THE DAILY BLADE: Chicago On The Potomac
Noting that “U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald made clear that Gov. Blagojevich found no bidder in Obama for Illinois' open U.S. Senate seat,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Huntley adds, “it will be interesting, to say the least, to learn the details” of the communications between Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Blagojevich. Huntley lays out two scenarios:
First, maybe Blagojevich or his chief of staff, John Harris, followed up with vague inquiries, all within the bounds of normal you-scratch- my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back politics, asking how Obama might respond to the governor naming one of the candidates. With appreciation, Emanuel replied, and that was the end of that.
But the issue gets complicated if Blagojevich suggested a specific response, as in a Cabinet post, that demonstrated he had ventured beyond the bounds of normal politics into morally and legally suspect territory. …
Did Emanuel tell Obama that Blagojevich had crossed the line by trying to sell the Senate seat? Or did Emanuel opt not to burden Obama with the Blagojevich ugliness?
Did Emanuel blow the whistle by telling Fitzgerald about Blagojevich's outrageous demand? He would deserve a medal for saying enough with corrupt money-grabbing politics. Or did he just keep what he knew to himself?
If so, Emanuel might have a problem. It wouldn't be a legal one - he would have broken no law - but it would be a political issue. The idea of a White House chief of staff knowing about a crime unfolding and not doing anything about it wouldn't make for a pretty picture at the start of a new presidency. It would speak of an acceptance of old-style politics at its worst, and Obama is supposed to represent change.
Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times wonders, “when the tapes and transcripts of their conversations are released, will there be something that makes us cringe?”
Obama's staff includes several people who know Blagojevich well. The president-elect's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once bragged that he was one of the governor's most important advisors. Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, worked for Blagojevich in the 1990s …
Obama said that he had no personal contact with the governor's staff and has asked his team "to gather the facts ... so we can share them with you over the next few days." That's the kind of thing politicians say when they know they have a problem but they aren't sure how bad it is. …
[W]hen Obama's team talked with the governor, were they operating under Obama's rules -- or Chicago rules? More important: How will Obama react if someone on his team made a misstep?
His actions over the next week could set a tone for his administration. They will mark a real-world test of his rhetoric about ethics and transparency. …
Obama has promised to hold his administration to a far higher standard. "It's not enough to just change the players; we have to change the game," he says.
But Obama is certainly changing the players - bringing his Chicago cronies with him to D.C. - but the question is, will he change the game? Never a fan, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund isn’t holding his breath:
What remains to be seen is whether this episode will put an end to what Chicago Tribune political columnist John Kass calls the national media's "almost willful" fantasy that Mr. Obama and Chicago's political culture have little to do with each other.
Fund notes that when IL senate president Emil Jones, the kingmaker who propelled Obama’s career (“most of Mr. Obama's legislative accomplishments came as result of his association with Mr. Jones”), objected to state house speaker Michael Madigan starting to lay the groundwork for impeaching Blagojevich earlier this year, Obama did what he always does in these situations:
Many people were curious who Mr. Obama would side with in the dispute. Would it be with those Democrats who wanted to move aggressively against an apparently corrupt governor or with his old Chicago ally, Mr. Jones, who preferred to wait? Mr. Obama did neither. He kept silent.
To paraphrase a well-known axiom: All that is necessary for political corruption to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Throughout the campaign, John McCain repeatedly warned that Obama’s political career was was no profile in courage. Ryan Lizza also made this point in this July 2008 article published by The New Yorker: “Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them.”
In practical terms, this means we should all hope that Obama accommodates himself to the venal brand of D.C. corruption we’re all used to, rather than replacing it with the thuggish brand of Chicago corruption that is an order of magnitude beyond outrageous.
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