WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010


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Politics & The Nation by Peter Slevin


chicago — Bombastic to the end, his voice shifting from a shout to a whisper and back again, the attorney for former Illi- nois governor Rod Blagojevich disparaged the federal corrup- tion case against his client on Tuesday and urged the jury to find him not guilty. “He ain’t corrupt,” Sam Adam


Jr. said in closing remarks to ju- rors. “And it’s proven in this case.” He portrayed Blagojevich (D) as a well-intentioned pol who fol- lowed the advice of his staff and “never intended to bribe or extort anyone.” Blagojevich had plenty of ideas, Adam told a packed court- room, but “no one’s going to say that he’s the sharpest knife in the drawer.” Repeatedly admonished by


U.S. District Judge James Zagel for misstating the evidence, Adam barreled onward. At one point, he told the jury: “I have been chastised. I have been held down. If that has offended any- body, don’t hold that against my client.” Zagel ordered the comment


stricken from the record. Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid J.


Schar closed the high-stakes two- month trial with a review of the most damning evidence from witnesses and secretly recorded audiotapes. Even-toned but no


Digital divide among groups of Latinos, study finds


by Tara Bahrampour Young Latinos born in the Unit-


ed States are far more likely to use text messages, social networking sites and other digital methods to communicate with their friends than their foreign-born parents or peers, according to two reports re- leased Wednesday by the Pew His- panic Center. The reports, “How Young Lati- nos Communicate with Friends in the Digital Age” and “The Latino Digital Divide: The Native Born versus The Foreign Born,” found that 85 percent of native-born La- tinos older than 16 use the Inter- net while 51 percent of foreign- born Latinos do; that 80 percent of native-born Latinos between 16 and 25 use cellphones compared with 72 percent of their foreign- born peers; and that 78 percent of native-born Latinos 16 to 25 who have Internet access use social networking sites such as Face- book, compared with 62 percent of their foreign-born peers. The biggest discrepancy was in


text-messaging: 83 percent of na- tive-born Latinos age 16 to 25 do it, compared with 56 percent of the foreign-born. The studies found that Latinos use digital communication tech- nology less than non-Latinos, with younger people embracing the technology more enthusiasti- cally than their parents. Gretchen Livingston, one of the authors of the reports, speculated that the wide gap between native and foreign-born populations and between Latinos and non-Latinos might be because new arrivals work longer hours or at jobs with less time for text-messaging or go- ing online. The studies found that native- born Latinos and those who spoke more English than Spanish communicated more with friends, whether through mobile devices or in-person socializing. Candace Kattar, executive di-


rector of Identity Inc., a Latino youth organization in Gaithers- burg, said the discrepancies might be because new arrivals have fewer people to communi- cate with.


“I would guess that a lot of folks


that are recent immigrants just don’t have as wide a circle of friends,” she said, adding that new arrivals tend to communi- cate more with family members. Economics could also play a role, Kattar said, noting that not all Latino families can afford a home Internet connection. Maria Teresa Kumar, executive


director of Voto Latino, a civic participation organization, said communication technology would be more likely to be passed from younger Latinos to their parents’ generation than vice ver- sa.


“The young people have a unique level of influence in their family – they tell them what re- frigerator to buy, what car to buy,” she said, adding that that also ap- plies to digital communication technology.


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less pointed, he called Adam’s ar- gument “desperate and ridicu- lous.” “He is not stupid,” Schar said of


Blagojevich, a former Chicago prosecutor and congressman elected to two terms as governor. “He is very smart.”


Because of his professional background, Blagojevich had more ethics training than the average politician, Schar said, “yet somehow he is the acciden-


tally corrupt governor.” Zagel will ask jurors on


Wednesday to decide whether Blagojevich is guilty on 24 felony counts that include charges of ex- tortion, bribery and lying to the FBI. They must also decide four charges against Blagojevich’s brother, Robert, who spent four months in 2008 in charge of the governor’s fundraising commit- tee.


According to the U.S. attorney’s HURRY IN FOR


office and the FBI, Blagojevich turned the governor’s office into a racketeering enterprise. Accord- ing to the defense, Blagojevich was a family man who listened to advice and did what politicians do, with no criminal intent. Adam said the prosecutors who spent years building the case against Blagojevich are trying to convict him for having “absolute- ly horrible judgment” when choosing his friends and associ-


ates.


“Come on!” Adam said in ad- dressing the charge that Blago- jevich illegally tried to pressure the Chicago Tribune to fire an editorial writer by threatening to withhold state money for Wrigley Field, then owned by the same company. “That this is some kind of extortion? Come on! This is supposed to be some kind of a federal case. Come on!” Schar concluded the govern-


A7 In closing arguments, disparate takes on Blagojevich’s intelligence


ment’s case by insisting that Bla- gojevich alone is responsible for his actions, and that over and over he acted with criminal in- tent. “There is no ‘politician defense’ in the law,” Schar said, as nearly 150 spectators, including U.S. At- torney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, lis- tened from an overflow court- room. “The witnesses are not ly- ing. The tapes are not lying.” slevinp@washpost.com


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