The complaint filed by prosecutors against Rod Blagojevich, Democratic governor of Illinois, raises several questions, once one’s astonishment subsides. If the details of the complaint are correct and the charges proved, a first puzzle will be to decide which is more remarkable, the settled culture of political corruption which they point to or the brazen stupidity of the accused.

The governor is charged with, among other things, trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Transcripts of his discussions with aides over what the seat might be worth in cash or favours – it is “[expletive] golden”, he is said to have observed – point to fathomless contempt for voters and the law. That he should have said it knowing he was under investigation by Patrick Fitzgerald, the tenacious US attorney who came to prominence in the Valerie Plame case, beggars belief. Even Illinois is shocked, and that takes some doing in a state that has seen three of its last eight governors jailed.