Now that Rod is obviously a non-entity in Illinois politics, expect more of these kind of stories:
But when Arya’s run with Blagojevich came to an end, he had a story to tell — one of intense jealousies by the governor toward President-elect Barack Obama, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and others, a terrorized staff, and emotional instabilities that Arya said demonstrate the need for a psychological evaluation by the legislative panel weighing the governor’s impeachment.
It’s an amusing story only to the point you can block out all the crap that underlies it. Let me suggest that one of the first actions of Governor Quinn should be to expunge that nurse’s record.
I have to think that part of the problem here is a press corps that tried to play by the normal rules. I don’t mean this as critically as I often do. These kind of stories were rarely assembled in one place, but these type of stories have been everywhere since at least 2005. In trying to be fair, the press got stories from both those pro and con in regards to Blagojevich and this blunted the full impact of how terrible of a human being he was. He was so far off the charts, the press wasn’t able to handle him. I see this as very different from a case like George Ryan where there were people who could show something good Ryan had done while at the same time being involved in corruption. Rod just asserted he was always right and boldly proclaimed it and no one was in the position to challenge him sufficiently.
The Demuzio funeral incident where Rod held up the ceremony for an hour or more (the time grows every time it’s told, but I’ve never heard it under an hour) and then didn’t go to the graveside is one of those issues Illinois politicians tell, but never fully made it into the press other than some smaller mentions. That incident, while only one incident, poisoned the well in Springfield to a degree few people understand. Actually it goes beyond Springfield to Senator Durbin who tells the story to people when Rod comes up.
This kind of insider tale goes into some depth about Blagojevich to a greater degree than most can because it’s told by a guy who catalogs a pattern of behavior and reinforces ever view of Blagojevich that once seemed to only possibly be a caricature.
I think you also have to take what Arya says with a grain of salt. It is pretty widely known in state government that Mr. Arya was more talk than anything. I worked with somebody who worked for him when he was moved to CMS.
Supposedly, he was hired in 2006 to be the Governor’s travel person. That role lasted a week or two. What he did for his remaining two years was more a result of the Governor’s staff reluctance to fire anyone. I think they even put him in charge of the constituent mail at one point (hence the nurse story). But he still would telll everybody that he “talked with the Governor all the time” – a lie.
Eventually, things got so bad with him not showing up for work (for weeks at a time nobody knew where he would be), that they reassigned him to CMS. He claims in his letter he left the Governor’s office in disgust – a lie. Then, the director of the agency eventually had enough with his lack of showing up to work that he finally got fired. He claims in his letter he left on principle – another lie.
Hopefully some of that background helps put this letter in the proper light. I am sure some of these things happened, and some of these problems with the Governor existed, but this letter is more about Mr. Arya’s healthy ego than anything else.
At least it provided some good comedy looking at all these news outlets take him so seriously. LOL.