Ho hum. Another scandal from Illinois...

Both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times are reporting that the president of the University of Illinois is expected to resign today.

The Sun-Times Dave McKinney reports:

Embattled University of Illinois chief B. Joseph White plans to step down following allegations that clout-heavy, unqualified students improperly gained admission to the university, Gov. Quinn announced today.
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Quinn, a non-voting member of the university's board of trustees, called White's resignation imminent and said that the university's governing board would soon name an interim successor and launch a nationwide search for a permanent replacement for White.

White did not respond to a message left on his personal cell phone.

He and Chancellor Richard Herman have been at the center of a months-long controversy involving reports that politically connected applicants were admitted over more qualified ones.
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Quinn has replaced all but two members of the university's 11-member governing board following the admissions scandal and named Chicago businessman Christopher Kennedy, son of slain U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, as chairman of the board of trustees.

Along with this scandal involving the state's universities, there is a another scandal involving admissions to Chicago's top public schools as well. Allegations there are similar to those leveled against the state's university system, with clout-heavy people getting their children into the city's top public schools ahead of other, more qualified students.

Add to these two educational scandals the revelations regarding the pension systems of the state, Cook County, and the City of Chicago, where 1) almost four percent of retirees from those three government entities receive more in retirement income than they did when they actually worked, 2) three percent receive two different pensions from among those three entities, and 3) still other retirees receive pensions based on their higher union salaries rather than those earned from their lower city, state, or county salaries.

Add to that mix the following: 1) former Gov. Blagojevich impeachment and indictment -- making him the fourth Illinois governor (out of the seven elected since 1960) to either be convicted or impeached; 2) 30 Chicago alderman to be convicted of corruption since 1972 (along with two more who were indicted but died before their cases could go to trial, one who was indicted but was judged too sick to stand trail, and a fourth alderman who currently awaits trial); 3) 19 Cook County judges to be convicted since 1970; and 4) another 1,000 public oficials and businessman to be convicted of public corruption since 1970.

Despite this dismal record of ongoing corruption in Chicago and Illinois, then-Sen. Barack Obama, a Chicago Democrat who won his first race for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 after having all of his primary opponents thrown off the ballot -- including the sitting incumbent, who won with 83% of the vote in the previous election cycle -- ran for the presidency as a reform candidate, and had this campaign theme almost uniformly treated with credulity by the national media.

After his 2008 election victory, President Obama has surrounded himself with a cadre of top advisors from the Chicago Democratic Party: chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, top political advisor David Axelrod, and top advisor Valerie Jarrett to name but a few.

And yet, an incurious national media seems unbothered by any of this. It makes one wonder if the media has a political agenda...