Confidential letter to Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

I know you're a busy man these days, but I'm hoping you're not too busy to hear from a friend. Truth is, I figure you kind of need friends right now. And I'm here for you, Rod. I'm here for you.

First of all, I love your idea about not attending your own impeachment trial, and instead running around to the various television shows to drum up public support. I've also read that you're trying to get newspaper people on your side.

Think about that last sentence. "I've also read that you're trying to get newspaper people on your side." What's wrong with that sentence, Rod?

Why am I just reading about this? Why am I not experiencing it firsthand?

I write a column for a St. Louis newspaper. We are just across the river from Illinois. We have a lot of readers in Illinois. I could do you some good, is what I'm saying.

Furthermore, I grew up in Chicago. I understand Illinois politics. My father worked for the city. He was an electrician. He had a nice job. He worked for the park district, which is to say he mostly worked indoors. Then my mother's aunt came to live with us. She was not quite all there, as we used to say, and she registered as a Republican. My dad was immediately transferred from the park district to a streets crew to repair and maintain street lights. That was not such a nice job.

But hey, you don't get something for nothing. You want a nice job, you have to at least deliver the votes in your own house. That seems pretty minimal. I remember my dad going to the alderman. "Isn't there something you can do?" he wanted to know.

"Art, what can I do? You can't even deliver your own aunt."

"She's not my aunt."

"I'm supposed to tell the people downtown that this is all right because she's not your aunt? She lives with you. How about personal responsibility, Art?"

That's the question we ought to be asking, Rod, and we ought to be asking it of the Obama people. They wanted some input on who you were going to name to the Senate? Fine. No problem. They should have input. But they were expecting you to give it away? They weren't going to take care of you? How about personal responsibility?

There is, after all, a certain code of ethics that Illinois politicians are expected to follow. It is summed up in two words: Where's mine?

So you ask that time-honored question, and suddenly they're going to impeach you. What is it about this that I don't get, Rod?

Speaking of things I don't get, I heard you compare yourself to Gandhi. What the heck is that about? Gandhi wouldn't last a day in that shark tank they call the Capitol in Springfield. Those boys would eat him alive.

A few years after I moved to St. Louis, I was in Chicago for a ballgame and I visited Vito Marzullo, the legendary alderman of the 25th ward on the city's west side. He was 85 then, and he had a bust of Mayor Daley on his desk. The real Mayor Daley, not the kid. Vito said to me, "So what is it that the people of St. Louis want to know?"

The sad truth was that the people of St. Louis didn't even know who Vito Marzullo was, but I didn't want to say that. I knew that Puerto Ricans were moving into the ward and one of them was challenging Vito in the primary, so I said, "The people of St. Louis are shocked that somebody is challenging you in the primary, and they wonder what you think of that."

Vito looked at me like I was crazy. He said, "You mean the dishwasher? I'll tell you what. If your dog gets picked up by the dogcatcher, see if a dishwasher can get him out of the pound."

That's the way the guys in Springfield think of Gandhi. See if he can get your dog out of the pound.

You're on trial in the state Senate, Rod. For goodness' sake, compare yourself to somebody the state senators admire.

Gov. Otto Kerner once visited my Boy Scout troop. That was before he got indicted, of course. He never made more than $30,000 a year in salary from the state, but he left an estate valued at $4.6 million. State senators hear that and their ears prick up. When Kerner was governor, Paul Powell was secretary of state, and when he died, investigators found $800,000 in cash in shoe boxes in his closet. That prompted the late Sen. Paul Simon to say, "His shoe boxes will be hard to fill."

Kerner and Powell. Those are fellows to whom you might want to compare yourself. People admire them. Oh, sure, Kerner got jammed up on that bribery charge, but what was he really guilty of other than asking, "Where's mine?"

And all you did was muse about it. I mean, the feds put a wiretap on you and they don't hear you soliciting a bribe, they only hear you talking about soliciting a bribe. That's no crime!

You see, that's the kind of argument I could make. And I'd be happy to make it, too. Of course, you don't get something for nothing, and I'd expect a nice little something. Maybe a state job. Or a shoe box, if you follow my drift, and I bet you do.

Get back to me, Rod. Let's work together.