This is the headline from the AP: “Did Obama team have contact with Ill. governor?” The first paragraph isn’t much better:
Barack Obama insists he didn’t have any contact with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich or anyone else who might have been scheming to sell the president-elect’s U.S. Senate seat. But he has not yet given his transition staff the same clean bill of health — perhaps with good reason.
Jon Stewart showed Wednesday night how Fox has been trying to tar and subvert Obama by subliminally implying he and Blagojevich were best buddies, but in a rare nod to subtlety, Sean Hannity went to great lengths to say Obama had no connection with the soon-to-be-former governor. Leave it to the AP to take the fight to the next level.
The New York Times article on the scandal today tries to mitigate some of the right-wing echo chamber. But as I said in a previous post, Obama must make this an opportunity to purge any and all corruption in government. Our future depends on it.
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December 12, 2008 at 12:58 pm
jonolan
These are fair questions and comments by both Fox News and AP. Obama and his team are mostly from IL – Chicago in particular. That’s a sad area of the US where politics go greased hand in greased hand with business; corruption has always been rampant there.
Since Obama and his team have had multiple dealings of many sorts with Blagovitch – and Resko, whose testimony had a lot to do with this investigation – it behooves Obama to set matters straight and to do that firmly and quickly.
Sadly, Obama’s proxies have already lied – and been forced to recant – about Obama’s contact and dealings with Blagovitch. Such lying and obfuscation just lend more credence to the questions about Obama propriety or lack thereof.
December 12, 2008 at 7:22 pm
culturalcapitol
I agree that Obama needs to set the record straight, even if that means firing some close aids. But Zach has a point about the way the AP and Fox are spinning the news. It’s like asking “Yes or no — have you stopped beating your wife?”
December 12, 2008 at 10:09 pm
jonolan
Normally I would agree that they’re spinning this too much, but Obama’s people’s previous lies about the matter make this spin almost unavoidable in a profit-driven infotainment environment like current US pseudo-journalism.
Also, the AP article isn’t THAT spun. It’s shaded, yes – but not that strongly given the current non-transparency of the Obama team on the matter.
Short answer: AP and Fox are behaving less than perfectly, but Obama’s people are making matters worse with their non-responses.