You're guilty, Ryan, and we know it
He's confusing a clear conscience with a lack of conscience
That was amazing. What a horse's behind. I just watched George Ryan say he's going to report to prison today with a clear conscience. He says he's innocent, and he still intends to prove it.
He didn't apologize. He didn't so much as admit he made any mistakes. His defiance couldn't have been more complete if he flipped us the bird.
I hadn't intended to write about Ryan going to prison today. I thought everything had been said.
But I can't let him get away with that little speech when I know many of you sat there at home watching it on television while sputtering just like me, but without the platform to express yourselves.
Ryan should have just kept his mouth shut if he didn't have the sense or decency to acknowledge the error of his ways.
He should have waved at the cameras and climbed into his car and drove to Oxford, Wis., and waved once more from inside the car when he got up there.
Then, in 2012 -- when the now 73-year-old former governor will get out of prison, if he lasts that long -- he could have waved twice more on the way home. Fine by me.
Ryan should have saved the baloney about "still fighting for justice" for the people who drank the Kool-Aid and think he's a martyr because he brought a halt to the death penalty in Illinois.
George Ryan is no martyr, whether you agree with his handling of the death penalty or not.
George Ryan presided over a secretary of state's office where truck drivers routinely obtained their licenses with bribes, tens of thousands of dollars of which made their way into his campaign coffers -- a nasty little problem that he tried to cover up. People got killed as a result of those unqualified drivers out there on the road.
While Ryan was secretary of state, he gave his buddies an inside track on most of the big leases and contracts let by his office. In return, they showered "gifts" on him and his family.
Perhaps he continues to confuse a clear conscience with a lack of conscience.
How exactly does Ryan propose to prove his innocence at this point? Is he going to find the one-armed man?
(Note to younger readers: There used to be this television show called "The Fugitive" that they made into a movie with Harrison Ford in which this doctor is convicted of killing his wife and . . . oh, never mind.)
George Ryan is not innocent. He's not even "not guilty," a distinction he may or may not appreciate.
Earth to George. You're guilty.
You did everything the feds accused you of doing -- and more -- and the people of Illinois know it.
The prosecutors proved it to a judge and jury. They also proved it to the appellate court, which found the evidence overwhelming.
Ryan's innocence isn't really a matter of serious discussion at this stage, only whether he received a fair trial given some of the goofiness during jury deliberations.
At most, he never had a chance for anything more than a new trial, where all the evidence from the first trial would have still been in full force and effect, and where a new jury would have convicted him just as quickly as he could be brought to trial.
While waiting to go to prison, Ryan has undoubtedly run into a lot of people who have expressed kind words to him either back in Kankakee or on his Chicago restaurant circuit. People are like that. They don't want to be outwardly mean -- like newspaper columnists.
Ryan may be suffering under some delusion that people are on his side.
He spoke again Tuesday of his "10-year ordeal" under "unrelenting pressure."
It's been an ordeal for us, too, George, wondering whether you'd ever be brought to justice with one of the best legal teams in the country pulling out all the stops on your behalf and cleverly postponing what one of the appellate court judges called your "day of reckoning."
Well, the day of reckoning is today, and whatever sympathy that might have been directed your way because of your age and your family situation, you kissed that goodbye with your defiant speech.
Consider this our return kiss in your direction.