You have your area of expertise, well, I have mine, too. I worked for years in politics at a pretty high staff level, before pursuing my present career as a grantwriter and fundraising consultant for nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations and individuals.

And because of that experience, any nonprofit organization that pays a development director (fundraiser) six figures -- particularly one who heretofore had no prior documented experience in the field -- is going to raise my antennae with regards to both its operations and the exact nature of its relationship to the late Blagojevich regime.

I look at CCIL's donor history, i.e., the amounts and sources of its donations and gifts received, and I see nothing in that history that justifies the type of salary paid to a novice like Patti Blagoevich. I work for a very reputable consulting firm, and we'd never charge a client such excessive fees as Patti Blagojevich's contract stipulated she be paid. Donors have a right to expect that their money is mostly directed to our client's respective missions and their beneficiaries, and not skimmed off the top by the fundraising consultant.

As the offspring of one of the Chicago Democrats' longtime stalwarts -- her father is longtime Alderman Richard Mell, who had represented the 33rd Ward on the Chicago City Council since 1975 -- Patti Blagojevich comes from a discernable line of political lampreys, and the Chicago Christian Industrial League was the trout.

Where did a century-old nonprofit organization like CCIL, which historically has had trouble making ends meet, come up with the money to pay a rookie "fundraiser" $15,000 a month plus expenses? I'm not making any accusations, but if I had to hazard a guess based on my own professional experience, I'd say that someone was laundering money, and CCIL was the washing machine.

At the very least, Jeralyn, I believe that Rod and Patti Blagojecich, and perhaps one or more of their political sugar daddies, took undue advantage of a financially struggling not-for-profit organization that ostensibly exists to serve Chicago's homeless, poor and indigent.

And if you can find something admirable in that, I'm all ears.