Marie, in comments, notes,
"And I’m not going to stand for it."
There’s that same misdirected righteous indignation we heard when he went after cheating cows. He’s getting lost in his own rhetoric.
Well, he can stay sitting down as he is about to be overridden by the Lege.
This fits with a recent post by Eric Zorn on good and bad Rod that describes Blagojevich’s split personality–scroll down–no permalinks. Zorn did a column during the campaign that highlighted the problem and it is linked from his post.
Rod wants to always play the tough guy when a deft hand would do better. He learned not to try and punk Madigan during the campaign, but apparently that lesson was specific to Madigan and not general to people with whom he needs to work. What he doesn’t realize (or maybe care about) is that every time he takes on a political ally with tough language he hands their opponents a campaign issue. Even in those reasonable cases where he disagrees, a softer touch will get him much farther.
The Trib does a nice job slapping him down over the veto as well.
That’s not simple. It’s simplistic. It is a cartoon view of criminal justice that says if you’re with me, you’re with the good guys, and if you’re against me, you’re with the bad guys.
So which is it, governor? It’s difficult to figure out a leader who changes his tune every time he changes his audience.
Seventeen police officers decide whether there should be an administrative penalty of losing one’s badge under the provision he vetoed. Does anyone believe that seventeen officers are going to pull a badge on a weak case? I’m not sure they’ll do it on a strong case.
Zorn addresses why there is a different standard for an administrative action in his post,
police officers to additional scrutiny, higher standards and separate disciplinary boards and proceedings in many areas for a simple reason: With additional power comes additional accountability. This is an extremely common notion that cuts across many regulated professions, such as medicine and the law. Good Rod knows this. Bad Rod thinks he can confuse the issue by portraying himself as an advocate for equal treatment for to police officers.
I’ll go one step further. Employers can discipline employees for less than criminal acts. Police officers are public employees. In this case we are setting up an administrative review panel to ensure fairness to the individual officer. It does go one step further as well banning an officer from employment as a police officer in other Illinois jurisdictions.
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