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George Ryan starts his prison sentence today, and the Sun-Times and Trib have helpfully chronicled every move the former governor has made since last night. You know what that means: time for a Ryan Round Up! Olé!
Yesterday, the 73-year-old released this statement to the public, again claiming innocence and thanking his family and legal team. At 5:50 this morning, Ryan left his home in Kankakee in a van driven by his son, George Ryan Jr. They drove to the Original Pancake House on the Gold Coast where Ryan did not get pancakes. (Here's a little tip, from Chicagoist to you: If you go to an OPH, you don't have to decide between omelets and pancakes. Omelets come with pancakes! Holla.) Perhaps he was still full from the tortellini soup he had last night. Anyway, after coffee, Ryan and his wife met up with his lawyer, former governor Jim Thompson, and a driver drove them off in a black Audi.
Now he's off to the Oxford federal prison camp in Wisconsin, a low-security facility that an incarceration consultant says is just " a bunch of middle-age fat guys sitting around reading." Oxford has modern exercise equipment, no cell blocks, a track and culinary and college-level courses. Ryan isn't the only new addition to the Oxford facility today. A Buffalo Grove church collected 5,000 books for the prison's library, and they're delivering the reading material today — by coincidence.
Which brings us to the eviscerating editorials. The Trib says, "Ryan diabolically put the enrichment of himself and everyone around him ahead of state government's crucial responsibilities," but it's John Kass' condemnation of Ryan and thinkpiece on shame that really leaves an impression. Mark Brown goes a more direct route, calling Ryan a "horse's behind," and the Sun-Times unsigned says Ryan has "no one to blame but himself."
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Sounds like a nice retirement. Catch up on all those classics you've been meaning to read and chat with the other priveledged white men while you learn how to make a nice pasta dish. No PMITA prison for these guys.
I hope Ryan rots and dies in a cold cell in Wisconsin. He is a corrupt piece of shit.
Yeah, the death penalty work was great--and overdue--but it doesn't make up for years of corruption, for abusing the public trust and the public good. And the "everyone else was doing it" defense doesn't fly, either.
Fuck Ryan and fuck all his defenders; they are either pathetic tools or participants in, or apologists for, the corruption. Maybe if we remained cold-hearted and unforgiving about corruption and its participants this state would have a better shot at real reform.
Matilda?
So why don't you tell us how you really feel
Yea I totally agree with ya and appologise for my original soft momentary out break of liberalism yesterday. Hey, he wanted to go to a prison around his house, why didn't they send him to Joliet!
I just feel terribly sorry for him. Like, he didn't create the system over which he ruled. So for him, it was a completely rational decision to be so "corrupt" although within a corrupt system it is all relative anyway. White collar crimes rub me the wrong way. Unless you are murdering someone, you probably don't belong in jail. And, since he is no longer governor, it isn't like he is ever going to do it again.
Spav1 you are kidding right?
"Unless you are murdering someone, you probably don't belong in jail."
Are you serious?
"Like, he didn't create the system over which he ruled."
Wow, you just opened the door to all kinds of crimes and excuses.
"And, since he is no longer governor, it isn't like he is ever going to do it again."
Well, since a person only stole $1 million from company, and is unlikely to every do it again not that the person has a nice ranch in Bolivia, it's not the like the person will ever do it again.
If this is an attempt at a joke, I apologize for my Internet temper.
If not, fuck you, too. You are an apologist for the corruption, and deserve no mercy.
GRod, Toddler and Daley are probably more corrupt that Ryan was/is.
Or for that matter Cheney/Bush.
I do feel sorry for him because I don't think he ever sat down and said I am going to be corrupt or it was his intent to.
I think he had a lot of bad people working for him such as Fawell.
On the other hand Daley and GRod know they are being corrupt and selling out the tax payers every damn day.
That will be my happy day when the GRod, Daley and Toddler get put in jail.
Oh come on CrookCounty, I don't care how much he looks like your grand Paw. The guy only with drew 27 dollars from his bank account for a whole year!
Tell me what Todd Stroger has done that should warrent a jail charge? I'm not defending him, but Clearly Ryan knew when he was being jetted around the world how the game was played.
I just wonder if Daley( who endorsed him over Pat Quinn for Secretary of State)will visted him in Jail?
crookcounty summarized my point way better than I could.
But I am not joking; it all comes down to how you view prison. If you think it is supposed to retibutive, than you aren't really a liberal and, sure send Ryan away. If you think it is supposed to be rehabilitative, which I do, then this man clearly needs to maybe apologize and so some community service.
And jail sentences for white collar crimes are out of control. Sending a 73 year old man to jail for crimes that didn't really hurt anyone specifcally, just had a lot of terrible and unforseen consequences sort of defies logic.
Crook: A guy in politics as long as Ryan was and he didn't know he was being corrupt? Yeah, right. Ryan wasn't that dumb.
I agree with the rest of your points, though.
In an ideal world, we would have public executions of leaders who have been convicted of grossly violating the public trust--I'm not talking about little lies or broken campaign promises or even one-time small bribes or just an honest inability to do a good job, but rather ongoing, significant corruption, as I think Ryan, as well as the other leaders you mention, engaged in (though, of course, they've not been convicted of anything). If we really cared about having a government of the people, etc., he would be facing a firing squad today instead of a relatively comfortable prison and the loss of his pension.
Yes, I am bloodthirsty when it comes this stuff. And I think feeling sorry for these people, these leaders who asked the public to trust them and then exploited that trust, is, frankly, a bit of weakness. Compassion has its limits.
Oh come on CrookCounty, I don't care how much he looks like your grand Paw.
Spook you made me audibly laugh at work with that. Seriously though Crook County, he didn't know what he was doing?........puh-leeez.
"... apologize and so some community service .."
Tell how how that will deter other corrupt officials. Granted, sending Ryan to jail isn't going to automatically make other corrupt officials change their ways, but it is better than saying sorry on Oprah and picking up litter from the highway.
" ... than you aren't really a liberal .."
Gee, do I have to turn in my Obama pin now? I am not a liberal? Thanks for the compliment, if letting corrupt old men off the hook is how one becomes a lib.
"Sending a 73 year old man to jail ..."
So, if a criminal is old enough, he or she gets an get-out-of-jail free card? I should tell my grandpa to rob a bank, because Social Security just isn't cutting it.
" .. for crimes that didn't really hurt anyone specifcally .."
Come again? How about the DMV workers who had to contribute to keep their jobs? How about the people shut out of state jobs because they either didn't make the right contributions (bribes) or know the right people? What about the truck drivers who paid bribes for licenses instead of being tested for their skills, putting other drivers at risk? What about the affect this and other corruption has on making even more people apathic about government--which is their government, after all? Finally, what about the time and money wasted sending this prick to trial and prison for his corruption? That is our money, by the way--money that will not be spent on more productive projects.
Finally, how can a person be rehabilitated if that person doesn't seem to grasp he is guilty, at least according to the jury and various judges, some of whom were considering his motion for bail?
Do you even pay attention to civics and current events? Have you even thought this through?
You do a great service to people in power: You shrug your shoulders at corruption, thereby making it easer for our so-called leaders to steal from us and otherwise screw us. You don't even rise to the level of a useful idiot, to use Lenin's phrase. You are just an apathetic, brain-dead slug.
But hey, at least you have a gentle, liberal soul, right?
Actually, a family died in an accident caused by a trucker who bought his license.
Calm down. Corruption is like Idi Amin or Pol Pot. Jeez.
"Corruption is like Idi Amin or Pol Pot. Jeez."
God, you are pathetic.
So, one must be a genocidal maniac to merit the term "corrupt"?
How does it feel to be cannon fodder? That is what you are.
Spav1, o.k be honest, you read the Red Eye don't you? I mean there is nothing really wrong with it, but you do read it don't cha?