Ordinarily, I’d be near enraged at someone fleeing like that, but you and I have no idea what kind of pressure he was under from what are extraordinarily powerful criminal interests (the mob with the force of the government behind them). IL is extra-ordinarily corrupt. It has been for a very long time. I would think it not unusual if Fitzgerald was being threatened in private: “You have a nice family there, Senator. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, now would you ?”
I believe he no longer resides in Illinois, and I can certainly understand that.
Curious you bring up Eliot Ness. But what you don’t know is that Ness was one of many people involved in bringing down Capone and organized crime and his authority came down from the President and the FBI Director. Ness, unlike the stories, was never a one-man army. I guarantee you during his tenure in office, Dubya would’ve been closer to Hastert and that gang rather than Fitzgerald. I didn’t see him speaking out on how important it was to Illinois to keep him. Contrast that with the maneuvers pulled to make sure sleazy RINO Lindsey Graham was renominated in 2008 and Tom Ravenel sandbagged over charges that were previously kept quiet (so long as he stayed in lesser office).
As for Rauner, I expect he has his own personal agenda, he may be taking the tack of wanting to run the outfit himself (at least the “R” wing of it). Even if he appears to want to reform certain governmental operations does not make him a “reformer” as we term it. Corrupt or not, they’ve still got to deal with managing the state.
Indeed. Bush’s DOJ was a disgrace in many ways.
They shouldn’t have covered up Ravenel’s coke snorting, indicting him only when it appeared he might challenge Graham. Much like in finding cancerous growths, drug fiends and perverts in the GOP ranks need to cut out, as soon as they are found. If he had been found out by the democrats before his 2006 reelection as State Treasurer, we may have lost the office.