It's funny... After spending months trying quite unsuccessfully to bring down Obama through a guilt-by-association campaign, you think that Republicans would know better than to try the same stupid tactic with this whole Balgojevich story.
Blagojevich is a jackass. Everyone who has even a passing understanding of the guy knows this. Blagojevich is also apparently a moron. I don't live anywhere near Illinois, and I knew that he was under investigation for a whole slew of different things. If I knew, then Obama knew. Now...
Having just won the Presidency of the United States, do you really think that Obama would choose to get involved with this idiot in his harebrained scheme? What about Obama's behavior over the last 2 years would suggest that this is a reasonable assumption?
And I'm not just speculating here, either. Patrick Fitzgerald has Blago on tape complaining that Obama's people, unlike some others (bye bye Jesse Jr.! looks like people jumped to conclusions on this one!), wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole:
Also during that call, Blagojevich agreed it was unlikely that Obama would name him Secretary of Health and Human Services or give him an ambassadorship because of all of the negative publicity surrounding him, according to the complaint.In a conversation with Harris on Nov. 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew Obama wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but "they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them."
Or as Fitz himself said:
MR. FITZGERALD: Anna, I'm not going to go down anything that's not in the complaint. And what I simply said before is, I'm not -- I have enough trouble speaking for myself, I'm never going to try to speak in the voice of a president or president-elect. So I simply pointed out that if you look at the complaint, there's no allegation that the president-elect -- there's no reference in the complaint to any conversation involving the president-elect or indicating that the president-elect was aware of it, and that's all I can say.
Not that any of this has stopped the fevered speculation, of course. I mean, Blogo was trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. Isn't it obvious! That sentence has the name "Obama" in it! He must be involved!
OK, I'll bite:
Indeed, the prosecutors say that it was the ethics bill Obama was instrumental in getting passed that prompted Blagojevich's spree.
I give. You're right. Obama was involved. He passed the ethics reform law that helped box Blogo in. What an awful, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad thing to do.
And we still don't know who snitched on Blago, either.
But seriously...
Call me crazy, but I consider this a very good week for the Democratic Party. First Rep. Cash-in-the-Freezer Jefferson goes down to defeat, and then Blogo gets arrested. Everyone knew they were corrupt. It's nice to see they'll both be going away.
