Blagojevich still hanging in there with Trump

In trouble during his first term as Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich somehow managed to win re-election.

In a case of art imitating life, Blagojevich once again overcame the odds and managed to earn another week as a contestant on "The Celebrity Apprentice."

In Sunday night's second episode of this year's "The Celebrity Apprentice" TV show on NBC, Donald Trump did what Illinois did by giving Blagojevich a second chance. In his first opportunity to fire a man from the RockSolid team of male celebrities, the host Trump canned comedian Sinbad instead of Blagojevich or Poison frontman Bret Michaels.

While Blagojevich's political brethren were passing a historic health care bill in real life, our disgraced governor basically stood around in the background during episode two. Perhaps our disgraced governor is just a victim of unflattering editing, but he certainly came across as the dimwitted loser who hangs out with the cool kids.

After watching Blago bumbling his way through a gig as a time-challenged waiter at a diner during the first episode, Blagojevich's teammates didn't give him any important duties in the next task. Blagojevich was the guy who took photos of people with celebrities. His RockSolid team put him in charge of ordering balloons, which made perfect sense given Blagojevich's reputation for producing hot air.

Sharon Osbourne, one of the female celebrity contestants, said Blagojevich "looks half-baked."

Just as he did when he was a waiter, Blagojevich brought nothing to the table except for his self-serving proclamations of innocence. He said he was a member of what Teddy Roosevelt called, "the fellowship of the doers." But everything he did was for his own benefit. Captured making an obviously personal phone call, a foul-mouthed Blagojevich talked about how "this guy was a close friend of mine" and "betrays me."

Later, he interrupts an on-screen talk about strategy to say hello to a passer-by who apparently recognizes him.

"You guys get that?" Blagojevich asks the TV crew, obviously proud of his celebrity moment.

But he might not want to get too cocky.

On the street, one man hollers "You are a disgrace!" and "Enjoy prison!" But the most humbling moment for our former governor might have come from two women who were very nice to him. Turns out that was because they mistook him for Donny Osmond.