Chicago Tribune Editorial - George Ryan, in denial
Chicago Tribune Editorial - George Ryan, in denial
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 7, 2006
"If it did happen, if it's true and it proves to be true in a court of law, then I'll stand for the responsibility at that time--and I'll answer for it at that time." -- Gov. George Ryan on the indictment of his friend Larry Warner for public corruption in May 2002.
Contrition may well merit compassion. But without genuine contrition, is compassion what a criminal deserves?
George Ryan, the disgraced former governor of Illinois, got a generous serving of compassion Wednesday at his sentencing for years of crooked behavior. He got a soft sentence--6 1/2 years. He was told he doesn't have to report to prison--Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer will recommend one of the federal government's notorious country clubs--until after the Christmas holidays. And yet his lawyers want ... still more. Pallmeyer next will consider their request that Ryan be allowed to walk free during his appeal--a process that could drag out for two years. What a preposterous, unfair proposition.
And what did the citizens of Illinois receive Wednesday from the crook who cheated them out of their tax dollars and, worse, engineered a scandal that has its own death toll?
Did the citizens hear an apology from George Ryan? An acknowledgment that acts done to advance his career had cost motorists their lives? An expression of ... contrition?
The George Ryan who addressed Judge Pallmeyer was the same blustery denier he's been since this investigation and prosecution started to unfold.
Bad things happened on his watch. Ryan is sorry that some people have lost faith in government. "I let 'em down," he offered. But at the point in his eight-minute statement when an honorable person might have said, "I'm sorry for the many crimes I've committed," Ryan instead told the court, "The jury's verdict speaks for itself in showing that I simply didn't do enough. Should have been more vigilant. Should have been more watchful."
That must be cold comfort to the families of those crash victims, six of them children who shared the surname Willis. Ryan found time Wednesday to praise his family, time to extol his wife, time to express pride in his years of public service, time to allude to his emptying of Death Row. He found time to tell Pallmeyer that a long prison term would be tantamount to a death sentence for him--and to ask the judge to find enough good in him to temper her judgment.
He did not, though, find time to apologize--candidly, directly, humbly--to the Willis family, to the taxpayers his schemes victimized, or to the citizens he once swore oaths to serve.
All in all, a shabby spectacle, rewarded with the same sentence that his unelected underling Scott Fawell had received. Ryan's evocation of his desire to live out his life with his family was utterly oblivious of the permanent losses that other families have suffered. Ryan's failure to reach out to those families was an omission Pallmeyer mentioned after Ryan spoke. How odd to hear more concern about victims from a judge than from a convict pleading for a light sentence.
- - -
By his choices, George Ryan has ruined his career and humiliated the family he professes to love. But is he really all that bad? Now you be the judge--and consider what this case is about:
Months of trial testimony nailed Ryan as the self-serving lawbreaker whom U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald succinctly described on Dec. 17, 2003, the day Ryan was indicted: "Ryan is charged with betraying the citizens of Illinois for over a decade on state business, both large and small. By giving friends free rein over state employees and state business to make profits--and by steering those profits to his friends and, at times, his family, defendant Ryan sold his office."
And that wasn't the half of it. Simultaneously, Ryan's flunkies sold out the safety of all of us who drive. They cheapened the endorsement that an Illinois trucker's license should convey. The feds' Operation Safe Road established early on how Ryan's enterprise bankrolled his political ambitions. The U.S. Department of Transportation calculated that between 1,000 and 2,000 truckers illegally obtained Illinois driver's licenses when Ryan was secretary of state. Mopes unfit for the nation's highways paid bribes for those valuable licenses--with some of that blood money flowing into Ryan's campaign coffers.
If, decades from now, each of us recalls just one detail from the Ryan saga, let it be this: Truckers who bought those licenses were implicated in the vehicular slaughters of nine people. Those nine people aren't temporarily deprived of their freedom. They don't get the three hots and a cot that federal prisoners enjoy. They're dead.
- - -
The conviction and, if it ever comes, the jailing of George Ryan is one more assault on the Illinois culture of political sleaze. But as to whether the current run of investigations, prosecutions and guilty verdicts will clean up Illinois--that depends on the answers to a few questions:
Will public officials in this chronically corrupt state--and all the players who seek to profit by influencing them--now eradicate that culture of sleaze? Has public corruption become sufficiently costly to the criminals who perpetrate it? Or is the legal pressure not yet strong enough to give Illinois citizens the honest services of the people they elect to office?
Ryan thought himself too precious, too crafty, to be caught or drummed out of office. Judging by his lame performance Wednesday, he still won't accept the consequences of his acts. One of those consequences is a couplet that even runty gangbangers often accept with a shrug:
You do the crime,
You do the time.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 7, 2006
"If it did happen, if it's true and it proves to be true in a court of law, then I'll stand for the responsibility at that time--and I'll answer for it at that time." -- Gov. George Ryan on the indictment of his friend Larry Warner for public corruption in May 2002.
Contrition may well merit compassion. But without genuine contrition, is compassion what a criminal deserves?
George Ryan, the disgraced former governor of Illinois, got a generous serving of compassion Wednesday at his sentencing for years of crooked behavior. He got a soft sentence--6 1/2 years. He was told he doesn't have to report to prison--Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer will recommend one of the federal government's notorious country clubs--until after the Christmas holidays. And yet his lawyers want ... still more. Pallmeyer next will consider their request that Ryan be allowed to walk free during his appeal--a process that could drag out for two years. What a preposterous, unfair proposition.
And what did the citizens of Illinois receive Wednesday from the crook who cheated them out of their tax dollars and, worse, engineered a scandal that has its own death toll?
Did the citizens hear an apology from George Ryan? An acknowledgment that acts done to advance his career had cost motorists their lives? An expression of ... contrition?
The George Ryan who addressed Judge Pallmeyer was the same blustery denier he's been since this investigation and prosecution started to unfold.
Bad things happened on his watch. Ryan is sorry that some people have lost faith in government. "I let 'em down," he offered. But at the point in his eight-minute statement when an honorable person might have said, "I'm sorry for the many crimes I've committed," Ryan instead told the court, "The jury's verdict speaks for itself in showing that I simply didn't do enough. Should have been more vigilant. Should have been more watchful."
That must be cold comfort to the families of those crash victims, six of them children who shared the surname Willis. Ryan found time Wednesday to praise his family, time to extol his wife, time to express pride in his years of public service, time to allude to his emptying of Death Row. He found time to tell Pallmeyer that a long prison term would be tantamount to a death sentence for him--and to ask the judge to find enough good in him to temper her judgment.
He did not, though, find time to apologize--candidly, directly, humbly--to the Willis family, to the taxpayers his schemes victimized, or to the citizens he once swore oaths to serve.
All in all, a shabby spectacle, rewarded with the same sentence that his unelected underling Scott Fawell had received. Ryan's evocation of his desire to live out his life with his family was utterly oblivious of the permanent losses that other families have suffered. Ryan's failure to reach out to those families was an omission Pallmeyer mentioned after Ryan spoke. How odd to hear more concern about victims from a judge than from a convict pleading for a light sentence.
- - -
By his choices, George Ryan has ruined his career and humiliated the family he professes to love. But is he really all that bad? Now you be the judge--and consider what this case is about:
Months of trial testimony nailed Ryan as the self-serving lawbreaker whom U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald succinctly described on Dec. 17, 2003, the day Ryan was indicted: "Ryan is charged with betraying the citizens of Illinois for over a decade on state business, both large and small. By giving friends free rein over state employees and state business to make profits--and by steering those profits to his friends and, at times, his family, defendant Ryan sold his office."
And that wasn't the half of it. Simultaneously, Ryan's flunkies sold out the safety of all of us who drive. They cheapened the endorsement that an Illinois trucker's license should convey. The feds' Operation Safe Road established early on how Ryan's enterprise bankrolled his political ambitions. The U.S. Department of Transportation calculated that between 1,000 and 2,000 truckers illegally obtained Illinois driver's licenses when Ryan was secretary of state. Mopes unfit for the nation's highways paid bribes for those valuable licenses--with some of that blood money flowing into Ryan's campaign coffers.
If, decades from now, each of us recalls just one detail from the Ryan saga, let it be this: Truckers who bought those licenses were implicated in the vehicular slaughters of nine people. Those nine people aren't temporarily deprived of their freedom. They don't get the three hots and a cot that federal prisoners enjoy. They're dead.
- - -
The conviction and, if it ever comes, the jailing of George Ryan is one more assault on the Illinois culture of political sleaze. But as to whether the current run of investigations, prosecutions and guilty verdicts will clean up Illinois--that depends on the answers to a few questions:
Will public officials in this chronically corrupt state--and all the players who seek to profit by influencing them--now eradicate that culture of sleaze? Has public corruption become sufficiently costly to the criminals who perpetrate it? Or is the legal pressure not yet strong enough to give Illinois citizens the honest services of the people they elect to office?
Ryan thought himself too precious, too crafty, to be caught or drummed out of office. Judging by his lame performance Wednesday, he still won't accept the consequences of his acts. One of those consequences is a couplet that even runty gangbangers often accept with a shrug:
You do the crime,
You do the time.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:30 AM
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