THE JUDGE WILL WAIT!

Last week I was at the Standard Club, which is adjacent to the Dirksen Federal Building, and was astounded at the multitude of satellite TV trucks that were parked across from the Club. The doorman told me the trucks were there waiting for the verdict from the Blagojevich trial. The stupidity of the reporters hanging around, reminded me of a similar story years ago when Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was banned by Major League Baseball’s Executive Committee in 1996 from managing her team due to statements in support of German domestic policies of Nazi Party leader, Adolf Hitler. Carol Marin’s column in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times, “Waiting for Blago at Camp Dirksen,” reinforced that memory. In 1996 when the Executive Committee of MLB met at the Hilton O’Hare, I was in charge of the media room. There were about 30 reporters from print, radio and TV (this was before the days of the internet) from Ohio, Chicago and national outlets. The Executive Committee was sequestered in an area of the hotel not known to the reporters. We had been told that when a verdict was ready to be announced we would be given notice as to where to assemble. Because the Ohio and national sports radio and TV media needed to broadcast up-dated reports of progress (of which there were none!), I helped them all interview each other. It was hysterical to watch, for instance, Jerome Holtzman, legendary baseball writer from the Chicago Tribune, do an interview with a Cincinnati radio station about what was happening. It was so funny because NOTHING was happening except for the reporters interviewing each other using phrases like, “rumor has it, “or “speculation is.” After hours and hours of being “held hostage” in that holding room, I suggested that if EVERYBODY walked out to stretch their legs, get something to eat or even throw a baseball around in the backyard of the hotel, I would let them know when the verdict came in. MLB would not make an announcement unless the press was present to report it. Nobody would leave the room! All throughout the afternoon, reporters would shout out and claim the owners were coming out for the announcement. Just more rumors! Eight hours after we had assembled, it was actually Tom Shaer, then a sports reporter for WMAQ TV, who saw the Executive Committee members coming and yelled, ” Air raid Pearl Harbor, this is not a drill .” At least for the Marge Schott it was only one day of waiting; for the Blago verdict we are in the second week. Don’t all the high-powered reporters realize that there will probably be at least one hour’s notice before the verdict is announced because the Judge has to give time for the defendants to arrive in the courtroom? With the exception of WGN-TV, which is located 6.7 miles from the Federal Building, the rest of the media are all within walking distance! The WBBM studio is five blocks away, WLS-TV is nine blocks away, WFLD-TV is ten blocks, etc., etc., etc.

Carol Marin wrote, “Welcome to Camp Dirksen. It has been seven weeks of the Rod & Robert Blagojevich corruption trial. And eight days of jury deliberation so far. We media types have formed an occupation army at the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago.

We come early and we wait. And wait.

Camera crews sit in collapsible lawn chairs and balance laptops on their knees in the media pen in the lobby -- and kill time surfing the Web.”

Marin also wrote, “My pal, WMAQ-Channel 5 reporter Phil Rogers, compared the sameness of our days to Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." We immediately Googled it. Murray spent 38 days reliving the same day.”

I find the Camp Dirksen situation to be akin to the Samuel Beckett play, “Waiting for Godot,” a play that depicts the meaninglessness of life--with its repetitive plot, where nothing much happens. The play is considered by some critics to be one of the most prominent works of the “Theater of the Absurd.” Exactly what we are seeing on Dearborn Street; people waiting when it is inconsistent with reason, logic or common sense.