will that of his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a major Democratic player in Chicago politics for many years.

Both Obama and Emanuel campaigned vigorously for Blagojevich in his two gubernatorial campaigns. Also in the loop of rumour is Obama's political godfather, Illinois state senate president Emil Jones, possibly one of the those - designated only by numbers in the federal indictment - angling to be nominated as Obama's Senate replacement.

Aready there is fierce infighting between two leading Democrats in the US Congress. US Senate majority leader Harry Reid wants either Blagojevich - now back at work while awaiting trial - or the the Illinois legislature to appoint a Democrat to succeed Obama and avoid any erosion of the Democrats' substantial Senate majority in Congress.

This is exactly the sort of scandal Americans understand and appreciate

But Illinois's senior senator, Dick Durbin, says correctly that only a special election of the new senator will dispel the stench of scandal. In such an election a Republican could well win.

Meanwhile Jesse Jackson Jr has rushed before the microphones and cameras to proclaim that he is not under federal investigation. Jackson has been named as possibly being candidate number five.

The person marked by this chaste numeral allegedly promised Blagojevich a total of $1m in return for nomination. (Jarrett, who has since taken herself out of the running, was supposedly candidate number two.)

Coming into focus is the familiar landscape of American political corruption - a rich habitat where the businessman and the state official collaborate in the allocation of no-bid contracts, bestowing of profitable concessions, permits, waivers, zoning variances, monopolies and other political mechanisms propelling the well-greased axles of state and local government.

Of course the good government crowd is aghast. "I was speechless

and sickened," wailed Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "In all of the millions of indictments I've read over the last years, I can't remember anything as vile as this."

Another reformer moaned about "the damage to the state... It's going to take a long time to dig out."

Nonsense. This is exactly the sort of scandal Americans understand and appreciate. Good government is the province of states politically dominated by prim Nordics, like the Dakotas, or Washington in the Pacific northwest.

In the riper ethnic cauldrons of Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and of course New Jersey, corruption reigns in all its intricate and creative forms. In these states no politician is beyond the reach of an indictment, and this political certainty is the truest form of Americanism and the soundest check and balance against the arrogance of power.