The most telling new detail comes from Bob Arya, Blagojevich’s senior adviser from 2006 to early 2008.
Arya, who confirmed Brackett’s account in an interview Monday, said all major speeches needed the OK of a Washington consulting firm that was trying to position Blagojevich for a presidential run.
Arya said it was this consulting firm that inserted disastrously aggressive anti-business rhetoric into Blagojevich’s 2007 budget address. In early drafts, the need for a new tax on gross business receipts was framed as an attempt to close loopholes and make the tax system more progressive, Arya said.
“But the consultants said he should turn the issue into big business against the little guy,” Arya said. “So he tried to make businesses look nefarious when they were just following the law. All this did was inflame a lot of people whose support he needed.”
What’s amazing about this is anyone paying attention knew he was going to prison in 2007. I made that point repeatedly in the 2006 race–so that Rod Blagojevich is delusional now isn’t news. He always has been.