A special report for SuicideGirls.com by Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher of BuzzFlash.com.



If you want to understand the baffling behavior of Rod Blagojevich -- now the ex-Governor of Illinois -- it would be wise to begin at a waste dump.

How can an unsightly garbage landfill reveal so much about the sensational, sordid, unethical and complicated personality, political history and actions of "Blago" -- as we nickname here in Illinois?

Well, fasten your seat belts.

In 2005, toward the end of his first term, Blagojevich, with great media fanfare -- very much his style -- unilaterally closed down a waste dump near Chicago. Now, this was unusual since the state EPA would normally handle such matters. More curious, however, was that the landfill was owned by a relative of Blagojevich's wife, the former Patricia Mell.

Okay, keep following me here. Patricia Mell is the daughter of an infamous and colorful Chicago Alderman, Richard Mell (who was a key leader in the white faction who obstructed the mayoral initiatives of Chicago's populist black mayor, Harold Washington). Now it turned out that Richard Mell had a murky relationship -- probably financial -- with his relative's garbage dump.

Richard Mell was not happy with his son-in-law's flamboyant public action and took it as a slight against him, which it appears to have been. So Mell and Blagojevich start making accusations against each other in the press. Mell became so enraged that he told The Chicago Sun-Times that his son-in-law, Blagojevich, had sold seats on state boards and that he had been involved in illicit political activity. (Later, out of concern for his daughter it appears, Mell retracted the charges.)

Suddenly, Illinois not only had a governor who most state Democratic legislators couldn't stand, but the Land of Lincoln found itself in the midst of a segment of Family Feud.

The attack on Mell by Blagojevich was even more perplexing because as a ward power broker, Mell was pretty much responsible for Blagojevich's political ascension from state representative to U.S. Congressman (in the district that both Dan Rostenkowski and Rahm Emanuel have represented) to Governor.

So why would Blagojevich pick a public fight with his father-in-law who was also his political mentor?

Ah, there's the rub, because if you can answer such a question, you could get to the essence of the son of a Serbian immigrant who became a foot soldier in the former Chicago Democratic "machine."

Indeed, Blagojevich is very much a product of the legendary Chicago ward organization. In that way, he is almost a throwback, because younger Chicago Dems are nowadays, for the most part, less tied to the old politics.

Blagojevich served as a moderate state rep and U.S. Congressman. I knew him because he championed gun control as one of his pet issues, and I, alongside representatives from the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, would do press conferences with him now and then.

Some larcenous and delusional people function just fine until they are exposed to a crime of opportunity. That appears to be the case with Blagojevich.

In many ways, Blagojevich is our George W. Bush in Illinois. Never give the keys to the car to Bush; and never give the combination of the state safe to Blagojevich.

Once Blagojevich was positioned to be in charge of a state budget that had billions of dollars to give out in jobs and contracts, his inner ward heeler crook emerged in full force. Even before he was first elected -- in the 2002 election -- he was apparently already promising state jobs, board appointments, and contracts in return for campaign contributions.

At some point in their careers, people discover what they do best: for Blagojevich, it wasn't governing, it was extortion. How can you condemn a man who simply stumbles upon a niche at which he excels?

Contrary to what you might be led to believe by the national media's preoccupation with the circus surrounding Blagojevich's December arrest -- the bizarre news conferences filled with poetry and his subsequent national road trip media tour -- the investigation into Blagojevich's corruption by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office has been going on for more than three years now. It actually began as a probe by the Democratic Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, but migrated over to Patrick Fitzgerald as the alleged crimes began to look more like a metastasized cancer than a couple of isolated incidents.

When Blagojevich is finally indicted by a grand jury early this spring, you can expect the counts against him will be in the mid-to-high double digits.The crimes he's charged with could possibly extend back as far as 2003. He has been the extortionist version of a serial killer; he just couldn't stop himself.

I wrote a column for BuzzFlash a while back that predicts that Blagojevich will eventually cop a plea after the formal indictments.

Why, you might ask? After all, he doesn't listen to his legal counsel. (His last attorney quit, telling the press: "I don't mind clients who listen to me and don't take my advice. But I won't represent a client who won't even listen to me.") Well, the hidden hand that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has to play is the possible potential indictment of Blagojevich's wife, Patti (a.k.a. Patricia, the daughter of Richard Mell).

Patti emerges as a foul-mouthed character in the background of the infamous FBI bugging tapes. She can be heard urging "Blago" on as he tries to use the threat of withholding state financing and tax breaks to renovate Wrigley Field (which the Tribune company is trying to sell to crawl out of financial ruin) as leverage to get some Trib editorial writers fired for calling for Blagojevich's impeachment.

But over the years, the Feds and the Chicago papers have dropped tantalizing hints that Patti profited from "pay to play" politics through commissions that she received as a real estate agent and in other ways. The renovation of the relatively modest Ravenswood Manor Blagojevich home (in a sleepy Chicago neighborhood of upscale bungalows) is another one of the Blagojevich family financial dealings that has come under scrutiny. (There's even a $1500 check, allegedly for one of their daughters, from a third party that is part of the overall investigation by the Feds.)

Should the Feds have substantial evidence of Patti's involvement in her husband's apparent long-term hobby of putting up a for-sale sign on state government, they will pressure "Blago" to fess up and strike a plea bargain.

In return for his cooperation -- under such a scenario -- the Feds will not indict or prosecute Patti. If that turns out to be how it pans out, you can bet that Blagojevich (who flew home virtually every night from Springfield, at taxpayer's expense, while the legislature was in session) would swallow his manly hemlock and protect his wife from potential jail time.

After all, during his public spat with his father-in-law (who still speaks with Patti when Rod's not around), Blagojevich defended going after him with this curious statement: "This is the kind of thing that I think frankly separates the men from the boys in leadership. Do you have the testicular virility to make a decision like that knowing what's coming your way? I say I do."

Well, "Blago" will soon see his "testicular virility" tested big time when he has to either throw in the towel or sell out his wife.

About two months ago, a former female U.S. prosecutor from California was asking me what the story was with Blagojevich and what accounted for his erratic, almost comic behavior since his arrest. I told her that I thought Blagojevich thinks what he did was what all politicians do and that he was actually benefiting the people of Illinois. Call that delusional, call it arrogant, call it blind, I told her, but that's pretty much his story.

"That clears it up," she responded. "I've put a lot of these guys behind bars and they are all pretty much the same."

I asked, "What kind of guys/"

"Don't you know?" she asked. "He's got all the personal characteristics of a hardcore crook."

Rod Blagojevich, it would appear, is as crooked as they come, and the next stop for the mop-headed Elvis fan is probably going to be a federal prison farm where he can sing "Fools Rush In" to his heart's delight. Oh, and he can also hum "Jailhouse Rock" while cleaning the latrines.



Mark Karlin is editor and publisher of BuzzFlash.com, which this May will be celebrating its ninth year of progressive news and commentary on the Internet through an expanded network of websites. Karlin is intimately familiar with Illinois politics.