Blagojevich and Obama: An Illinois Tale
To pretend that the corruption scandal surrounding Illinois Governor Blagojevich is of little concern would be outrageous: the man is clearly extremely corrupt, even to Illinois measures, and he is a true product of the state’s Democratic Party.
The state’s Democratic Party has a long history of corruption. Chicago is all about power politics. Like Barack Obama, Blagojevich is a product of this environment.
However, pretending that Obama is somehow involved in the matter and / or that Blagojevich corruption speaks ill of the president-elect is ludicrous. The only possible relation with Obama is that he may have known or should have known that Blagojevich was planning certain unethical things. But in how far Obama may have known, or at least some of his staffers, remains unknown. Most of it is speculation. Nothing more, nothing less.
Furthermore, one has to keep in mind that most of it was business as usual. Normally, powerful politicians in a specific state, and nationally for that matter, do everything in their power to get their own cronies and favorites appointed to key positions. They always expect something in return for their help. Only the sun rises for nothing.
Blagojevich went rather obviously too far by attempting to sell the seat of Obama in the U.S. Senate. But the notion that a Governor plays politics and only appoints someone who will serve his (and his state’s) interests is not new. Blagojevich overdid it, should resign from office and be indicted for corruption, but his successor, I am afraid, will mostly display the same behavior albeit in a less open and direct manner.
The information currently available implies that Obama’s team knew that Blagojevich was planning to appoint someone who would help him in his career, but there is little to no information that indicates that Obama or his team knew what Blagojevich was doing exactly.
Some have argued that Obama staffers knew that Blagojevich was up to something (illegal) and should have reported it to federal authorities. But these authorities were already investigating the Illinois governor. A call from team Obama would have changed nothing. Instead, it may have been interpreted by some as payback for Blagojevich’s refusal to appoint the candidate Obama favored. This would have dragged Obama into the scandal, which was undoubtedly something his senior advisers wanted to prevent.
Blagojevich has dirt on his hands. This is obvious. But Obama does not seem to be involved, nor is the argument convincing that he or his senior advisers should have reported possible unethical behavior of Blagojevich to federal investigators. The governor will have to be held accountable for his deeds, but the president-elect’s opponents will have to find something else to pin on him, for ‘Blagogate’ is not suffice to tarnish Obama’s reputation.
This is getting more interesting by the minute, Michael. Hot Air is reporting that President Elect Obama would like Governor Blagojevich to resign. And there is also a report on Hot Air that the fifth seeker of the vacant Senate seat may be Jessie Jackson, Jr.
Back to my point in my post last night. The Democrats NEED to do a transparent and through house cleaning and fumigation. They cannot allow this to drag on like Watergate. They need to get to the bottom of things, and they should make sure Patrick Fitzgerald remains the man running the federal investigation of the political mess in Illinois. At the same time, the Democrats need to make good on getting rid of problems like Charles Rangel. And they need to be seen as willing to do it, and to drop the talk about how much more law-abiding the Dems are.
Yes, Dear Kos Kids, Merry Fitzmas to you.
From what I’ve read there is no indication that Obama was aware of this particular bit of corruption but quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that he knew the guy was rotten. Despite being the governor from his state, Obama kept him far far away during the campaign. He was the only Democratic governor not given a speech at the DNC. That to me says that Obama knew the guy was radioactive. That’s not necessarily an indication he was privy to private information, the man has been under investigation for quite some time, so the cloud of suspicion was there for everyone, including Obama, to see.
Though I would expect many people thought he’d try to leverage the appointment, I bet almost all of them are shocked by the sheer audacity with which he put the seat up for sale. The man knew he was under investigation and yet he was that open about the corruption. The stupidity and chutspah is mind-blowing.
According to super-Fitz, the only involvement Obama has in the matter is that of being insulted by Blago, who called him a “motherf@#@r” because all he was going to give in return for his favorite candidate (a woman, I forget her name) being appointed was “appreciation”. There’s also a rumor that the guy tried to get Rahm Emmanuel to promise something and that Rahm refused and promptly reported it to the Feds, but at this point that is only an uncorroborated rumor.
Democrats may need to do a thorough house-cleaning, but I think they are culturally and institutionally incapable at this point in time. Like the Republicans before them, the current Democratic Party leadership continues to operate from a cocoon of smug self-righteousness, convinced that the parade of scandals is just a consequence of a few misunderstood personalities and the exaggerations of their frustrated political enemies.
In the case of the Republicans, this cocoon was punctured by a merciless media that helped Democrats whip up public outrage resulting in an electoral tsunami. But the media in this case usually seeks to help insulate the broader progressive movement (including the Democratic Party as an institution) from the taint of its members’ misdeeds. Thus, I think it is unlikely for at least a while that the Democratic Party leadership will be forced to pay the costs of actually acknowledging the real scope of the problems in its ranks.
After Obama’s first four years maybe media adulation of Democrats will subside enough for them to start actually looking at the problem in a manner akin to the early 1990s. Then again, the horrifying specter of a Republican getting elected to the presidency or the speaker’s chair may encourage many in the media to self-censor even then.
It has been remarkable in the last 24 hours to listen to the verbal contortions that many major media commentators put themselves through to avoid saying “Democrat” and “Blagojevich” in the same paragraph.
These institutional barriers to reform are supplemented by strong cultural aversion to even the concept that progressives could be morally flawed. So many members of the Democrats’ most committed supporters have spent so long demonizing Republicans as the source of all evil that they are basically cognitively incapable of forcing accountability on their own. To do so would require them to sacrifice their Manichean worldview and that’s just not going to happen. Read any lefty blog today — FireDogLake, ThinkProgress, DailyKos, pick one — and you will see the Blagojevich story being played as an isolated and very temporary distraction from the real project of continuing the war on ideological opponents, not an issue warranting ANY significant internal reassessment.
Assuming you mean will be corrupt, I beg to differ. Blagojevick’s story is all too similar to me because the “favors for improper access to the Governor’s office” story is somewhat similar to this one.
Meanwhile, the person (a Republican) who replaced the disgraced governor in my state has not shown signs of corruption. Nor seems to have had any involvement or knowledge in his activities.