Former Governor George Ryan (R.) has been found guilty:
When the bad news came, George Ryan handled it without tears or whining.
“Hang in there,” the snowy-haired, 72-year-old former governor advised one well-wisher after gathering up his coat and that of wife Lura Lynn as if it had been just another day at court.
“Bye, ladies,” he told four courtroom sketch artists who had drawn pictures of him from the beginning of his racketeering and fraud trial six months ago until Monday, when he was convicted of steering millions of dollars in state leases and contracts to political insiders, lying to federal agents and tax fraud.
Ryan had just heard a verdict all but sure to send him to prison for years. But he seemed intent on not giving his adversaries the satisfaction of seeing him turn weak at the end.
Once the state’s most powerful Republican, Ryan remained dry-eyed as he vowed to fight on in a federal appeals court to salvage a reputation wrecked by the state’s biggest corruption scandal in decades.
In general, I have no sympathy for crooked pols, and I am not proud of Gov. Ryan nor do I condone his behavior. I am glad “Duke’ Cunningham is going to rot away in jail, and I eagerly await Tom DeLay’s comeuppance when that happens. But for Gov. Ryan, I am sad, and a good part of me hopes he gets a lenient sentence. His suspension of the death penalty in Illinois, IMHO, outweighs anything else he may have done short of rape and murder. Some of you may say his death penalty act was a political maneuver- I don’t care. It was the right thing to do, he too a lot of crap from his own party for it, and when I think of Gov. Ryan in the future, that is what I will try to remember about him- that even as a flawed man, he did the right thing when it mattered.