A Gift that Keeps on Giving.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan and his co-defendant, Larry Warner, lost another one today, their last one, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which without comment declined to hear their appeal. (They do that a lot.) The only way Ryan and Warner can get out now is a presidential pardon, and George H. surely no longer has that kind of juice with George W.

The imprisonment of George Ryan is a gift that keeps on giving. Is it wrong to gloat about the incarceration of a 74-year-old man who may live all or most of his remaining years behind bars? One can’t help but feel a little pity on a purely human basis, but it passes. To those who say he did nothing that dozens of other government officials have not also done and are still doing, I say lock them all up, every one, and if the prisons get too full of them, we’ll build more.

When people steal from me, I take it personally. When they do it repeatedly, right under my nose, it really pisses me off. They should rot in hell for what they did to me, to all of us.

George Ryan liked the finer things in life; a thick steak, a fat cigar, and a sporting roll of the dice. He especially liked never picking up a tab. But he made sure his buddies got their tickets punched in other ways. In Illinois there are no Republicans or Democrats, only Kleptocrats.

U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald put an apple in the pig’s mouth, saying in a statement, "Mr. Ryan has exhausted every legal avenue and argument afforded him, but the verdict stands that he was guilty of corrupting the highest office in the state."

Ryan and Warner were convicted in April of 2006. Ryan has been in the Federal cooler in Oxford, Wisconsin, since November but recently was transferred to Terra Haute, Indiana, for medical reasons. He’s not supposed to get out until 2013. Warner has been in Colorado. He is in until 2010.