Buh-Bye, Blago

I've got a new piece up at CifA about Blago been dispatched to the political hereafter:

The 59-0 vote to remove Blago from office is ultimately less interesting than the 59-0 vote taken immediately thereafter, which bans him from ever holding public office in Illinois again. It's exceedingly unlikely – even in Illinois, even in a national political culture that loves a comeback, even in a country where Tom DeLay can still be invited to talk shop on cable TV news – that Blago's career would have been resurrected by the electorate, so the vote, while providing a tidy bit of insurance, was, perhaps, mostly symbolic.

It's nonetheless a sweet bit of lemon juice poured into the wound of the oxygen-sucking Blago, whose love of attention sent him running to every plugged-in microphone and camera in a three-state radius and found him accepting the bizarrest of chat show invites, oft with amusing results, like tucked in amongst the women of The View with the jaunty demeanor of an Ocean's Eleven cast member with a new film to promote. For a man whose most fervent desire is to be seen, to be heard, to be important, the cruelest cut of all is not being asked to leave, but being relegated to oblivion.

Read the whole thing here.

And while you're over there, take a moment and read Katha Pollitt's piece about the removal of family planning funding from the stimulus bill.