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And the parallels between Bush and Blagojevich continue:

“This is an emergency,” Blagojevich told reporters after the announcement. “Children are being shot and killed. And for lawmakers to say we can’t do it, that’s exactly the reason why there’s so much violence out there today and so we’re just not gonna take ‘no’ for an answer.”

No lawmakers had yet said that they couldn’t do what the governor wanted. Blagojevich briefed just a couple of them beforehand, so how would he even know how lawmakers felt? The governor hadn’t submitted legislation containing the proposal, so lawmakers hadn’t even seen it. Heck, they probably hadn’t even seen the press release at that point.

What he meant was that he would make the choice very clear to the General Assembly: “If you don’t vote for my capital plan, then you’re siding with the killers.”

As if the Statehouse atmosphere wasn’t poisoned enough with broken promises, stalled legislation, rising deficits, corruption allegations (most of them against the governor himself) and general dysfunction, now we’re going to be subjected to crud like this?

Fear-mongering doesn’t work forever. Bush’s use of the tactic isn’t producing the results it once did, partly because we’ve become almost dulled to the overuse of fear and partly because he’s been so discredited in the public’s eyes.

Blagojevich is even more discredited than Bush, if the polls are correct, so it’s doubtful that this gambit will work to persuade a skeptical General Assembly and an angry public to climb aboard. Just the opposite.

And that’s too bad because his plan is pretty good.

Many of Blagojevich’s plans are decent or at least a good place to start negotiating. The problem is that he doesn’t negotiate in good faith and he thinks any criticism is an attack on him and not a policy disagreement.  And those who disagree must be demonized.

The most bizarre thing from this proposal is that he insists it must be passed immediately, but then ties it to the Titanic of bills currently.  Blagojevich, like Bush, is quickly becoming background noise. If he loses Jones, he’ll simply be a bystandard.