Blago Tweets, But Don’t Expect `Avalanche’

The last time we saw Rod Blagojevich being judged in a wood-paneled room was April, when Donald Trump fired the former governor on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” for being, among other things, a technological clod.

Blagojevich, more than willing to chop broccoli and don wizard regalia, just couldn’t figure out how to send a text message.

Two months later, as he fights for his freedom in the boiseried confines of Judge James Zagel’s courtroom, Blagojevich and his wife Patti are going from zero to Twitter.

Last week, Patti tweeted her frustration at a news helicopter that had been flying overhead the Blagojevich’s house, writing that she was “starting to feel like Jack Bauer from the TV show `24.’”

Her latest dispatch, sent around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, was more garden-variety: “Just got done doing all the chores I won’t have time to do this week-groceries, laundry [sic] etc. etc.”

Rod Blagojevich, due back in federal court today for his corruption trial, meanwhile, has posted 11 tweets since joining the site May 31, with a characteristic how-do-you-do: “Please follow on Twitter for the latest updates. I am innocent and look forward to clearing my name.”

Blagojevich’s Florida-based publicist, Glenn Selig, said that Patti is tweeting from her own phone while Selig is doing the actual posting for Rod. The former governor isn’t quite up to speed yet, but Selig says he’s getting “more and more into technology since he got into the show.”

“He is texting, not with great regularity, but he is learning,” Selig added.

In the past year or so, political writers have breathlessly written about the meaning of Twitter in American politics, while simultaneously charting politicians’ increasing use of the site in their campaigning and governing. But rare, if unprecedented, is the example of a politician (or ex-politician, as it were) seizing the technology amidst a fall from grace, to say nothing of a federal trial.

After her failed vice presidential bid, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, began mainly communicating through social media as a way of circumventing the mainstream press. Blagojevich has shown no desire to avoid anybody with a camera or notepad and, according to Selig, simply views Twitter as just another tool in the toolbox of vindication.

“There are a lot of people curious about what he is going to be doing,” Selig said. It’s the same thing with Patti. She has developed a following on her own, and people are interested in her observations.”

Selig has himself taken to Twitter to try to drum up public support for the former governor and, on occasion, push back against certain unfavorable press. “Wondering if #NBCChicago has a bet riding on the outcome of the #Blagojevich trial. Why so over-the-top negative?” Selig wrote on June 3.

Meanwhile, in the first two days of jury selection, a number of reporters and bloggers were at work, transmitting all manner of trial esoterica from the courtroom. The issue of live-blogging from within a federal courtroom is an emerging debate, but Zagel, who decided against allowing a closed-circuit television feed to the overflow room, is permitting Blackberrys – so long as they aren’t visible to jurors. An order he sent to the media before the trial gave the go ahead to “small PDAs with QWERTY keyboards.”

Mike Dobbins, the clerk of the court, mentioned that one of the concerns the judge had was how jurors might be impacted during the trial if, for example, a witness says something on the stand and immediately a dozen reporters begin furiously tapping away at their smart phones. But ultimately, Dobbins thought, there was no real way to police people’s use of their phones.

Live-blogging (and live-tweeting) has figured prominently in the coverage of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial in California, where a lesbian woman is challenging the constitutionality of the state’s Proposition 8 measure that bans same-sex marriage. So far, federal judges in at least eight states and Washington, D.C., have allowed live-blogging to take place from their courtroom. But a number of others have ruled that preventing it does not violate the spirit of the First Amendment, and instead stands to hazard the developments of a trial.

(The Citizen Media Law Project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center has an excellent online guide to this.)

As for the Blagojeviches, Selig says their maiden tweets do not constitute some grand online plan.

“I think we have to see how it goes, and how useful they think it is and we’ll take it one day at a time,” Selig said. In the end, he doesn’t anticipate “an avalanche of tweets.”

Attorney and former federal prosecutor Joel Levin doesn’t anticipate that Twitter could present much of a problem or benefit for Blagojevich in court.

“Can’t imagine an evidentiary basis that would allow the admission of any of her tweets,” Levin said. “I also doubt that she’ll say anything that the government would want to admit and I can’t think of a way that the defense could get them in.”

He adds: “Frankly, I don’t know how many people really care about her mundane day-to-day activities. I suppose it’s consistent with his approach from day one to generate as much publicity as possible about themselves.”