In case you were wondering, impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich still maintains his innocence.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been out of the news for a while, but he is never far from the public stage.

Blago took advantage of a decision by federal prosecutors to narrow their criminal case against him to trumpet his innocence.

As if often the situation when criminal cases are retried, lawyers on both sides re-examine their cases and decide how to make a more effective presentation to the jury.

So prosecutors Wednesday asked U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel to dismiss racketeering, racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud charges against Blago.

Prosecutors presented a lengthy, complicated case against Blago last summer and ended up convicting him on only one charge – lying to the FBI. The jury was hung by an 11-1 vote on a number of serious charges but was more evenly divided on others.

The feds want to limit the issues jurors will have to decide, and there's no reason for them not to do so. If convicted on the remaining offenses – including his alleged effort to sell President Obama's former U.S. Senate seat – the 54-year-old Blago could go to prison for a very long time. He's already going to go to prison for the conviction he earned last summer.

But Blago issued a statement in which he said, "Today's developments in court are three steps in the right direction in what has been a long and arduous journey for my wife, my children and me."

Blago's retrial is scheduled to begin with jury selection in less than two months. So it won't be long before the former governor is dominating the newspapers and air waves again with his thinly disguised pleas for public sympathy.

Strap on your seat belts. Another flight to Blago-world is preparing for takeoff.