What the George Ryan Verdict Means For Illinois Politics

John Kass reports on the George Ryan verdict :

Boss politicians in Illinois pretend to have something in common with ordinary people, but if they did have a connection once, they lost it long ago, with their drivers and their first-class air tickets, and from having their behinds smooched by people who suck up to power.

And I can't think of anything more frightening to the political hogs, from Springfield to Chicago's City Hall, than ordinary people on a jury, like those in the federal building Monday, like those others who'll be sitting in judgment soon on Mayor Richard Daley's political henchmen from Bridgeport.

The bipartisan Illinois political combine--the one controlled by Ryan and Daley--is on the run. It has been on the run since former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) ruined his political career by demanding that the White House appoint a federal prosecutor without any political connections to the combine.

U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) is still here. He hasn't been removed, yet. And now is the time for ordinary people to have their say.

Ordinary people who become jurors don't usually make fortunes in public relations. So they don't spin out the too-often-repeated lie that politics as usual is no crime, just politics. Ordinary people don't bestow millions upon millions of tax dollars on their friends in government deals, or send $100 million in affirmative-action contracts to white Outfit-connected stooges, or smirk and play dumb as their family becomes wealthy beyond imagining.

They don't hire unqualified 19-year-old city building inspectors, or build a patronage army in violation of federal court orders to crush any dissenting voice, or purchase millions of dollars worth of office furniture from an 11th Ward family with clout.

Ordinary people don't take free vacations to Jamaica as George Ryan did, or pretend to live on $77 in cash while gambling and drinking and steakhousing their way across the country. They don't squeeze the janitors and the cleaning ladies for Christmas money.

Illinois.