Two Things
The old man likes to remind me that there are two things that can ruin a person. One is impropriety. The other is the appearance of impropriety. Today our Ex Governor, George Ryan, proved the old man right.
I have no idea if the man is actually guilty of all the things he has been convicted of. What I do know is that there was enough evidence to convince 12 people that he was guilty. I'm not one to second guess their opinion. This trial has been going on so long now that the fact that the verdict came out was actually a surprise to me. The story had disappeared from local news coverage. These 12 people have been sitting through it all. They spent as much time as they needed deliberating. In the end you have to trust the people in the room to make the right decision. (It makes me wonder why juries have 12 people. Is it symbolic or did some sort of proto psychology / sociology statistical math go into the decision).
Now I'm not happy about seeing a 72 year old man go to jail. That is pretty much a life sentence. At the same time I'm not one to forgive that kind of abuse of the public trust. Jail time is definitely in order.
The real challenge will be to convince my fellow liberally minded folk in this state that when it comes time for the election advertisements to start going into heavy rotation prior to the general election, they need to not try and tar every Illinois republican with the George Ryan guilt by association brush. I can already see the "culture of corruption" commercials and that sort of mud slinging only helps to divide a vary polarized state. (Chicago Democrats vs Downstate Republicans).
Mostly I see this entire thing as a tragedy. It starts with the tragic misuse of position and ends with a completely changing party politics. Rather than focus on issues more and more it will be about completely destroying an opponents image by linking them in the public mind with scandal and tragedy.
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I have no idea if the man is actually guilty of all the things he has been convicted of. What I do know is that there was enough evidence to convince 12 people that he was guilty. I'm not one to second guess their opinion. This trial has been going on so long now that the fact that the verdict came out was actually a surprise to me. The story had disappeared from local news coverage. These 12 people have been sitting through it all. They spent as much time as they needed deliberating. In the end you have to trust the people in the room to make the right decision. (It makes me wonder why juries have 12 people. Is it symbolic or did some sort of proto psychology / sociology statistical math go into the decision).
Now I'm not happy about seeing a 72 year old man go to jail. That is pretty much a life sentence. At the same time I'm not one to forgive that kind of abuse of the public trust. Jail time is definitely in order.
The real challenge will be to convince my fellow liberally minded folk in this state that when it comes time for the election advertisements to start going into heavy rotation prior to the general election, they need to not try and tar every Illinois republican with the George Ryan guilt by association brush. I can already see the "culture of corruption" commercials and that sort of mud slinging only helps to divide a vary polarized state. (Chicago Democrats vs Downstate Republicans).
Mostly I see this entire thing as a tragedy. It starts with the tragic misuse of position and ends with a completely changing party politics. Rather than focus on issues more and more it will be about completely destroying an opponents image by linking them in the public mind with scandal and tragedy.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 1:10 AM
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