President Elect Obama Fails the First Rule of Criminality

Introduction: The main problem for President Obama with the scandal involving Rod Blagojevich is that it exposes the system he came from and that system is the antithesis of everything he claims to be. I doubt that he did anything wrong in this particular scandal. I don't know if he is tainted with any criminality at all. I do know that at the least he ingratiated himself with crooks like Rod Blagojevich, Richard M. Daley, and Todd Stroger, and looked the other way while they systematically gamed the political system. He did it because that's how you get ahead in Chicago. There are scant few Chicago area politicians with the bonafides to stake a legitimate claim as anti corruption crusaders and Barack Obama is NOT one of them.



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Now then, one of the most famous sayings related to crime is

it's not the crime but the cover up.

That's what I thought about reading this Associate Press piece.

President-elect Barack Obama is refusing to answer any questions about the
internal review he has ordered into Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged
efforts to sell his former Senate seat, saying he will do so when the
examination is finished.

Obama's staff has declined to respond to even basic questions, like who is
conducting the probe, how long it will take, what issues are being explored and
whether they are working with federal investigators. Obama has promised
transparency throughout his service and to divulge contacts his staff has had
with Blagojevich's office in the coming days. But his staff has locked down on
inquiries in the meantime.

The Obama transition team's refusal to talk has contributed to a maelstrom around Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago congressman likely to have been in contact with the governor, who was arrested this week in a corruption scandal. But Emanuel is not a target of the probe, according to people who have been briefed on the investigation. The two people spoke on a condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation is ongoing. One is a person close to Emanuel, who said he has been told by investigators that he's not a subject of their probe.

Barack Obama made a very firm, and somewhat peculiar, claim initially in the aftermath of this scandal. He claimed that his team never spoke with Blagojevich about the open Senate seat. This is peculiar because that there would have been nothing unusual about having the President Elect consult with the Governor about the open seat. Then, word came that David Axelrod previously said that in fact Obama and Blagojevich did speak about the open seat. Then, the local Fox affiliate reported that Rahm Emanuel had discussions with Blagojevich's folks about the seat. Now, comes word that Obama isn't going to answer any more questions about the scandal for the indefinite future.



President Obama has taken a situation in which it didn't appear as though he did anything wrong and turned it into one in which it appears he did something wrong. The problem is that this is the Chicago Way. Deny any wrong doing, stall in answering questions, and then hope the whole thing usually goes away, and it usually works. Our media and our watchdogs are either incompetent or corrupt and such tactics work. They won't work now. Such stall tactics only lead the national media to more and more speculation. By squashing his office from answering any questions, it just allows all media to speculate as to why he is doing as such.



Furthermore, by taking so long to answer questions, once he does answer any questions they will appear tainted. Will anyone really trust anything his office says when they know that it took the office several weeks to get their stories straight. Meanwhile, Obama allows his opponents and a blood thirsty media to define the story.

This story has the potential to spin any which way for President Elect Obama. It can be spun positively but he needs to get out front of it for this to happen. By putting a black out on the media, he has done the opposite. Now, the story is getting out front of him. Once that happens, it is near impossible for him to catch up.