The questions that linger
What happened in the conversations with Blago?
The questions that linger
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Gubernatorial thuggery in Illinois won’t prompt Americans to throw their shoes at Barack Obama (give George W. Bush credit, the guy has good reflexes), but the president-elect risks losing some political luster if he fails to speedily address nagging questions about the extent and nature of any conversations that his aides may have been conducted with the corrupt hustler who aimed to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat.
Last week, while responding at a news conference to questions about the Rod Blagojevich scandal, Obama stated: “What I want to do is gather all the facts about any staff contacts that I might – may have – that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor’s office,” and share these facts publicly, “over the next few days.”
He made that promise on Thursday morning. At that point, he had already been silent for two days; the scandal had gone national on Tuesday morning, when Blagojevich was cuffed at home, on charges of conspiracy and soliciting bribes. This means that the Obama people have now declined for nearly a week to detail the extent and nature of their discussions with the governor about that vacant Senate seat.
Even if Obama is innocent of all wrongdoing – indeed, the federal complaint against Blagojevich offers zilch evidence of any Obama malfeasance – this six-day silence isn’t doing him any good, at least on the perception front. Unless or until Obama supplies “all the facts about any staff contacts,” his partisan opponents will seek to broadly tar him with the Blago brush, and the more vigilant members of the media will keep re-framing the key unanswered questions.
And here are some of the questions:
Which Obama emissaries spoke to Blago or the governor’s people, and when? (Reportedly, Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was one such emissary.) Did they hear Blago say anything that struck them as potentially illegal, such as his offering to name a particular person to the Senate seat in exchange for money or a new job? If so, did they ignore, abet, or resist his pitch? Did they encourage or discourage him? Did they report anything to the authorities?
One might also ask: If the Obama people have nothing to hide, then what's the hold up? On the other hand, it's understandable that they wouldn't want to respond too quickly. They don’t want to say anything that might compromise an ongoing federal probe. They also want to ensure that whatever they tell us about the conversations with Blago will jibe with the conversations that have been wiretapped; after all, being nailed for contradictions would only feed the news frenzy. All these factors probably help to explain why the Obama people have been cautiously reticent thus far; indeed, it’s entirely possible that in the end they will be perceived by most Americans as bystanders to Blago’s delusional buffoonery.
Nevertheless, the longer Obama fails to detail those staff contacts, the more he risks picking up some of the Chicago taint that he probably assumed he had managed to escape. (At this point, I’ll have to invoke the Godfather III line that I’ve been resisting since last Tuesday. From Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”) And the longer Obama waits, the more he risks making his fellow Democrats nervous (Ed Rendell has already told Morning Joe on MSNBC that, for Obama, this should have been a one-day story).
And, naturally, the longer Obama waits, the more he provides fuel to a partisan GOP engine that has been running virtually on empty. The Republican National Committee this weekend began circulating a three-minute video entitled "Questions Remain," and the party's lust for new combat is arguably best articulated by longtime conservative operative Craig Shirley: “Now the task is left to what remains of the Republican Party to begin the process of rebuilding. A good place to start is to shed it own corrupt image by going after the corruption of the Chicago and the National Democrats, and if that leads all the way to President-elect Obama, then so be it…and shove it down their (bleeping) throats.”
Now, of course, there's something slightly comical about hearing these demands for accountability from the GOP, which was mute and supine for eight years while its own president wreaked havoc at home and abroad, and which was finally held accountable and horse-whipped by the electorate just six weeks ago. Nor are there any indications that the electorate finds the Blagojevich scandal to be more important than the issues that are currently draining its savings; or that the landslide support for the president-elect has eroded in any significant way.
But his reticence on the Blago-imbrogilio won't benefit him forever. Nature abhors a vacuum - especially in a 24/7 partisan climate where an errant smell can quickly be conflated into an all-purpose stench.
-------
Late-day update, from an Obama spokesman:
"At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release. That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect's staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator.
"Also at the President-elect's direction, Gregory Craig, counsel to the Transition, has kept the US Attorney's office informed of this fact-gathering process in order to ensure our full cooperation with the investigation.
"In the course of those discussions, the US Attorney's office requested the public release of the Transition review be deferred until the week of December 22, in order not to impede their investigation of the governor. The Transition has agreed to this revised timetable for release."
So, another week. And Obama is slated to be on vacation next week.
Marge, I'm glad you remembered that from my previous posts, it must have made an impression:) The war was not poorly executed and since the Iraq War we haven't been attacked as so many other countries have been! The Anthrax scare was an American doing it, not terrorists. When more civilians die in Phila per month than among our 150,000 service men over in Iraq, I would say the war is almost over!— NEPhilly- It's childish to accuse your political opponents of wanting bad things to happen to America--like losing the Iraq war--just because they don't support the current administration. I don't know anybody, even the most left-wing type, who thought that way. I know that I fervently hoped for a quick, clean victory in Iraq in 2003, although I thought the war was a bad mistake, and was saddened and disgusted when it became clear how incompetent our leadership was.— liberal
- NE, please get your statistics right. There are 1,500,000 people in Philadelphia, more or less. So the death rate among Iraq troops is the same if it's one-tenth the murder count in Phila. There are about 300 murders per year in Philadelphia. A comparable death rate among Iraq troops would be 30 per year.— liberal
- NE, the Bush administration, the media, and the country as a whole condoned war crimes in the last several years. The more you say it ain't so, doesn't mean it ain't so.— liberal
- lib, that is exactly what the hard left wanted, for us to lose the war, because it would hurt GWB! They are still talking us into losing the war(see Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi/Obama campaign comments), even though it is about to be won! My stats are correct, just not the way you have spun them! In July of this year more civilians died in Phila (which is not a war zone, I think) than our armed forces suffered in Iraq! Look it up! Also, is it childish to say the Dems/Obama hoped/were glad the economy tanked (conveniently) right before the election? You would have thought our country was in a tailspin during the election listening to Obama campaign! Now he is surprised/worried that consumer confidence is in the toilet. He practically caused it with his campaign nonsense!— NEPhilly
- NE PHIL: That shoe thrower should be sent to Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, no? This is clearly an assassination attempt, no?— Talvenada
- Obama is going to release everything next week....you know, the big news week of Christmas. Why is it taking so long for the most open, transparent administration in history to get it's facts together? It is not as if this goes back years or even months....it is back in October and early November for goodness sake.— tjhaol
- Why is everyone on the hard left so ready to say Americans are the bad guys and the rest of the world is good? That it was our own fault we were attacked. That the 'chickens have come home to roost', why is that? I wonder if a Dem was president during this time, if the rhetoric would have been the same! I wonder!— NEPhilly
- Tal, leave it to you to go over the top:) Bush himself held back his secret service from this guy! He should go to jail though, don't you think? I guess you think he is a hero or something, just like the MSM and the terrorists:)— NEPhilly
- Those lingering questions have been answered. From Firedoglake. "At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release. That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect's staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator. "Also at the President-elect's direction, Gregory Craig, counsel to the Transition, has kept the US Attorney's office informed of this fact-gathering process in order to ensure our full cooperation with the investigation. "In the course of those discussions, the US Attorney's office requested the public release of the Transition review be deferred until the week of December 22, in order not to impede their investigation of the governor. The Transition has agreed to this revised timetable for release," said Obama Transition Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. [my emphasis]— Chris Landee
- chasing history, you are one sorry-assed bigot. Again, you make derogatory remarks about someone you know nothing about. Do you even know what neocon means?— junethe4th
- Obama is a Chicago crook that the media never wanted to look over. All the media wanted to do was promote the big liberal. Someday, the public will find out how big a cheatn' loser they elected.— mistermcfrugal
- NE PHIL: There are men jailed at Gitmo, like Abu Ghraib B4 it, who were arrested based on another's unverified accusation alone. Shouldn't Neo-Cons make an example of this enemy combatant?— Talvenada
- NE PHIL: These Iraqis have been told how much Bush has done for them. You cannot allow this. His punishment must be swift and sure!!— Talvenada
- Tal, did you have a bad weekend?— NEPhilly
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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