Mell vs. Blago -- Now It's Personal

The Chicago Tribune reports today that Alderman Richard Mell, father-in-law of Governor Rod Blagojevich, has turned up the heat in what is turning out to be quite a nasty little political fight. Mell made allegations to Attorney General Lisa Madigan (daughter of house speaker, and Blago political foe Michael Madigan) and Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine that Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the governor's election fund (and an unpaid advisor) gave 120 donors who donated a total of $1.9M to the campaign political appointments out of the 700 appointments made by the governor's office. Interestingly, the governor claims he asked his inspector general, Zaldwaynaka Scott, to look into the same allegations mere hours before Madigan and Devine announced their investigation. All of this comes to light two days after a visibly shaken Mell publicly asked for a ceasefire with the governor.

Mell now says he has no personal knowledge of his allegations, but was merely basing them on a Tribune investigation. The governor isn't buying it, and called out Mell, telling the Tribune, "A reckless and defamatory accusation was made that is completely and totally false. The person who made it needs to be held accountable. If he is now backtracking on what he apparently said, you should go talk to him. I want independent agencies to go talk to all the people involved and to prove what I know is the case, that we do things right. And if you make a reckless, defamatory accusation publicly and you've been in the business as long as he's been you got to be held accountable for making those."

Given the fact that this feud won't go away, and that new accusations are being leveled by both parties, I've got to wonder whether this points to a deeper rift in the Democratic party in Illinois, and whether there aren't bigger political skeletons in the closets of Alderman Mell and the Governor that may be brought to light by these investigations. Seems to me that the Governor is being taken to task for refusing to play the game the way the Chicago machine expects it to be played...