Crying? There's No Crying in Baseball, err, Politics

Last time you was here, you was crying like a pussy...

Scott Fawell abruptly stopped answering questions, wiped his face with his hand, stood up and turned his back on the courtroom. A minute later he was led outside by federal marshals.

The change in the formerly cocky, wisecracking witness came after Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick M. Collins asked him about his visits in prison with his fiancee, Andrea Coutretsis.

Fawell is currently serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for racketeering.

And in related news, is it the money, or the politicians, that's evil?

The race for money and power is at the core of the various scandals besetting Mayor Richard M. Daley, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, ex-Gov. George Ryan and U.S. Rep.Tom DeLay, the at-least-temporarily deposed House majority leader. They're symptomatic of a larger truth. Unless we as a society — Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives — can figure out a way to allow free speech without asking politicians to sell their souls, self governance will become merely a phrase in a history book.

"In the long run, I don't know what will work," says Ed Murnane, a Republican who knows the value of political cash as a veteran of the tort-reform wars, but who still is troubled by where the system overall is headed. "We almost have to have some reasonable limits or it will continue to snowball."