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A hundred years ago, newspapers used to print serialized fiction on a weekly basis. That way, if there wasn't much news in Podunk that week, everybody still bought the paper to see if Arnold Trueheart managed to save the damsel in distress from her latest difficulties. Watching the serialized tragic-comedy being played out in Springfield and Chicago, one has to wonder if this isn't a ploy to increase the circulation of suffering print media in a down economy. Unfortunately for Illinois and the nation, it's deadly serious.

The reason much of the country can't figure this Illinois political thing out is that you have to live in a big city to understand patronage politics. Small cities seldom manage to approach this level of daily graft and corruption; it takes many years and many willing crooks to make it to the Big Time the way the Illinois political machine has. Small cities simply don't employ enough people to make it attractive or profitable. For the same reason, much of the country doesn't see why the political shenanigans going on in Illinois have major national impact.

The latest episode involves the Officials and Employees Termination Act of 2009 being pushed by House Speaker Michael Madigan. This bill proposes to terminate 3,000 employees and political appointments who obtained their jobs under disgraced Governors Ryan and Blagojevich. For those who may have missed an episode or two, you need only know that Illinois and Chicago leadership regularly ends their careers in a Federal jail cell someplace and business in the State never misses a beat. The Chicago Machine perfected the system of resurrecting the dead to vote multiple times. No one really knows if their vote was actually counted or if they were outvoted by dear departed Aunt Tillie; therefore, no one is quite sure they actually have representation that is responsive to their needs or the needs of whomever dug up the dead. Wannabe movers and shakers quickly fall into line, knowing they'll never climb the ladder without the "right" people behind them. If this seems a bit foggy in the way of an explanation, just read up on the history of Tammany Hall in New York City and realize it took the Federal Govt almost 150 years to break the stranglehold they had on city and state politics.

There's little point in rehashing the indictable sins of Gov Ryan, Gov Blagojevich or even the famed Daley family. All those stories do is prove that corruption in Chicago and in Illinois is truly bi-partisan: Republican

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