Working title: Illinois governor dumb as a stump

This story is so weird that I am forced to break my self-imposed embargo on political stuff. Originally and cheerfully reported by Kevin McDermott of the P-D’s Springfield bureau (link defunct):

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, giving an interview to a television crew in Chicago recently, first suspected something was amiss when the interviewer cut him off in mid-sentence to intone sternly: “I’ll be in charge of what my listeners get to hear.”

It got stranger from there, with the interviewer suggesting “role playing” involving “a hot 17-year-old.” By the time he asked if Blagojevich was “the gay governor,” the Democrat had already decided he would be having a serious talk with his aides who had set up the interview.

The television crew was from Comedy Central’s national cable program “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” which airs politically charged, totally fake news reports geared for laughs - though Blagojevich didn’t know that when he sat down with them. [...]

“The Daily Show” segment, which aired last week, pitted Blagojevich against Illinois state Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville, a pharmacist who is trying to override Blagojevich’s executive order with legislation. [...]

Stephens said on Wednesday he was aware the segment was a joke when he agreed to do it. “I thought the governor was hip enough that he would have known that, too.”

Seriously: when you get out-hipped by Ron Stephens, you’ve got problems, brudda.

Does it not beggar the imagination that neither Blagojevich nor his hapless staffers understood the nature of a nationally-known political satire? Hell, I’ve never seen an episode and yet I know about it. It’s a funny enough story until you reflect on how out of touch Blagojevich and crew must be in order for this to happen. Considering Gov. Rod’s lackluster standing in the polls (39th in approval and falling), however, you can kinda see the appeal of insularity.

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