Rod Blagojevich on Humility

It strikes me, reading this liveblog of Rod Blagojevich’s stint as a guest host on a Chicago radio show last week, that the man serves up populist demagoguery of a kind they just don’t make anymore. The rhetoric is rare enough on its own: low taxes, great Leaders (Obama and Reagan come in for equal praise) and a super-personal God. But it’s the persona that really gets me. That finely-calibrated balance between martyrdom and scrappiness, punctuated with faux-humble demurrals of the “This is not Elvis” variety? That’s kickin’ it old school, man. Maybe he should stick to radio: if he can’t be Huey Long, he’s got a decent shot at Father Coughlin (minus the Fascism, of course).

It’s also touching to see that, even as he contests the legitimacy of his impeachment, Blago has had the grace to cede the trappings of elected office:

Newsman: Are those headphones going to mess up your hair?
Blago: I brought my brush.
Meteorologist: You brought “the football”?
Blago: I’m not governor anymore, it is a smaller brush.