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or Democrat, you play ball with "the system" or you get thrown off the court. Madigan's plan to toss all of Ryan and Blagojevich's appointments out of the ring sounds good on the surface. It's an admission that many of those jobs were patronage-based: cleaning out the den of thieves, so to speak, would sweep away the taint of politically-inspired appointments and fresh air would, once again, blow through Springfield-at least that's how the rhetoric goes.

There's a problem with this type of simplified thinking and one doesn't have to go far into the archives to uncover it: remember Raymond Burris! When Blagojevich was threatened with indictment and before he was impeached as governor, he had the legal right to appoint Obama's successor to the recently vacated Senate seat. The anguished and sanctimonious cries arising in the Illinois General Assembly made one thing clear: Blagojevich was right with his assessment that "This seat is <bleeping> golden!" It wasn't so much that Burris had done anything wrong, or that he wasn't eligible to hold the position: it was that he apparently wasn't high enough up the ladder or indebted enough to someone in power to have the seat. He was too poor, too honest or too dumb.

The ruling party in the General Assembly had hit the jackpot, losing several prominent party players to Washington. And they didn't want to give up the treasured Senate seat for nothing. As Blagojevich said, the position was golden. Many well-known names wanted the seat-names we'd all recognize on the nightly news. But the only way the Illinois General Assembly could stop him would be to order an election for the open seat-and, without the proper time to prep the machine and grease the palms, they were afraid an election might allow a Republican to win. That couldn't be risked! And that's patronage-at its highest levels. Political cynics all had a good laugh as the big-haired boy governor outwitted the entire Democratic Party-and they couldn't do a thing!

There are some folks that have their eye on both Burris' seat and the governorship-and those people are not only "connected", they're related! In the incestuous world of Illinois politics, no one even batts an eye at the fact that Speaker Mike's daughter, Lisa Madigan, is being seriously considered for one or the other of those seats. No one is suggesting Attorney General Madigan isn't doing a good job or that she isn't qualified for either seat. But Daddy Mike does love his little girl and guaranteeing

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