Blago Update

The fur is still flying on the Illinois Gov. Blagojevich scandal.  Here are a few major points to pass along to you.

When the story first broke, the Obama team swiftly declared that they had had no contact with Blago about Obama's vacant Senate seat.  That was, of course, an absurd lie.  The Chicago Tribune called their bluff and outed Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel:

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Tribune has learned….

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps….

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor's administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win….

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be "acceptable" to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Sometime after the election, Emanuel called Harris back to add the name of Democratic Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to the approved list, the source said.

In fact, some reports indicate that Emanuel and Blago had as many as 21 separate conversations about this Senate seat.  The Obama camp then said there were no 'inappropriate' contacts made.  That's likely true, but a very different story than what they said first.  Emanuel has now effectively disappeared, presumably so he can't screw things up any worse than they already are by talking to the press and accidentally telling the truth.  An internal investigation has supposedly been done, and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asked Obama not to release the findings for a few more days while they sort things out.

For his part, Blago had a press conference today to tell 'his side of the story'.  It was pretty predictable:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Friday that he was not guilty, that he is not stepping down as governor, and that he will "fight until I take my last breath."

He said he will not step down or resign from office, has "the personal knowledge that I have not done anything wrong," and intends to address the allegations against him in court. He said he expects to be vindicated.

"I'm here to tell you right off the bat that I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, that I intend to stay on the job, and I will fight this thing every step of the way. I will fight, I will fight, I will fight until I take my last breath," Blagojevich said. "I have done nothing wrong."

He cast himself as a victim in the case, and said he will not let a "political lynch mob" force him from office.

Of course not.  And, aside from the testimony of numerous witnesses, documentation from numerous people involved, and a couple dozen recordings from the Feds of him trying to sell the seat, there really is no evidence of wrongdoing.  Poor guy, he just can't catch a break, you know?

Anyway, another fun little factoid has also come out about Blago - he's a bookie for the Chicago mob!  Nice.  Can't you just hear the disclaimer now:  "This is not the Rod Blagojevich I knew..."

Anyway, to sum this whole thing up, it is still unlikely that there was any real wrongdoing on the part of Obama.  Sure, they had contacts with Blago about the Senate seat, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  The biggest problem for Obama is that he and his team totally botched the handling of this mess.  Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said the following in a recent interview with Fox:

"He should have come right out at the beginning and acknowledged to the American people exactly what we already know, which is that somebody on his staff, somebody on his team, talked to somebody in Blagojevich's office. That's not the impression they left with the American people. They should have, right from the beginning, said, 'Here's what we did and here's who did it.'"

Pressed by liberal Alan Colmes of the "Hannity and Colmes" show if Rove thinks Obama is hiding something, Rove responded, "I just think he's mishandled this."

Rove believes that Obama's transition team should "answer the questions and be done with it. These things tend to be corrosive over time and this is an unnecessary distraction."

Rove acknowledged that Obama's popularity is high, but said "his [poll] numbers will be lower than they should have been otherwise because some people will say, 'You know what? Why didn't he shoot straight with us?'"

The most disturbing thing here is that this was an instance where there really (from what we know) was no wrongdoing, and Obama could have been completely open about it with the American public.  Instead, he chose to lie about what happened.  For a guy who promised transparency and a new kind of politics, this is not the most lustrous start.  To make matters worse, he's not going to get a second chance when it comes to critical foreign policy decisions once he's sitting in the Oval Office.  If he says or does the wrong thing when dealing with Iran, Russia, or any of the numerous other hostile nations, he could seriously damage relations or, worst case, potentially set off a war with a purely rookie mistake.

Did someone say inexperience before the election?  Why yes, I believe that was one of the biggest concerns of conservatives all over the country.  I sure hope we aren't proven right, but this Blago incident doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/chicago-tribune-outs-rahm-emanuel/
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/12/15/obama-internal-review-there-were-no-inappropriate-contacts-with-blago/
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/12/feds-capture-rahmbo-in-21-taped.html
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/12/16/rove-blasts-obama-on-senate-seat-scandal/
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/12/great-blagojevich-was-bookie-for-mob.html
http://cbs2chicago.com/governor/blagojevich.media.address.2.891120.html