'The Passion of Blagojevich' offends everybody

Why does embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich just keep beating around the bush when you know he is dying to come right out and say it?

He's suffered more than Jesus.

Oh sure, the threat of losing his great job after being arrested and charged with ripping off taxpayers might not seem to us to be as awful as being beaten, whipped and nailed to a cross to die, but we don't have the ego and audacity of Rod Blagojevich.

Nobody knows the suffering Blagojevich has seen. Not even us 12 million people of Illinois whom the governor says are being "hanged" alongside him. (Don't you feel stupid for not knowing you share the same plight as the Guv?)

The mass slaughter of 12 million people? Did Blagojevich just say his situation is equal to two Holocausts? Or was he merely picking up the racial conversation that has been sweeping the country this week, and say his impeachment hearing is the same thing as being hanged from a tree because of the color of your skin?

Are you offended, yet? But wait, there's more. Blagojevich says Dec. 9, the day he was arrested and carted off in handcuffs, is a date of infamy just like when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. And he calls himself a "soldier." So now he's just like one of the sailors who died on the USS Arizona.

As truly offensive (and I mean stomach-turning offensive) as I find everything Blagojevich says, the passion of the governor comes through during his Friday news conference. He stops just short of asking Mel Gibson to direct "The Passion of Blagojevich," which would still be rated R, but only for the governor's language.

I'm guessing Blagojevich, who had the financial hardship of being born into a family where people had to work for a living, just didn't think of the Christ comparison or he would have used it instead of all those others he floated out before settling on his Tales of the Old West analogy.

Let's hear that cowboy one, shall we? Saddle up, pardners. Wait, no, gather around the campfire like all those bean-eating cowboys in that movie directed by another Mel, Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." That lends the right air to Blagojevich's story.

In it, Blago is hard at work branding cattle and poking cows and taming the Wild West all honest and do-gooder-like on his spread of ranch called Blagonza. He's not working for his personal gain, mind you, just so Blagonza can provide flank steaks for the school marms and pony rides for the orphans and such.

All of a sudden, riding up over the ridge comes a crooked sheriff (let's call him Black Fitz) and his posse looking to lynch somebody. For no reason whatsoever, except maybe Black Fitz is jealous of Blago's 10-gallon hat (or is that hair?), the gang of thugs pick on Blago, who is having a wonderful life and is line to be the Mr. Blago who goes to Washington some day.

But, with only a House vote and a Senate hearing, this group wants to put the rope around his neck and kill an innocent cowboy - or, at least a cowboy presumed innocent until his criminal trial runs its course. And as I'm writing this, even his criminal defense lawyer is riding off into the sunset without him.

"They're just hanging me," Blagojevich says, sporting a hangdog expression as he says it. (Note to Guv: You should compare yourself to "Old Yeller" during your next news conference. That might make people cry at the way your are being treated.)

It's all just so unfair, says the governor who is accused of trying to sell President Obama's old Senate seat.

Blagojevich's performance Friday might not convince you and me that he's a martyr. But I do wish critics would have seen it before the Oscar nominations were released.