Illinois Republican Party

Quinn can't escape his role in state quagmire
1/8/2009

By Andy McKenna, IL GOP Chairman
Chicago Sun-Times Op-Ed, 1/8/09

Ever since political cartoonist Thomas Nast first featured it in 1870, the donkey has been the unofficial symbol of the Democratic Party. But for the Illinois Democratic Party, another animal has become far more appropriate: the chameleon. How else to describe a party that gave Rod Blagojevich its full-throated support as little as two years ago, despite well-known corruption investigations, but now is trying to convince the people of Illinois that they bear none of the responsibility for his misdeeds?

No Democrat better exemplifies his party's transparent attempt to rewrite history than Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn.

Quinn built his reputation in Illinois as a crusader for the people, a virtuous reformer. He led the charge to create the Citizens Utility Board, and he was one of the first to call for the impeachment of George Ryan. But virtue untested is no virtue at all. And when Quinn's virtue was tested, he couldn't throw it away fast enough. He stopped being Pat Quinn, the reformer, and became Lt. Gov. Quinn, the Blagojevich lackey.

Quinn ran at Rod Blagojevich's side, twice. He directly benefited from the same dirty campaign cash that Blagojevich is accused of illegally shaking down state contractors to obtain.

For six years, he said nothing about a governor who was clearly corrupt. When asked directly about Blagojevich and his crooked dealings, Quinn covered for him. When he was clutching at Blagojevich's coattails for a second term in 2006, he said the governor was "a person who's honest and one of integrity" and that "I have confidence the governor does the right thing all the time."

But now that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has confirmed what everyone in Illinois has known for six years, and Blagojevich has nothing left to offer him, Quinn has miraculously found his voice. He wants to be Pat Quinn, the reformer, again. He condemned Blagojevich in words that were as powerful as they were politically convenient. He made headlines by announcing a panel to recommend new reforms to clean up Illinois government.

Where was Quinn with his reform panel in 2006 when it was reported that Blagojevich had accepted a $1,500 "birthday gift" for his 7-year-old daughter from a man whose wife had just been given a plum state job, despite failing the hiring exam?

Where was Quinn's hunger for honest government when the Blagojevich administration routinely, and illegally, ignored Freedom of Information Act requests from taxpayers and the press?

He was sitting quietly in the lieutenant governor's office, basking in the glory of holding the second-highest office in Illinois.

All it cost him was his integrity.

On Tuesday, the Chicago Sun-Times said, "Blagojevich is not the cause of our state's corrupt ways; he is [the] symptom." They are absolutely right, but Blagojevich is not the only symptom. Quinn is a symptom as well. People like Blagojevich cannot succeed without enablers like Quinn to look the other way. As the saying often attributed to Edmund Burke notes: "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

If we are to ever clean up this great state, we must hold the criminals and the enablers responsible, the Rod Blagojeviches -- and the Pat Quinns.

Original article

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