In what might very well go down as the worst memorabilia promotion in post-election history, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested for attempting to sell Barack Obama's freshly vacant U.S. Senate seat as a limited edition keepsake. Blagojevich, who had reportedly been subject to a good Sopranos-style wire-tapping for a month leading up to the sting, was recorded saying ridiculously illegal things such as, "Unless I get something real good [for Senate candidate 1], shit, I'll just send myself, you know what I'm saying," and that "[the Senate seat] is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

Blagojevich officially rounds out Illinois as the Crookedest Little State in the Union, between already-incarcerated previous governor George Ryan and the indefatigable ruling Daleys, the latter-day Boss Tweeds of Chicago politics. The upside, of course, is that this is a nice crescendo of Americans' desperate attempts to cash in on Obama's ascendancy. Blagojevich was simply joining the host of other late-night coin and calendar dealers trying to make a quick buck off of the Hope Train. Now that he's raised the stakes, though, tchotchkes aren't going to cut it anymore. (T-shirt guys in Union Square, stop trying to unload your ill-fitting wares on me.) We're talking about Bam's actual senate seat now. If you're going to compete in this market, your cynical capitalism needs to be supplemented with quality wares: might we suggest an Obama expansion platform for Rock Band, where you can recite his speeches to massive applause?

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