BLAMEGOJEVICH?

"It wasn't my fault. Honest! I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn't my fault, I swear to God!"

Whose fault was it that a legislative package limiting the frequency of legal handgun purchases failed in committee when an Illinois State Police lobbyist opposed two of the bills? According to Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois State Police's boss, it's the fault of Mayor Daley's staff.
From the Tribune:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich blamed city lobbyists Monday for roadblocks Mayor Richard Daley's gun-control package encountered in Springfield this month as the governor announced he was launching a special state police unit to fight illegal gun-trafficking.
Blagojevich has pledged to back Daley's gun measures, but when several of them came up in a Senate committee, the governor's lobbyists either were silent or, in a few instances, registered opposition to the measures.
Blagojevich said he would have pushed for the bills had Daley lobbyists let him know they were up for a vote.

But state Sen. Ira Silverstein, who sits on the panel that rejected Daley's bills, said the governor's office should have known the bills were up for a vote since they were posted a week in advance.

"That's totally false. That's not true," Silverstein said of the governor's comments. "Everyone is just passing the buck. And the governor has to get more involved. He says one thing up North and another thing down South ... and passing the blame to the mayor's lobbyists is wrong."

Have you ever dealt with an absentee landlord?

You know the type: One who employs someone to manage the property and do upkeep, but who -- because he lives so far away -- never does any follow-up to make sure that the work is being done. And when the two of you finally wind up in housing court, the absentee landlord tells the judge that if only he had known that the place was falling apart, he would have take care of the problem right away.

To my eyes, the Governor is looking more an more like that absentee landlord -- It seems that every time someone points out that things are falling apart down in Springfield, Blagorgeous holds a press conference in Chicago to assure the people of Illinois that he would have done something -- if only someone had let him know about the problem.

Rich Miller has more.