UPDATE: I never thought I'd see the day when a career politician actually admits the way government works:

Blagojevich told the state Senate the tapes captured something that "all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and win elections."

He's speaking here of getting something of value in exchange for legislation. Of course he goes on to maintain that, incredibly, he did nothing wrong. Riiiiiiiiiiight

It is absolutely impossible to escape the Blagojevich circus. I haven't even tried to avoid it, I've actively read a lot about his "plight". It's quite interesting to read and watch him proclaim that he did nothing wrong. His interview with Rachel Maddow is particularly telling, I think. He says he is the "anti-Nixon" because Nixon fought to keep all of his tapes secret while Blago is fighting to make all of his public. Blago keeps up his chant that if we could all hear all of the tapes that we'd agree he did nothing wrong. But he shoots himself in the foot when he says that it was only one of Nixon's tapes that brought him down. Like Nixon, a lot of the other tapes didn't capture him breaking any laws. But he is absolutely right that it just takes the one.

Yet I still have a problem with the sinners stoning the poor, "defenseless" whore. Politics has been run for centuries by selling favors in one way or another. Blago got caught merely talking about selling the senate seat, he hadn't even actually done it yet. How many of those who will impeach him have already cashed in on their policical seats? How many other times has Blago done so without getting caught? The answer is nowhere near zero, I'm sure.

Of course the answer is not to not impeach him - he should be impeached. But so should Bush have been impeached, and I'd guess conservatively half of congress. It's like mice, or perhaps in this case rats - for each one you catch, there are plenty more you don't.