A less cocky but still defiant Blago media circus
A couple of hours before the live broadcast of "Mr. Blagojevich Goes to Prison," members of our media circus are literally still setting up their tents when Rod Blagojevich unexpectedly pops out his front door, with his 8-year-old daughter, Annie, in tow.
"How are you doing? Anything happening?" the convict says coyly (can't quite bring myself to say "innocently") before he breaks out his prime-time smile.
Enablers that we are, we reporters, photographers, TV camera-operators, radio folks, and website content providers crowd around Blago as if he actually might say something anybody needs here.
"Thank you," he says as he shakes the hand of one of his admirers, who came to show support.
Annie tries to pull her dad toward the waiting, white Cadillac of a family friend.
"You need some water?" Blagojevich asks an older fan. The former governor hesitates as if he truly will run inside and fetch a bottle if she just gives him the word.
As the media crush squeezes between parked cars and into the street, a photographer shouts a warning to make sure we don't crush the little girl clinging to her father's hand.
"Poor little Annie," Blagojevich says, pulling her front and center. "What do you think of all these people?"
"I don't like them," Annie says.
No matter how you feel about Blagojevich, you have to feel for his daughters. Annie will show up again at the end of this column. Amy, 15, stays inside the house.
During his message timed to be broadcast live on the evening news, a less cocky but still defiant Blagojevich bemoans the "calamity" facing his family. Calamity? If you didn't know he was convicted of many crimes, including trying to peddle the vacated Senate seat he once called "(expletive) golden," you might think a twister hit the family home.
Sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for his crimes against the people of Illinois, Blagojevich sounds as if he's campaigning. He lists his highlights of his years in office and promises to keep up the fight to prove his innocence.
"The law as it stands now says I've got to do what I have to do …," Blagojevich says.
He is to arrive Thursday in Littleton, Colo., to begin life as inmate No. 40892-424. His freedom finished, Blago is leaving his five-bedroom, four-bath, three-fireplace, 3,817-square-foot Ravenswood Manor for a bunk bed in a cell smaller than his current master bath.
"I have a hard time even saying where I have to go ... prison. That's a hard word to say," Blagojevich says.
He praises Patti and makes her cry to the accompaniment of digital cameras snapping away.
Elected on a campaign to end "business as usual" and clean up the state after two terms of the corrupt and grandfatherly Gov. George Ryan, who is serving his sentence in a federal pen in Indiana, Blagojevich will still face more than a decade in prison after Ryan's scheduled release on July 4, 2013.
The 55-year-old father says leaving his children, who will be women by the time Blagojevich is scheduled to be released, would be "the hardest thing."
"We are teaching our kids in hard times and tears you have to live in your hopes and not your fears," Blagojevich says.
Feeding off the cheers of a couple dozen strident supporters who drape him in an American flag, chant "Free Blago" and wave homemade signs of support, including one that reads "Innoscent," the politician springs into action. You can take the office away from the politician Blagojevich, but you can't take the politics out of him.
Blago pumps his fist, waves, shakes hands, hugs children and signs autographs on everything from tattered caps and signs to baseballs and a Girl Scout cookie box.
It's all about him, his last hurrah, but it's not really. Annie walks out of the house and says something to her father. He continues to glad-hand the crowd as Annie trudges back inside.
"I look like Tim Tebow," Blagojevich jokes as he kneels to sign a piece of paper on his knee.
Annie comes out again. Waits. And goes inside.
"Go home, drive carefully, put your seat belt on," Blagojevich proclaims.
Annie returns.
"Patti's making my favorite, spaghetti," Blagojevich says, as if he must go leave.
"Let him be with his family," a woman yells, apparently blaming those of us in the media who can't walk away from this scene anymore than we could leave a train wreck while the caboose is still tottering on the trestle.
Annie, wearing a colorful T-shirt with a butterfly above the word "Dream," goes inside for the last time. It will be another five minutes before a publicist drags Blago inside the family home.
Perhaps Blagojevich is teaching Annie and the rest of his family how to live without him.