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Obama's support of ethics reform is good news for the GOP...

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

....or Rudy Giuliani, or something like that.

Seriously, I'm trying to get my arms around

» READ MORE: this new story on the Blagojevich scandal that the New York Times has put out there

. The lede of the article is tantalizing:

OK, so what I'm getting from that is that Barack Obama supports ethics in government, that he doesn't think state contractors should be making large campaign contributions. Hey, that's a good thing, right?

Right?

Uh, according to the New York Times, not necessarily:

"Beyond the irony of its outcome..."? Huh? How about...beyond the irony of the fact that an Obama phone call for an ethics reform bill -- strongly opposed by none other than Rod Blagojevich -- is an excuse to somehow tie him to the "murky" world of Chicago politics. Look (as Obama himself might say), there's some interesting new information in this Times article, but their basic perspective is all upside-down wrong.

Did it occur to them that maybe Obama was elected 44th president of the United States exactly because he HAS escaped "the murky and insular world of Illinois politics"? When people ask why would someone like Obama involve himself in Chicago politics, the bottom line is Chicago is where he lived -- he moved there to organize laid-off steelworkers, got a job there and then even married a Windy City native.

Most people run for office in THE CITY WHERE THEY LIVE -- that caused Obama to cross paths with an interesting cast of characters, but in the case of Rod Blagojevich, it seems like once he took the measure of the man he didn't want much to do with him. He had little to do with Blago after 2006, didn't even ask him to speak at the Dem convention in 2008, and his people didn't give the governor the time of day regarding his recent Senate machinations. Obama mostly kept their "murky" world at arm's length, which is a reason why he is president-elect and why the notion that a machine hack like Blagojevich could even think about running for president in 2016 is

» READ MORE: almost proof of his insanit

y.

But this Times story is Day One of what is going to be a brand new silly season in American politics, just when you thought it was safe. No matter how much the next few days demonstrate that Obama didn't want any part of Blago's scam, every phone call in which a junior staffer didn't immediately hang up, or any time that Obama and Blagojevich were in the same room and Obama didn't slap a pair of cuffs on the governor will be more proof of the "murky" circles that Obama travels in.

Wait until they found out that Obama's set foot in Philadelphia, too.