All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

If you haven't heard, ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was on The Late Show with David Letterman last night proclaiming his innocence and, at least briefly, talking hair care products.

Video of the appearance is below.

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For an attorney and lawmaker, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich sure seems to have a limited understanding of guilt and innocence.

The coiffed crusader was on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman today (airing later tonight) to once again let America know the truth: He's innocent.

And how do we know he's innocent? Because he says he's innocent.

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This analysis is by CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen

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In his appeal to the Illinois state Senate, Gov. Rod Blagojevich was calm, he was organized and he was a lot less fiesty and argumentative than he had been earlier in the week on all those talk shows.

His appeal was simple: I may be a rough and tumble governor who likes to cut through red tape and who pushes too hard, but my motives were always good and my conduct was always legal. That's a tough sell in politics or law.

Even if it doesn't save his job, we clearly saw a preview of the defense he'll offer in federal court if and when he is indicted on those bribery and corruption charges that led to his impeachment. He's going to say the evidence is weak, that what he did is what politicians do, and that he had no criminal intent during all those alleged pay for play phone calls.

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This analysis was written by CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

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Today, the threadbare phrase “political theater” rises temporarily from cliché. Kingfish-like, Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich will tear himself away from the green rooms and audio ear pieces of New York and will, on this last Thursday of the rest of his life, deliver himself into the well of the State Senate in Springfield.

There, he will face his prosecutors, who also happen to be his judges, to stand and deliver his own closing argument for an impeachment trial at which he has not been present or presented any defense.

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This analysis is written by CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen

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We have learned over the past thousand years or so that there is something about the nature of politics, something about the yin-and-yang of governance and the gratuitous bowing down to voters, that draws self-destructive people into its orbit. The list of elected officials who have ruined their own careers through hubris and greed and lust and sheer stupidity is endless. See, e.g., Spitzer, Eliot.

Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, however, may have brought this pattern to a new low.

First, he pulled a Gary Hart and challenged the world to tape his phone conversations. His challenge, naturally, came exactly one day before U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald filed a powerful criminal complaint against him based upon incriminating wiretapped phone conversations between Blagojevich and his satellites.

No reasonable person in the world, under investigation (and who knew or should have known that his phone was tapped), would talk smack that way. And yet Blagojevich did.

But that suicidal move was nothing compared to what the governor has done this week while his impeachment trial has been underway in the state legislature in Springfield.

Instead of respecting the political/legal process and defending himself against still-unproven bribery and corruption charges, instead of doing what a reasonable person in his circumstances would do, Gov. Blagojevich left Illinois, traveled to New York, and compared himself to Ghandi, Mandela, Roosevelt, etc.

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Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appeared on CBS News' The Early Show this morning to keep defending his side of the story as his impeachment trial continues in the Illinois Senate.

Blagojevich explained why he was bringing his case to the public.

"It's more important than me," he said. "It's about the people who twice elected me. You can't throw a governor out without giving that governor a chance to show he did nothing wrong. That's what they're doing. It's a dangerous precedent.

"But if you're asking me do I see myself like a modern-day Frank Capra movie, and I'm the Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper character, a guy idealistically trying to do what's right for people, fighting a system, and then be pushed back? Yeah, I see myself that way."

Click here to read more from Blagojevich's interview or watch below.

The Illinois House has voted to impeach Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has been charged with trying to effectively sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat. The vote was 114 to one.

The State Senate will now decide whether Blagojevich will be removed from office. President Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House on December 19, 1998 but was later acquitted by the Senate.

After corruption allegations emerged against Blagojevich, he appointed Roland Burris to Mr. Obama's seat. Burris testified in hearings over Blagojevich's impeachment and it remains to be seen whether he will take up the seat.

Read more about the impeachment vote here.