The decision by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to -- in his words -- "fight" charges that he was seeking to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate badly complicates state and national Democrats' efforts to quickly dispose of the matter and avoid any long term damage to the party's prospects.
"I will fight this thing every step of the way," Blagojevich announced at a raucous press conference this afternoon in Chicago. "I will fight. I will fight. I will fight."
Blagojevich added that he had "done nothing wrong" and said he had no plans to step aside from his post simply due to "false accusations and a political lynch mob."
Blagojevich took no questions but his defense team -- led by Ed Genson -- echoed their boss's insistence that he was innocent, compared him to Harry Truman and urged the press to "give him a second to breathe."
Many Democrats had hoped privately that Blagojevich had (finally) come to the realization that he was in a politically untenable position and the best -- and only -- thing for him to do was step aside.
Other articles that might interest you on this topic, breaking news from Chicago, Blagojevich: 'I have done nothing wrong' and 'I Will Be Vindicated' where it's confirmed he stated:
"I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath," Blagojevich said in his first official statement since being arrested last week on federal corruption charges. "And I'm not going to quit a job that people hired me to do because of false accusations and a political lynch mob."
He does know that there are tape recordings of some of the things he said, doesn't he?
2 comments:
you know - I have no horse in that race but I keep thinking that Kwame Kilpatrick said this I've done nothing wrong, and Michael Flory (the MI Young Rep. chair who pled guilty eventually to several counts of sexual assault in Cleveland) said the same thing and the list I'm sure could go on and on. I don't know what he did or whether it's illegal, but he's saying what he has to say, I guess. I don't know - how many times do they come out and say I did terrible things? Even William Jefferson, David Vitter - I don't know. Some do but I think most don't. What always bugs me is the reliance on the law to tell us whether something is illegal or not, when we know inside whether we should or shouldn't be doing something. Argh that drives me nuts.
I don't know, it'd be refreshing though for one of them to admit it.
Then again if they were totally honest, ethical people chances are they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place...
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