Rod Blagojevich's impeachment

Rod Blagojevich cried victim to the last, said The New York Times in an editorial, but, "mercifully for Illinois taxpayers," not one state lawmaker fell for it. The State Senate unanimously voted Blagojevich out of the governor's office for gross abuse of power. Now taxpayers won't have to listen to more excuses while their government "flatlines."

Blagojevich could have used his statement at the close of his impeachment trial to explain his damning words recorded secretly by the FBI, said the Chicago Sun-Times in an editorial. Instead, he made everybody listen to him say: "I didn't do it. I didn't let you down." Enough already. You did let us down, "even in your very last speech."

Blagojevich was "defiant, a bumbler—and indisputably dishonest," said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. "This was not, though, the curative removal of one rogue tumor from an otherwise robust body politic." Illinois is a sick state, and any place that is stricken by a culture of political sleaze has to cure itself or the next Rod Blagojevich will come along soon.

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