Corrupt Governor Update

Courtroom sketch by Verna Sadock

First, while the media has reported that the Blagoo is out on bail (but had to surrender his passport and hair product, so he ain't going anywhere) there is still no word whether or not he offered the court a "fucking sweet I-DOT gig or maybe a Department director job, or hey, howdja like to be a Senator?" in lieu of cash bond.

Because, yeah, he really is just that arrogantly clueless.

More from here:

Blagojevich free on $4,500 bond

Dec. 09, 2008
(AP) — A federal judge in Chicago has ordered Governor Rod Blagojevich released on his own recognizance after the Democrat was hit with federal corruption charges.

U.S. District Judge Nan Nolan said "Good afternoon, governor" in greeting Blagojevich at the afternoon bond hearing. The governor was wearing sweat pants, gym shoes and an athletic shirt.

He was released on a signature bond that specifies that he'll forfeit $4,500 bond if he doesn't appear in court. Blagojevich also was ordered to relinquish his passport and his firearm owner's identification car.

The governor was arrested at his home Tuesday. He's facing charges that accuse him of trying to benefit financially from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate.
...

Second, have you ever thought about what a weirdly anachronistic job

"courtroom sketch artist" actually is?

We've seen their work all our lives on teevee and in the dead tree media, and not that I want the goons from Sketch Artist, Dramatic Readers and "History Detective" Re-Creationists Local 1175 to come beat me to jelly or nothin', but it is, after all, a cartoon we're talking about.

Drawn from real life that's true, but it is nonetheless a quick graphic study that everyone just accepts screws with the visual perspectives and stacks the characters bas relief-style for the sake of getting all the principles in the frame. A holdover from another era when the public apparently wouldn't have believed the papers if they just asserted that a Governor of Illinois was in court for egregiously and criminally defiling his office, but needed some kind of cartoon to seal the media credibility deal.

And since the name of the game is giving the public something to look at that conveys a representational sense of what went on free from the need for photographic verisimilitude,

I don't see any real reason why freelance graphicists like me who can knock out pretty good and often memorable political piecework very quickly

shouldn't be able to cash in on some of that sweet, sketch artist coin.

Lastly, I must say that seeing this on the first page of my Statcounter report

was somewhat disturbing.