From the “who cares” file but worth some room on The Western Word because it concerns an underdog and Illinois politics:

I’m no fan of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, but the Federal Government had their chance and came up almost empty-handed.

It took the jury 14 days of deliberations (after an 11 week trial) to find former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich guilty of one of lesser of the 24 counts brought against him by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and his office of government-paid lawyers. The one count carries with it a maximum penalty of five years and a $250,000 fine. Big freaking deal.

The Judge intends to declare a mistrial on the remaining 23 counts.

After all the hoopla and positioning by both sides, Patrick Fitzgerald and his team are the losers – slapped in the face as some reports put it. They painted a case to the media that they said would have made Abe Lincoln roll over in his grave.

Old Abe is rolling – from laughing at the poorly prosecuted case.

The only things the Fitzgerald prosecution team accomplished (besides getting a conviction on one count of 24) are two things: We now know that Blago has a potty mouth, and we can now pronounce Blago’s last name.

But guess what? Fitzgerald wants to retry the case – wasting even more taxpayer funds – some say it will cost $20-$30 million. The Government has the unlimited funds (from our tax dollars) to keep this case going on forever and keeping the Blagojevich family hostage.

The Government failed to convict on 23 of 24 counts. Attorney General Eric Holder should step in and say enough is enough and tell Fitzgerald to take the victory on the one count and move on.

I doubt the Democrats want this trial playing out in October and November.

In addition, I’d bet there are more important cases in the Northern District of Illinois to work on – things like drugs, child pornography, fraud, terrorism, etc., to name a few.