Anybody remember Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”? Some scary shit in that book, Carroll, as did Shakespeare, skewing the powerful under the cloak of fiction. First the verdict, then the trial, that’s how power operates when it feels the need. Evidently, it feels the need in Illinois.

Hey, I know it’s hard to keep up with the various crimes of the government. There’re so many, plus after eight years of that drunken imbecile Bush we’re all tuckered-out and want to just rest up, maybe let Barack handle it for a while.

But something dreadful is going on in Illinois, and it’s apparent that the media is checking out on it. Maybe the last few living journalists are also tuckered-out. With the exception of Eugene Robinson, and D.L. Hughley (thanks, JBD), all I’m seeing is a lynch mob chorus, led by the formerly-perfect Rachel Maddow, stringing-up the now-former governor on the basis of hearsay, wiretapped obscenities, and bad hair.

The actual bill of particulars, drafted by a special committee, adopted by the lower house on a 117-1 vote, and used to support the conviction and removal of Rod Blagojevich by the Illinois legislature, runs to 69 pages. I don’t believe that America’s ‘journalists’ have read it; certainly, few if any have read it with an open mind.

Blagojevich’s ‘guilt’ is, after all, an accepted fact. The authority for this comes from the actions of one Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, and we all know that he is an incorruptible shining star, the white knight who nailed Scooter Libby for, well, playing some role or other in the ‘outing’ of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

According to mainstream media, Fitzgerald is an American hero, practically a saint. If he says Blagojevich committed crimes, formalities such as trial by jury and leftist ideas such as the presumption of innocence are, as former Attorney General Gonzalez once said of the Geneva Convention, quaint.

I shouldn’t take a bite of out Fitzgerald yet; I need to save my appetite for the Illinois legislature.

Let’s begin with Illinois House Resolution 1650, adopted on December 15, 2008, which created the Special Investigative Committee. The Committee then convened on the 16th and held ‘hearings’ on the 17th, 18th, 22nd, 29th, and on January 7th and 8th.

The Committee offered Governor Blagojevich seven days in which to gather witnesses and present exculpatory evidence.

Well, what could be more fair?

Reminds me of the time back in 1964, when the University of California administration believed that they could defuse the Free Speech Movement by referring the matter to a committee which didn’t actually exist. Fortunately, the Berkeley students were a lot smarter than the hacks being used to stuff the chairs in Illinois’ legislature.

Thing is, the House Committee wrote to Fitzgerald and stated what lines of inquiry it wished to pursue and which witnesses it wished to call; Fitzgerald responded requesting that they “refrain from conducting any inquiry into the subjects” relating to his investigation, and from “seeking information or testimony from the individuals” relevant to that investigation. He also said that he would share no materials – the lone exception, interestingly enough, being the wiretap excerpts – which he had gathered in the course of his investigation.

So Blagojevich was perfectly free to defend himself using any witnesses he was denied the chance to call and any documentary evidence he was not allowed to hear or see. Can’t get much more fair than that.

It gets better.

The Committee Report follows its bizarre opening about the Governor’s rights with a lengthy discussion of what might constitute sufficient grounds for impeaching and convicting a sitting governor. It turns out that, according to the Illinois House, nobody really knows. Citing out-of-context comments of Alexander Hamilton and Gerald R. Ford (seriously), pulling lines out of court dicta in Connecticut and Texas, the Committee makes the case that there are no guidelines, it’s a political and not a legal act, and that no attempt to define impeachable offenses can get anywhere. It would be “futile” to define what needed to be proven.

If I could cut and paste the damned pdf file, I’d give it to you word for word, that’s how great an example of pure rhetorical vacancy can be had when you have to justify the unjustifiable. The Committee concludes that it may impeach Blagojevich for any reason at all, or for none, if you had to be specific.

First the verdict, then the trial.

Now, to be fair about it, once Fitzpatrick shut the door on “conducting any inquiry into the subjects” of his investigation, what was left? If they were going to get rid of that bastard Blagojevich, they were going to have to do it without evidence.

Think for a moment about what you’ve heard in the public commentary about this case. You’ve heard that Fitzpatrick had accused the Governor of trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, as well as threatening the Chicago Tribune with withholding funds for Wrigley Field unless the newspaper shit-canned its editorial board. There’s some miscellany, but those two are the ones you’ve heard about.

The Illinois legislature could not conduct hearings, nor take any evidence, nor afford the accused a chance to call his own witnesses, because Fitzpatrick had sealed the documents (including, of course, the recordings) and sealed-off the witnesses.

The Committee wraps-up its review of the law by claiming that because an impeachment is “remedial” and not punitive, the courts actually have no jurisdiction over the matter. Therefore, there are no legal rights which may be adjudicated. Just fucking takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Finally, because the impeachment is “remedial” and not punitive, it is not the rights of the accused which are pre-eminent but the ‘rights’ of the public, which has been wronged. Therefore, it is not necessary that any of the acts alleged constitute an impeachable offense; indeed, one does not have to believe that the alleged acts were even committed, provided that the legislator determines that the overall pattern of behavior is sufficient.

With this preamble, it scarcely matters what charges were alleged against Blagojevich and formed the rhetorical cover for his hanging, however the charges themselves are quite instructive. Although they were not intended to do so, these charges suggest that there may have been something else going on in Illinois, something relating to bare-knuckle politics and how government works, that the mainstream media don’t show much curiosity about.

Enough for now. More shortly.