Blagojevich's invitation like Gary Hart's

WASHINGTON — Note to prominent people doing questionable things: Don't invite authorities or the media to check up on you while you do it.

Just as presidential candidate Gary Hart once baited reporters to "follow me around" if they thought he was stepping out on his wife, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told people on the eve of his arrest Tuesday they were welcome to tape his public and private phone calls.

"I can tell you that whatever I say is always lawful," Blagojevich huffed.

Twenty years earlier, Hart said: "I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored."

In 1987, reporters who tailed Hart got enough to end his presidential ambitions when they saw model Donna Rice at his Washington town house while his wife was in Colorado.

The prosecutors who bugged Blagojevich have come away with enough to charge him in a "political-corruption crime spree."

Blagojevich said Monday anyone listening to his calls would only hear him trying to help the citizens of Illinois and talking about the Chicago Cubs. "I don't care whether you tape me privately or publicly," he said.

However, he said he wished authorities planning to tape his calls would "give me a heads-up and let me know." That didn't happen.

The governor has known for three years he was under investigation. When FBI agents told him Tuesday he was being arrested, he asked, according to one of them, "Is this a joke?"