Vindication, The Chicago Way

Oh, come on, folks; didn't the Trial Of The Century pretty much HAVE to end up this way?:

As governor, Rod Blagojevich was a personal and political riddle, and the muddled end Tuesday to his summer-long federal corruption trial did little to clear up the mystery.

After fourteen days of deliberations, the six-man, six-woman jury convicted Blagojevich on just one of the twenty-four felony counts he faced - a charge that he had lied to FBI agents about his intense involvement in campaign fundraising.

Prosecutors made it clear they intend to quickly retry Blagojevich on the twenty-three counts on which the jury deadlocked.

Why was O.J. Simpson tried for murdering his wife in downtown L.A. instead of Simi Valley, where the homocide actually took place?  Political home court advantage.  His legal Dream Team knew that no jury picked from ground zero of the Rodney King riots that had only erupted a couple of years before would EVER convict a famous black man no matter how open and shut the case.

Same here:

It was a sales job, two people seizing upon a sad fact of American life: Celebrities are permitted to murder people. If they're allowed to kill other human beings, what's a little graft?

All they had to do was gain some kind of shady, sketchy, bottom-feeding what's-below-the-D-list celebrity status, and some shut-ins and social retards whose only friendship and comfort comes from a glowing box would imprint upon them and deem them "good people."

Is this what happened? Or is it just a political thing, someone either defending sugar-daddy ward-heeler Blago, or defending him because they see past him and worry that if this domino falls then Jesse Jackson Junior or - God forbid - the New God Obama could be damaged?

Personally, I see that as opposite sides of the same coin.  At least in a partisan cesspool like Chicago, where jury tampering is the antithesis of Lays potato chips - all it takes is one:

Juror Erik Sarnello of Itasca told the Associated Press that the jury was deadlocked 11-1 on the Senate seat count.

He said one woman who held out “just didn’t see what we all saw.”

Jury Foreman James Matsumoto said the voting on the charges was all over the place. On some counts, there was one holdout; on others, three, five or even seven people felt the governor was not guilty.

“I felt that we were in trouble the first full day of deliberations,” said Matsumoto. “It was because of the difference in the approach to the evidence and how they saw it. If someone said, ‘Oh, they’re just talking,’ and a number of people said, ‘Were you listening to the same testimony I was?’”

Which leads to the inevitable (at least to me) next question for Patrick Fitzgerald: How do you "idiot-proof" a jury in frakking Chicago?  And isn't it pretty clear that Blago is a lot more aware of the true answer to that question than The Man Who Put Away Slipstick Libby?:

Funny, I don't remember Libby ever mouthing off like this after he was convicted on his lone derivative charge.  Can you imagine how insufferable Blago is going to get after the next jury hangs?

And has anybody else noticed that Blago is to Mike Myers who Wario is to Mario?