Political Pyro

When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Barack Obama’s sudden rise through the Chicago political machine to national prominence, and now the White House, leaves many skeptics scratching their heads as to just how involved Obama may or may not have been in the sleazy dealings of the Chicago political underworld.

Illinois Senator Paul Simon and Governor Adlai Stevenson are two examples of squeaky-clean, 20th century politicians who managed to scrape their way through the machine to the national level without so much as buggering up their bow-ties, so to automatically assume that such a venture is not possible for Obama is a terrible disservice to those gentlemen.

The general consensus is that Obama did just that.

Yet, when Patrick Fitzgerald arrested Governor Rod Blagojevich in the early hours of Tuesday the 9th, many who initially hailed the zealous prosecutor for disrupting the notorious Chicago machine “in the middle of a crime spree,” soon began to set their sights on Obama and Company.

The initial knee-jerk reaction is common in journalism, and in no way implies any wrongdoing on the part of the Obama administration. For a fleeting moment, it appeared that reporters were finally willing to do their jobs and ask the President-elect some tough questions.

The response? Like shining a searchlight in an abandoned tenement kitchen.

Obama immediately stated that he had had no contact with Blagojevich concerning the Senate seat he leaves vacant, despite the fact that no such conversation would be considered unethical in any way. As a result, David Axelrod was forced to rescind his earlier statement claiming that Obama in fact had spoken with the governor. Rahm Emanuel suddenly made himself unavailable for questioning as it became widely understood he was the one doing all the communicating.

So why all the retracted statements? Why the guilty consciences?

The press has been all too eager to paint Blagojevich as a raving lunatic, but it merely underscores their willingness to throw him under the bus in order to protect Barack Obama. This should be expected from liberal media outlets, such as The New York Times, intent on reducing the governor’s credibility to that of a syphilis-ridden prostitute suffering the latter stages of dementia. But it only raises questions as to why the president-elect would need such protection if he is as squeaky clean as we are being lead to believe.

On October 17, 2008, the Chicago Tribune had this to say in their endorsement of Barack Obama for president:

On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

On December 14, 2008, The Wall Street Journal wrote this about the Blagojevich investigation:

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ordered the FBI to arrest Rod Blagojevich before sunrise Tuesday in order to stop a crime from being committed. That would have been the sale of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

But the opposite is true: Members of Fitzgerald’s team are livid the scheme didn’t advance, at least for a little longer, according to some people close to Fitzgerald’s office. Why? Because had the plot unfolded, they might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on tape, including the sellers and the buyers.

The precise timing of Tuesday’s dramatic, pre-dawn arrest was not dictated by Fitzgerald, nor was it dictated by the pace of Blagojevich’s alleged “crime spree”. It was dictated by the Chicago Tribune, according to people close to the investigation and a careful reading of the FBI’s affidavit in the case.

Today, The New York Times reports:

When Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, announced the arrest of the Illinois governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, Mr. Fitzgerald said he had acted to halt a political crime spree that included what he called an “appalling” effort to sell off the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

But now some lawyers are beginning to suggest that the juiciest part of the case against Mr. Blagojevich, the part involving the Senate seat, may be less than airtight. There is no evidence, at least none that has been disclosed, that the governor actually received anything of value — and the Senate appointment has yet to be made.

In dealing with The Chicago Tribune, it seems Fitzgerald’s entire hand had been exposed to a newspaper whose connections within the machine remain unknown. Afterall, somebody tipped off Obama, who withdrew his preferred candidate, Valerie Jarrett, before the Tribune took it upon themselves to bust the investigation wide open on December 5th.

One suggestion for Fitzgerald the next time he deals with the Chicago Tribune in an investigation surrounding the presidential candidate they have endorsed: bug their offices first.

Current political score and predicted outcome: Chicago Machine, 1 — Justice, 0

Forget It, Fitz…….. It’s Chi-Town.