

Carol Marin, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, has been following Kelly's problems for some time now, and thinks that all the hub-bub over his "misdeeds" may have led him to end his life in a spectacular, drug-induced manner. She also assumes he was guilty of his crimes.

That may be so, but aren't such questions overlooking the real question: should we be troubled by Kelly's death? Sure, on a human, sympathetic level, we should at least empathize with a man whose personal woes led to his downfall. On the other hand, this man clearly had some shit to work out. And, considering the investigations, we would put money on the fact that something wasn't quite right.

Still, there's something troubling here. Humans are fallible, sure. We get that. But could it be that the alluring prospect of personal gain in the political realm, something greater than one man's life, led to this? There are shades of Vince Foster in all of this.

We won't go so far to say there was a conspiracy, because that would be downright melodramatic, but this man, however corrupt, was seduced by a system that he thought he could win. He obviously lost.

But, in the end, politics is a game. And, as disturbing as this personal tragedy may be, Mr. Kelly's downfall is, sadly, only one more drop in the bucket. So, kids, still want to be president?

Like many fallen legislators before him, Mr. Blago has put pen to paper to produce a tome, entitled The Governor. The title alone says it all: here's a man who's astonishing God complex knows no bounds, especially when it comes to playing the media.

From day one, he has courted the press and used various airwaves, interwebs and channels to plead his case: "I did nothing wrong." But now that his book's been released, his true colors come out. So he writes about his first appearance before a judge:

As expected, the courtroom was packed with the media. These are the kinds of things they just love. Good news; forget about it...

This was going to be a great day for them. This is what they live for. The misfortune of others is a mother lode of fortune for them. And in a mad dash to write about the bad news, they're so busy tripping over each other and trying not to get scooped by the competition that the search for the truth is a casualty. It's collateral damage.
....
It's a rat race out there. It's a rush. It's a rush to beat the competition. It's a rush to sell newspapers. It's a rush to judgment! Screw the truth. Edward R. Murrow would roll over in his grave.

Indeed he would. Blago also suggests that the newspaper industry's taste for tabloid blood "undermines" democracy, or some shit. Because, you know, "allegedly" trying to sell a Senate seat helps further the cause. But, as with all things Blago, this must all be taken with a grain of salt, for his clear disregard for reality borders on pathological.

Today, in an interview about the damning FBI transcripts, Blago claims the comments were "taken out of context," such as his remark that he wants "to make money" and won't give up the seat for "nothing."

Blago views the media as nothing more than a stage on which he can act out a nearly primal play about the deficiencies of news-making and, in fact, the political world as a whole. He knew news folk would latch onto his story, a move that both gave him room to grow his ego and simultaneously mind-fuck the nation by pulling the strings like a puppet master who's not only in on the joke, but wrote it himself. (The most definitive proof, we think, came when he made a bid for a reality program that automatically assumes one's "celebrity" status.)

Sadly, all this pain and sorrow hasn't helped book sales. The Governor is only 5,519 on Amazon's entire book list. Not too shabby, no, but certainly not what he expected, we're sure. Maybe the next act will be better.

We reported a little over a month ago that the Today show had booked Blagojevich to appear on the morning he happened to be arrested by the FBI, but bumped the interview so they could flack for Jay Leno's new show. We found that out through a Freedom of Information Act request to the state of Illinois asking for e-mails from representatives of the media to Lucio Guerrero, Blagojevich's press secretary (we got the idea from South Carolina's The State, which did the same thing—to comic effect—after Mark Sanford's Argentinian Rhapsody).

The first raft of e-mails we got were from December 8, the day before Blagojevich got popped, and it included one from Today producer Lexi Dauber apologetically canceling a scheduled remote Q-and-A with Matt Lauer to make room for Leno news. We just got another batch covering the 48 hours after the arrest, and guess what? Dauber and her fellow Today producer Stephanie Siegel all of a sudden really wanted to talk to Blagojevich!

The traditional route for a reporter desperately trying to convince someone to submit to an interview when it's obviously not in their interest to do so is to drop all pretense of toughness and objectivity and lie to them: We will be your friend! Not like all those other mean reporters. While Dauber and Seigel's e-mails to Guerrero are understandably sympathetic, an internal write-up of a phone call with Siegel outlining the terms of her interview request shows what they were really willing to give up. Matt Lauer or Meredith Vieira would call Blagojevich before the interview to "go over the line of questions," and Seigel stressed that "they are sensitive."

CBS's Early Show also went the simpering route, telling Guerrero that there is "far too much hearsay going around" and offering Blagojevich an opportunity to "set the record straight" and "clear his own name." They were even willing to "rent a private space to keep him away from the rest of the media's view." We all know how annoying prying reporters can be.

ABC News' Diane Sawyer, on the other hand, didn't try to buddy up to Blago. To her credit, Sawyer's producer offered a fairly straightforward pitch that managed to avoid over-the-top sycophancy.

Larry King's producer relied on the rogue's gallery that has traipsed through King's studio in the past, positioning the host as the go-to guy for crooks, liars, and other humiliated figures—go with us and you can be in the fine company of Jeffrey Skilling, Gary Condit, and Bob Packwood!

King's CNN colleague Anderson Cooper wasn't even trying: His producers sent in a perfunctory, We-asked-Governor-Blagojevich-to-come-on-the-show requests that they knew weren't going to open any doors.

Likewise the producer for CNN's Campbell Brown dashed off an email that would allow her to dutifully report that a request was in.

Sometimes brevity is your best bet when dealing with a harried flack who's clearly deluged with requests. That's what Andy Shaw, a political reporter for Chicago's local ABC station, decided to go with.

That kind of approach is important when you know your target is dealing with all manner of zany proposals. Like a request for comment from "a representative for Dan Ackroyd [sic] and Jim Belushi" on their call for Blagojevich's resignation. When a press aide forwarded that message to the governor's press assistant, she responded, "What? I want you to explain."

(For the record, it looks like that was a hoax call—we can't find any evidence that one-half of the Blues Brothers and the talentless brother of the other, dead, half ever made such a demand.)

The most pathetic request comes from Pat Curry, the news assignment editor for WGN, a local Chicago station. He wasn't even asking for an interview with Blagojevich—he wanted Guerrero himself to come on, and delivered a masterwork of flattery and faux sympathy. "I wouldn't expect you to be able to comment on a federal investigation, and could easily brush that off," Curry wrote, signing off with, "Humbly, Pat Curry."

A producer for a local Chicago talk radio show hosted by husband-and-wife pair Don and Roma Wade wins the award for discretion, declining to put in writing the "incredible offer" he had for Guerrero.

We'll never know what that offer was, but guess who got the first post-arrest interview with disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich?

You can read the whole batch here. Interestingly, not one e-mail from Fox News turned up. It could be that they relied solely on the phone, or that their e-mails somehow got missed by our FOIA requests. Or maybe they figured it wasn't worth trying.

It seems crazy now, but there was a moment when Blagojevich was actually sought after by news organizations, and not the other way around. But according to e-mails obtained by Gawker, Today dumped him because of an "NBC related" story that the show "need[ed] to cover—Leno getting his own show at 10 p.m."

Back in early December, Blagojevich was making a name for himself both as a crusader for the victims of the recession and as an obviously corrupt thug who was about to be arrested—the Chicago Tribune reported on December 5 that the feds were listening in on his phone calls. Sounds like a good guy to interview, for news and such! So on December 8, 2008—the day that Blagojevich appeared at a sit-in held by laid-off workers at an Illinois window factory and announced, "I don't care whether you tape me privately or publicly, I can tell you that whatever I say is always lawful"—Today Show producer Lexi Dauber set up an exclusive interview with Blagojevich for Matt Lauer. Here's the e-mail exchange between Dauber and Blagojevich's press secretary Lucio Guerrero confirming the interview for the morning of December 9 (click on the image for a larger version):

Unfortunately, "news" intervened. By 8:30 on the evening before Matt Lauer was set to interview a sitting governor who was being wiretapped by the federal government, Dauber e-mailed Guerrero with her regrets, citing the fact that the show had to make room for a segment about the announcement of Leno's new show at 10 p.m.:

It was obvious to anyone who was watching MSNBC and NBC on the day of the Leno announcement that the company's news properties were ordered to cover the story like a missing white girl. But it's nice to have the directive in handy e-mail format, and to know just what sorts of stories NBC News is willing to shitcan to make way for in-house press releases. Indeed, on the morning of December 9, Matt Lauer sat down with the New York Times' Bill Carter to talk about Leno and how "you're going to get to laugh along with him a little earlier in the evening."

Hmmm, what else happened on the morning of December 9? Oh—Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested by FBI agents at his home in Chicago. So, yes, in NBC's defense, the interview almost certainly would never have happened anyway. But according to the e-mails—which Gawker obtained from Illinois under the state's Freedom of Information Act, because we really thought the State was onto something—Blagojevich was scheduled to show up at NBC News' Chicago studio for a remote at 5:45 a.m. He was arrested at his home at 6:15 a.m., after an FBI agent woke him with a phone call to let him know they were outside. So it's possible that if Today hadn't bumped him for Leno, he might have left his house before the feds got there. Or maybe they were sitting on his house 24 hours a day and would have just popped him as he was leaving. Or maybe they would have tailed him to the studio and arrested him live on the air! We'll never know, because NBC News is Jeff Zucker's personal PR shop and makes a mockery of the the "values" that Brian Williams and his colleagues claim, preposterously, to stand for.

After being contacted via e-mail for comment for this story, an NBC News spokeswoman asked us not to publish it until she could talk to us about it on the phone. So we called her, and she refused to comment for the record.

Also, here's what Guerrero e-mailed back to Dauber after she cancelled the interview, about 10 hours before his boss was arrested:

Again, Sanford was informed that a South Carolina paper was set to publish details they'd uncovered about the affair, including those hilarious emails, prior to his press conference, but looking back at other politicians who acted defiantly after being caught equally red-handed doing things they shouldn't have been doing, Sanford's emotional mea culpa was, well, kind of refreshing. When watching the entire thing, it was hard not to feel some twinge of sympathy for him, no? Especially when you look back at the four guys in this clip for a reminder of the absolute worst way for politicians to handle getting caught doing things they shouldn't have been doing.

He was 24 minutes late to the podium and then he rambled, just straight-up rambled, apologizing to literally everyone he's ever met, talking about dinosaur sheets and "Adventure Trips," becoming tearful, and wasting a full ten minutes of rambling before finally admitted to cheating on his wife. He cheated on his wife for a year with some friend from Argentina, and his wife has known for five months, and the affair just continued, while he worked on his marriage, and it was not until he disappeared on Fathers' Day (to spend "five days of my life crying") and the media caught wind that something might be up here that he decided it was time to apologize to his family and maybe stop the affair.

It was a bravura live political meltdown. Though it was dissimilar in tone, it was a cousin to Blago's classic presser. Not the first one, with the poetry, but the classic Friday afternoon performance about the children with cancer. Or maybe the one about cowboys? But while Blago filibusters and mugs and grins, Sanford just bared way, way too much of his soul.

It blew away Spitzer's one minute apology—He took questions! His wife was at home!—and Clinton's initial denial and eventual apology were, in comparison, boring.

It was Terrell Owens-esque, actually. Sure, he could've blamed outside forces, like when Mark Foley's attorney blamed booze and priests. But no. He had no excuses. That made any sense.

It was reminiscent, especially with the wife's glaring absence, of the pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani classic, "I am telling the press about my separation from my wife before I tell my wife."

Sanford didn't have a single sound bite as classic as Nixon's "last press conference" (well, maybe "the biggest self of self is indeed self"), but it will provide us with many days of joy, until Tim Pawlenty's "I am addicted to meth" conference next month.

Sanford's instant classic in full:

He is just nuts, this one! The show is not a light-hearted romp, or gently mocking tribute. It is basically a reenactment of the various scummy things listed in the criminal complaint against the former Illinois governor, "making ample use of tape." The Tribune's theater critic describes the surreal scene:

Blagojevich only showed up at the start of the Navy Pier show (above), and in the improv set at the end. But he still found time to recite a portion of the St. Crispin's Day speech from "Henry V," shill for his wife's reality TV show set in the jungles of Costa Rica ("If you can vote for her, please do"), invite the cast of this "fictional show" to dinner ("we'll be serving tarantulas"), indict the "football" hairbrush used in the Navy Pier show as "too small," and get off a few gags.

What a weird, weird guy.

[Via Wonkette]

Yesterday afternoon word leaked that a transcript of a conversation between Burris and Rod Blagojevich's brother, Robert Blagojevich, had been unsealed by a federal judge at the request of a U.S. Senate ethics panel investigating Burris, and the transcript revealed that Burris offered to personally write Blagojevich a check for the Governor's Senate appointment, among other things.

"Tell Rod to keep me in mind for that seat, would ya?" Burris is quoted as saying in the Nov. 13 telephone conversation with the governor's brother Robert Blagojevich. which was secretly wiretapped by the FBI.

The remark came after Robert Blagojevich, head of the then-governor's campaign fund, urged Burris to "keep me in mind and you know if you guys can just write checks that'd be fine, if we can't find a way for you to tie in."

"Okay, okay, well we, we, I, I will personally do something, okay," Burris says.

Earlier in the conversation, Burris and Robert Blagojevich explored the possibility that Burris might raise campaign money on a larger scale.

"I know I could give him a check," Burris said. "Myself."

Burris' lawyer, Tim Wright, said that the tape in question will actually vindicate his client and help him to emerge from the black cloud of controversy his Senate appointment's been engulfed in. Wright told the Chicago Sun-Times that Burris discussed writing a $1,500 check but that his client never sent it to Blagojevich, a decision he claims had absolutely nothing to do with Blagojevich's Dec. 9 arrest.

However, some members of Congress don't exactly see it the same way.

Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), said he is "extraordinarily" bothered by Burris' willingness to donate to Blagojevich by mid-December and disputed Wright's assertion the tape exonerates Burris.

"That's not what he told our committee at all," said Franks, the sponsor of a resolution to censure Burris that is bottled up in the House. "I don't think there's any vindication here at all. It underscores what we found at our committee: He wasn't truthful."

What will become of Burris, most recently seen making up stories about helping old ladies on airplanes, and his career in the Senate remains to be seen, but we can't help but feel that all of this controversy swirling around Burris is rooted in nothing more than a bunch of haters who can't control their petty feelings of tomb-envy. Leave crazy old Roland Burris alone, okay?!

Burris on tape: Promises to 'do something' for Blagojevich [Chicago Sun Times]

Novelist Irvine Welsh will be directing his second movie right soon. The pic is called The Magnificent Eleven, and while it sounds like it's about Spinal Tap's amplifiers, it's actually about football. Like, faggy British "football." So, soccer. [Variety]

Jim Carrey has begun a bizarre-sounding whistle stop tour for his upcoming Robert Zemeckis weirdo half-animation movie, A Christmas Carol. Disney basically gutted four train cars and filled them with shit about the movie and now it'll roll into 40 cities nationwide, with Carrey in tow, so people will go see the movie. We've always said that Jim Carrey is the Harry Truman of Hollywood. Though, as far as train tours go, we've always been partial to Willa Cather's. [Variety]

So Rod Blagojevich can't be on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Outta Here! because, you know, he's like being indicted and junk. But his wife Patti can! And will be! She just flew to LA to film a promo for the June-premiering series, in which a crazy old billionaire hunts the most dangerous game for our viewing entertainment. [THR]

Oh for the... Bazooka Joe, a wildly unfunny comic strip found in gum, will become a movie. In related news, Universal has staked its whole summer 2010 profit plan on their tentpole epic, Howard Huge. [THR]

Midnight screenings of Terminator Salvation nabbed $3 million last night, a good sign for the franchise picture's box office chances. We're going to see it this afternoon at the local. WILL YOU DO YOUR PART, TOO? [Variety]

The killjoys of the Illinois State Senate are passing some terrible bill that wouldn't allow elected officials "convicted" of "misconduct" from cashing in on their fame.

If the governor is convicted, he must "forfeit any monetary rights derived from any book, movie, television, radio program, or Internet depiction or detailing of the crime for which he or she was convicted."

Uh but wait, Patti "That Fucking Cubs Shit" Blagojevich is exempt from the bill, so she totally gets to go be on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, even though she is not a "celebrity," she is just the crazy, cursey wife of Rod Blagojevich. What the hell, Illinois.

The "world famous Moonlite BunnyRanch" announced in a press release today that they've offered the beloved hero of the Illinois taxpayers an "apprenticeship" at their legal house of ill repute.

This apprenticeship could be featured throughout the upcoming season of HBO's CatHouse. Rod's willpower would be challenged daily by the ladies as they bribe him to acquire finer rooms or better working hours and days off. In lieu of Rod's work throughout the apprenticeship Dennis Hof will pay him a handsome amount of money.

Yes, ok, it is a dumb press release promoting one of the HBO shows that only exists to give old dudes without internet skills something to jerk off to but we have not yet mentioned the best part:

The Mancow Muller radio show in Chicago facilitated a conference call with Dennis Hof and Rod Blagojevich's PR Manager, Glenn Selig. The conversation was successful and Glenn Selig is taking this offer very seriously and will present it to Rod Blagojevich very soon.

Isn't that thrillingly plausible? Blago's PR manager is clearly almost as insane as he is. This could happen!

Um, yeah. So... Blago was going to be on the upcoming season of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, which I don't need to explain because the show is so beautifully described in L'Inferno, but a federal judge said, "Um, actually you're being indicted on 17 pretty serious charges right now, so no, you can't go to Costa Rica to film a fucking reality show." So, he's not doing it, but he is promoting it! He showed up at a junket to support his would-be costars, a roster of ghouls that ranges from the aforementioned Hills idiots to born-again Baldwin Stephen to Tail Spin character made flesh, American Idol's Sanjaya.

What did he have to say about the would-be experience?

I had sold myself on this being a way for me to be a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt. I basically deluded myself into being that, and then the judge made his decision.

So, that's a thing that someone said once, whatever in the good Christ it means. Is Rod Blagojevich about to invade Cuba?

At least he acknowledged that he's deluding himself about... something. Anyway, this is all to say, here's a horrible thing, now please look at it. I mean, just look at it. Those are people.

Those are people, America.

[LAT]

Blago attempted to portray the appearance on NBC's I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! as a job opportunity which paid $80,000 a show and will allow him to provide for his kids. He's been unemployed since being removed from office, and is facing multiple corruption charges. A Costa Rican official noted that he'd be a free man in that country, as he doesn't have any convictions — just that impeachment thing.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel cannily forbade the gig. "I don't think this defendant in all honesty ... fully understands the position he finds himself in," he said in court. Oh, we think Blago understands. And if anyone was going to go on the lam in the jungles of Central America, it's Blago.

(Photo by Brian Jackson/Sun-Times))