I commend the Chicago Tribune for its comprehensive coverage of Blagogate. I’m sure the newspaper’s Web site has been a “must click” site for many across the country looking for the latest news about the scandal. The reporting has been deep and responsible for numerous scoops, once again proving the worth of newsgathering in spite of the death knell allegedly tolling for the printed press.

The columns have been pretty good, too. Yesterday John Kass wrote about state Sen. James DeLeo being “the real governor of Illinois,” a major political power player with strong ties to, among others, soon-to-be-indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich and President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. It was an eye-opening piece that took guts to write, in my opinion. But that’s what good journalists do.

John McCormick, the Tribune‘s deputy editorial page editor, wrote a column called “Life on Blago’s enemies list” for tomorrow’s paper, addressing the fact that Blagojevich is heard on FBI tapes calling for McCormick to be fired. McCormick says he never had a personal tiff with the governor and therefore wonders what exactly he did to incur Blagojevich’s wrath.

It’s become somewhat chic to diagnose Blagojevich as crazy or just plain dumb, so I’m going to make that assumption here and theorize the governor is angry at McCormick because of a case of mistaken identity. Blagojevich may think McCormick is the Colonel, aka Col. Robert R. McCormick, the legendary editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune who was the scourge of liberal Democrats in the first half of the 20th century.

Hey, I know it’s a far-fetched theory, but would anything odd revealed  about Blagojevich now surprise you anymore?