Neither the Czar nor the Mandarin have commented at all about the Rod Blagojevich trial, and that is because contrary to local news in the greater Chicago area, most people in Illinois don’t give a crap about a guy that was evidently dirty from the outset. The only people who seem to really care about the 17 guilty counts are the Chicago-area media; after all, they lovingly backed the guy because he was funny, loved Elvis, and more importantly wasn’t Republican, and so whenever the media realizes they backed the wrong guy, they obsess about him.

But one repeated element the Czar is hearing—here and nationally—is this quaint notion that the Blagojevich verdicts will show President Obama that Chicago-style politics will no longer work.

Puh-leez. The Chicago machine is alive and well, although that isn’t the source of the Czar’s eye roll here. As we have demonstrated before…

Barack Obama does not use Chicago-style politics.

For one thing, he isn’t even from here. He has experienced The Machine, and has spent time in it. But he is not One Of The Machine. Blagojevich, by contrast, was very much part of it thanks to his father-in-law, and exhibited all the crass greed and open manipulation that follows. But Obama was and remains an outsider. Although his wife worked for Mayor Daley, and Obama himself assisted Blagojevich in some very real ways, he never quite made it in himself. To the Machine, Obama was an initially useful patsy who never paid off.

For another thing, Chicago gets stuff done. You can hate The Machine. You can be horrified by it, attempt to oppose it, and work around it. But in reality, The Machine gets the job done. Streets get plowed. Trash is picked up. Buildings get built. Business gets done. President Obama cannot seem to get anything done: he cannot even lead without doing so from behind.

If President Obama used Chicago-style politics, he would have a much more accomplished track record than he clearly has. Chicago would have won the Olympics. Nearly all of the stimulus package would have wound up here. His wife would be Secretary of something or other. Her brother, Craig Robinson, would be the head of a multi-million-dollar civic improvement commission and also own a concrete company he knew nothing about an hour ago. Windmills in China would mysteriously disappear and wind up in Oregon. Usâma bin-Lâdin would have been found face-down in a river, with a GOP campaign strategy plan stuffed in his pocket. The entire US Army would be spotted in a Florida resort, despite having paychecks that say they are currently in Afghanistan. And for the last four years, all of Iraq would be covered in orange cones and construction horses.

Dithering, stumbling, bowing and scraping, golf vacations, oil spills, and a sustained recession are not the hallmarks of a Chicago politician. And we would know exactly where the stimulus money all went—it would magically turn up in William Daley’s basement.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.