Extorting Children's Hospital is a new political low.

By SCOTT SIMON
Chicago - DECEMBER 15, 2008

Chicagoans and Illinoisans love political scandal the way that Milanese love opera.

We trade recollections, like baseball cards, about the secretary of state (Paul Powell) who stashed money in shoeboxes, and the Chicago mayor (Harold Washington) whose birthday was April 15 but never filed his income tax return.

Read more: Even Chicago's Crooks Are Appalled by Blagojevich