Illinois Lieutenant Governor - The Appendix in Illinois Body Politic - Feed it to the Pigs

Don Wade and Roma were straining to equate the only adult in Springfield, Speaker Mike Madigan, to Don Corleone.

Don Corleone was way too chatty to be even remotely considered as a parallel caricature.

Rather, Bricktop, the quietly intimidating London crime boss, and a redhead to boot, would be my choice cinema avatar.

Bricktop asks only rhetorical questions:

'Arold: I think you've let him get away with enough already, Guv'nor.

Brick Top: It'll get you in a lot of trouble thinking, 'Arold. If I were you, I wouldn't do too much of it.

Likewise: He never threatened - he prophesied:

Brick Top: You're on thin f#$king ice my pedigree chums, and I shall be under it when it breaks. Now, f#$k off.

Bricktop:Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible #$%^... me.

The character Bricktop rid himself and this vale of tears of cumbersome baggage, louts, cheats, transgressors and superfluous appendages -not unlike Scott Lee Cohen or the Office of Illinois Lieutenant Governor -by feeding them to pigs.

Speaker Madigan launched Scott Lee Cohen and intends to do the same to the Office of Lieutenant Governor as well.

Shortly after his primary victory, stories emerged about a 2005 arrest for holding a knife to his girlfriend's throat. Those charges were later dropped. But next came allegations of steroid abuse and other claims of physical violence from divorce records.

Although he initially balked at giving up the nomination, he acquiesced after talking to Madigan, the influential chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, who said he warned Cohen the personal scrutiny he was undergoing would get worse.

Cohen was an unknown until he spent $2 million of his own money to secure the nomination. His candidacy has again prompted questions of whether the lieutenant governor's office is needed.

Daily Herald, or 'erald.

Just like the character Bricktop in the fine film Snatch -

"You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together."

and then -"And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig."

Speaker Madigan is no Vito Corleone.

Bricktop, sadly, meets his demise at the close of the film. Sadly, because he is truly the only character in the film with any smattering of genuine character, intelligence and forethought - he is a vicious 'orrible #$%^, but one must be in crime. Politics is no crime; there's no crime in politics!

There are criminals - Larry Bloom, Bob Creamer, Stuart Levine, Tony Rezko, Cliff Kelley, to name but a few - in political life. However, 'as greedy as a pig' should not stamp all in elected office. Speaker Mike Madigan is the only elected political leader in Illinois politics with any character, intelligence, and forethought.

Feed the Office of Lieutenant Governor to pigs Mr. Speaker!