From the Chicago Tribune website, a wire story that catches the disjointed nature of today's trial of a defendant who wasn't there:
Blagojevich trial moves on without himAnd so on. Another, from the Bloomberg financial news service, focuses on the Statehouse action we watched today:
By The Associated Press
6:47 PM CST, January 26, 2009
Gov. Rod Blagojevich spent the day defending himself on TV shows in New York while the impeachment trial that could oust him began in Springfield. Here is what happened:
IN NEW YORK: Blagojevich spent the day on network television, with appearances lined up on NBC's "Today" show, ABC's "Good Morning America," "The View," and "Nightline," and CNN's "Larry King Live." Before national audiences, Blagojevich said federal agents who tapped his home telephone and bugged his office took his conversations out of context. He said he did nothing wrong and defended his decision to boycott the Senate impeachment trial, saying there's no way he can get a fair shake.
IN SPRINGFIELD: The Illinois Senate began the trial without Blagojevich. Neither the governor nor his lawyers were there to dispute the charges or challenge the prosecutor's list of witnesses.
THE PROSECUTION BEGINS: Prosecutor David Ellis presented his case against Blagojevich to the full Senate, saying the governor actively set in motion several plots to use his executive power to enrich himself with a high-paying job in Obama's Cabinet or campaign contributions or other benefits. Abuse of that authority, the prosecutor said, warrants Blagojevich's dismissal from office. ...
Illinois Senate Starts Governor’s Impeachment Trial (Update4)And so on ...
By Andrew Harris
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Illinois Senate began the impeachment trial of Governor Rod Blagojevich in the state capitol in Springfield, a proceeding that may end with the two- term Democrat removed from office for alleged abuse of power.
Blagojevich, 52, was impeached by the state’s House of Representatives on Jan. 9, a month after he was arrested by the FBI on corruption charges, including allegations that he tried to auction President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat for campaign cash. Blagojevich isn’t attending the trial.
“This is a solemn and serious business that we are about to engage in,” Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, who is presiding over the trial, said today. “The record will reflect that the governor has failed to appear.” In the absence of an answer to the summons served on him Jan. 14, the governor is being treated as having pleaded not guilty.
The senators will vote up or down on one article of impeachment. ...
Who says we don't get worldwide attention. Here's The Guardian (U.K.), a London broadsheet and arguably the best newspaper in the English-speaking world:
Blagojevich skips impeachment hearingSo we've got Springfield in the headline, the governor (in New York) in the lede ... along a really, really fun quote from his TV blitz.
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
The Guardian, Tuesday 27 January 2009
According to the embattled Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, not even the character testimony of "15 angels and 20 saints led by Mother Teresa" could keep the state senate from throwing him out of office.
Which may explain his decision to stay away from impeachment proceedings in the Illinois senate yesterday. Instead of facing what he described as "a kangaroo court" and "a hanging without even a fair trial", Blagojevich flew to New York, where he launched his defence in a round of interviews on television talkshows.
The disgraced governor, who stands accused of seeking to sell Barack Obama's vacant US Senate seat for personal gain, is an unhappy distraction for a Democratic party and a country embracing its new president. And his television appearances were unlikely to win him any sympathy.
Defending his absence from the trial, Blagojevich told NBC's Today Show that not even the parade of celestial witnesses could alter the course of a trial he described as "rigged" and "fixed".
(By the way, if you took COMM 207 [copyediting] last semester, you noticed the period goes outside the quotemark in British English. Made your teeth grind, didn't it? Because you learned to care about things like that in 207, didn't you?)
BBC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., arguably the most objective news source in the world, in any language, takes a solemn and serious approach to the solemn and serious proceedings in Springfield:
Illinois impeachment trial opens(Grizzled veterans of COMM 207, by the way, no doubt will note with appropriate wailing and gnashing of teeth the absence of a period after "Mr" and the initials in "U.S." These things matter!)
Page last updated at 20:13 GMT, Monday, 26 January 2009
The impeachment trial of US Governor Rod Blagojevich over charges that he tried to "sell" Barack Obama's Senate seat has begun in Illinois.
The trial in Springfield will determine whether the state's chief executive will be forced out of office.
Mr Blagojevich - who is refusing to take part in the trial - has denied doing anything wrong.
The Illinois House of Representatives earlier this month voted to impeach him over the charges.
"This is a solemn and serious business," Illinois Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald told the state senators at the start of the trial.
Senators are considering charges that Gov Blagojevich, a second-term Democrat, tried to sell the US Senate seat vacated by President Obama, used his authority to pressure campaign contributors and defied legislative decisions.
But by far the most news outlets hit the angle of the governor's absence from the trial. My favorite was columnist Joseph Curl of the Washington Times, written for tomorrow's paper:
CURL: Blago's impeachment circusCurl, by the way, writes a column for the Times called "The Political Circus." Moral of the story: Get to be a columnist, and you say things like that because your name is at the top of the column. But even then, you stick with the obvious angle -- that Blagojevich not only skipped out on his own impeachment trial but worked the TV shows in New York City while he was at it.
Joseph Curl
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. | It was like going to the circus and finding out that the clown had called in sick.
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on Monday skipped the opening day of his impeachment trial, which he dismissed as a "sham" devised by fellow Democrats who want him out so they can raise taxes on hard-working Illinoisans. But 59 state lawmakers nevertheless gathered under the crystal chandeliers of the garish Capitol's Senate chamber to weigh the fate of the foul-mouthed governor, charged with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama.
"Is the governor present?" state Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald asked shortly after banging his gavel to open the tribunal. A silence as big as the governor's hair followed. "Let the record reflect that the governor has failed to appear."
Skipping opening day, though, didn't stop the impish 52-year-old from making news - lots of it. In New York City for a dawn-to-dusk media blitz that included stints on "Good Morning America, "The View" and "Larry King Live," the man known simply as Blago blasted into the headlines by declaring that he had considered choosing another single-named superstar to fill the open Senate seat: Oprah.
No comments:
Post a Comment