Disgusting Corruption Scandals In Illinois, Mass Have Dems Running For Cover

AN EARLY CHRISTMAS

Obamavich Scandal Dominates News, Opponents Energized





*** Mass Governor's Lousy Timing ***


Providing a sneak peek of a corruption-plagued administration-in-waiting, the Obamavich Scandal has brought an early Christmas to opponents of Democratic Party corruption.

Topping the list of gift recipients: talk radio and blogs, which already realize they're sitting on a goldmine, as the surface of Obama's ties to these crooked Chicago thugs has barely been scratched.

Thought the Clinton years were entertaining? They will seem quaint by comparison. Adding to the fun, Hillary as secretary of state provides the icing on the cake!

Get ready for four years of zany hijinks, unless Obama becomes the second president in our nation's history to resign in disgrace.

As soon as the shocking details broke Tuesday morning, bloggers and hosts were all over it. But in a twist, the mainstream media was seemingly just as eager to cover the scandal, even if they often omitted the Illinois governor's Democratic designation.

Not wasting time, talk titan Rush Limbaugh got right down to business:

RUSH: You know, both parties engage in this stuff, but corruption is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, always has been, always will be. We throw out our corrupt officials. We make tracks to do it. The Democrats circle the wagons for theirs. So here we have Blagojevich, we have Rezko, we have Obama. This is quite a triangle here, folks.

And Patrick Fitzgerald, who is now speaking at the press conference, the corruption is to so deep, it is hard to quickly summarize it between all of these people. It's gonna take a while to figure all of this out. But we've got the complaint, and it's just hilarious. It is just hilarious to listen to this and to read these things. Rezko is now being investigated with the Obama land deal. Blagojevich arrested at 6:15 this morning along with his chief of staff.

Rezko and Blago and Obama go back together for a long, long time and now they're back together again. We got subpoenas; we got dot-connecting; we got land deals; we got cronies; we have corruption.

It's no wonder that Obama bought off Hillary with this Secretary of State appointment. I now understand why he's putting all these Clinton people in his administration. It was a brilliant stroke and even more so today. Now, Ben Smith at The Politico is speculating Obama knew all about this corruption investigation going down, not that he was tainted by it himself. The Drive-Bys are making it clear, in fact, without even knowing anything, the Drive-Bys -- we've got audio sound bites coming -- are making it clear Obama had no knowledge; he had nothing to do with this, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.

Some of them are even ripping on Fitzgerald now for overreaching. Obama has recruited all the Clintons. He has insulated himself politically from a number of these things. It's brilliant. Hillary has now been compromised for 2010. Can you imagine how she must feel? She has accepted the Secretary of State. She's taken herself out of the presidential running in 2012.

Obama knew all this was coming down. He knew that there was going to be all kinds of taint associated with his hometown political machine. A bunch of thugs up there in Chicago, folks. I mean we said it, we quoted President Clinton, and here it is, a culture of a Chicago political thugs, and it's gone down right before our very eyes. So we're going to get into this in much greater detail with audio sound bites as the program unfolds before your very eyes.

I'm just wondering if Obama's lighting up about now. You know, he said he's fallen off the wagon, when he tried to quit smoking, but he was not going to smoke in the White House. Probably go outside, out back, maybe the rose garden, but I wonder if he's lighting up about now, because a cold man just got a chill today. At least he's compromised Hillary. There is some comfort there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is just too great, everything associated with the Democrat Party's involvement in this Blagojevich thing. I just listened to a little bit of Patrick Fitzgerald, and he went out of his way to say Obama, the president-elect, is not involved in this. He's not mentioned in the complaint, had nothing to do with this, he's totally ignorant. All this was going on around him, just like in the Clinton days, all this stuff, the Chinese funny money and all that was happening, and he didn't know a thing about it, he had no clue.

Now, Ben Smith at The Politico says that the transition team -- that's Obama -- was aware of this investigation. As I said, they were taping Blagojevich as recently as Friday. They hand down their arrest and indictment today. They wanted to make their move before Obama's Senate seat could be sold, and Blagojevich was trying to get a cushy union job out of this once he left the governorship. It's clear that was trying to score big time by selling the seat.

While the mainstream media now gets to work helping Obama distance himself from the scandal, talk radio and the Internet know the party's just begun. How could this man have been elected president without a proper public vetting?

Unfortunately for Barack, however, not all of his mainstream friends are playing defense. At ABC News, for example, Jake Tapper has raised questions about the ties between Obama and his Chicago thug friends, resulting in frantic denials from Dem Central:

Asked what contact he'd had with the governor's office about his replacement in the Senate, President-elect Obama today said "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening."

But on November 23, 2008, his senior adviser David Axelrod appeared on Fox News Chicago and said something quite different.

While insisting that the President-elect had not expressed a favorite to replace him, and his inclination was to avoid being a "kingmaker," Axelrod said, "I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."

(UPDATE: An Obama Transition Team aide says that Axelrod misspoke on Fox News Chicago.)

(UPDATE #2: Axelrod this evening issued a statement saying. "I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject.")

There are no allegations that President-elect Obama or anyone close to him had anything to do with any of the crimes Gov. Blagojevich is accused of having committed.

In fact, there are indications that Mr. Obama and his team refused to go along with the "pay to play" way Blagojevich is accused of operating, offering only "gratitude" if the governor appointed his friend Valerie Jarrett to take his U.S. Senate seat, much to the governor's chagrin.

But there remain questions about how Blagojevich knew that Mr. Obama was not willing to give him anything in exchange for the Senate seat -- with whom was Blagojevich speaking? Did that person report the governor to the authorities?

And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house.

In the Democratic gubernatorial primary that year, then-state sen. Obama endorsed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. But after Blagojevich won, Obama came around enthusiastically. At the same time, meanwhile, Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client.

According to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, Emanuel, then-state senator Obama, a third Blagojevich aide, and Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, David Wilhelm, were the top strategists of Blagojevich's 2002 gubernatorial victory.

Emanuel told the New Yorker earlier this year that he and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor. We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two."

Wilhelm said that Emanuel had overstated Obama's role. "There was an advisory council that was inclusive of Rahm and Barack but not limited to them," Wilhelm said, and he disputed the notion that Obama was "an architect or one of the principal strategists."

(An Obama Transition Team aide emails to note that Emanuel later changed his recollection of this story to Rich Miller's "CAPITOL FAX," saying, "David [Wilhelm] and I have worked together on campaigns for decades. Like always, he's right and I'm wrong.")

In Boston, regional talk host Howie Carr had the double benefit of a still-unfolding Democratic Party bribery scandal that has rocked Beacon Hill for weeks. From his Wednesday column:

We in Boston take such great pride in our municipal corruption, but we are mere pikers compared to this “crime spree,” as the U.S. attorney described it. Illinois’ big-time crooked governors trump our small-time crooked House speakers. Obama said he wanted to hit the ground running - who knew he was talking about scandals? And by the way, how can the Democrats call Patrick Fitzgerald a hack? How can they accuse this prosecutor of a political vendetta? This is the guy who convicted Scooter Libby.

Do you think U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald has job security in the new Democrat administration?

What a difference between Boston and Chicago. We have a state senator who stuffs cash into her bra; they have a governor putting a U.S. Senate seat out for bids.

In Chicago, it’s “pay to play.” In Boston, it’s “pay to Playtex.”

This guy Blagojevich - did you see him at the window factory in Chicago on Monday with the laid-off workers? Black turtleneck, black leather jacket. He looked like Joe Pesci as Tony “the Ant” Spilotro in “Casino.”

Memo to Gov. Blagojevich: Dress like the governor, not like the governor’s bagman.

From here, we know the mainstream media will attempt to move this story to the back of the section, but public interest is sure to remain high for weeks and months to come. Americans deserve the truth, but it will take a concerted effort from the new media to make that happen.

FOR New England regional talk radio updates, see our other site.


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