Madigan-Blago-Rezko

Video clip. "Not closely associated."says Blago's co-chairman.

One of the regular readers of this blog caught this, and sent it to me. While many of us in Illinois, including Republicans, are grateful that Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, a Democrat, has occasionally put the lid on some of Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich's hair-brained spending and other schemes, he got away with an outrageously false statement on Fox Chicago Friday night at the end of the clip above.

Madigan said he could see that indicted Blagojevich fundraisers Chris Kelly and Tony Rezko were trouble so he kept his distance:

"I made a decision very early on in the Blagojevich administration not to be closely associated with what they were doing."

Let's put a number value on the distance between Madigan and Blagojevich when Madigan announced he was co-chairman of Rod's re-election campaign in 2006: 0.

Back in July 2006, the Tribune, mentioning Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, went on to report:

Madigan's father, powerful Southwest Side House Speaker Michael Madigan, is a co-chairman of Blagojevich's re-election effort and chairman of the state Democratic Party.

Kelly and Rezko, as everybody knew, were doing their questionable fundraising for the benefit of the very campaign fund that was fueling the re-election campaign he was co-chairing--and Madigan knew it. Amazingly, Fox Chicago's Dane Placko and Jack Conaty, two of Chicago's most experienced political reporters, didn't call Madigan on that colossal rewrite of recent history.

Related post: Reaping the Whirlwind, Governor Napoleon