NYT: Obama Brought Down Blagojevich!
Just when you thought the New York Times couldn’t be any more shameless or absurd:
Obama’s Effort on Ethics Bill Had Role in Governor’s Fall
By MIKE McINTIRE and JEFF ZELENY
Published: December 9, 2008In a sequence of events that neatly captures the contradictions of Barack Obama’s rise through Illinois politics, a phone call he made three months ago to urge passage of a state ethics bill indirectly contributed to the downfall of a fellow Democrat he twice supported, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama placed the call to his political mentor, Emil Jones Jr., president of the Illinois Senate. Mr. Jones was a critic of the legislation, which sought to curb the influence of money in politics, as was Mr. Blagojevich, who had vetoed it. But after the call from Mr. Obama, the Senate overrode the veto, prompting the governor to press state contractors for campaign contributions before the law’s restrictions could take effect on Jan. 1, prosecutors say.
Tipped off to Mr. Blagojevich’s efforts, federal agents obtained wiretaps for his phones and eventually overheard what they say was scheming by the governor to profit from his appointment of a successor to the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Obama. One official whose name has long been mentioned in Chicago political circles as a potential successor is Mr. Jones, a machine politician who was viewed as a roadblock to ethics reform but is friendly with Mr. Obama.
Beyond the irony of its outcome, Mr. Obama’s unusual decision to inject himself into a statewide issue during the height of his presidential campaign was a reminder that despite his historic ascendancy to the White House, he has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics. It is a world he has long navigated, to the consternation of his critics, by engaging in a kind of realpolitik, Chicago-style, which allowed him to draw strength from his relationships with important players without becoming compromised by their many weaknesses.
By the time Mr. Obama intervened on the ethics measure, his relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, always defined more by political proximity than by personal chemistry, had cooled as the governor became increasingly engulfed in legal troubles. There is nothing in the criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday to indicate that Mr. Obama knew anything about plans to seek money and favors in exchange for his Senate seat; he has never been implicated in any other “pay to play” cases that have emerged from the long-running investigation of the Blagojevich administration…
When he ran for the United States Senate in 2004, he aggressively courted Mr. Jones, a sewer inspector turned legislator who had clawed his way up through ward politics and was viewed as something of a kingmaker in the Illinois Democratic Party…
This is simply cloud cuckoo land.
We are honestly supposed to believe that some vague call to his ever so corrupt mentor, Emil Jones (who was also bidding for the Senate seat), set off the chain of events that led to Blagojevich’s downfall?
That an ethics bill that passed in the Illinois Senate 55 to 0, would not have passed otherwise? And that the passing of this bill somehow made Mr. Blagojevich do things he would not have otherwise done?
We are supposed to believe that Mr. Blagojevich would not have been trying to get campaign contributions otherwise?
And that he would he not have still tried to sell Mr. Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder?
And note this revisionism:
When he ran for the United States Senate in 2004, he aggressively courted Mr. Jones, a sewer inspector turned legislator who had clawed his way up through ward politics and was viewed as something of a kingmaker in the Illinois Democratic Party.
This completely turns reality on its head.
As we have previously chronicled, Mr. Jones created Barack Obama. He made Obama a US Senator, and he has not be shy about bragging about it.
Mr. Obama would be exactly no where without Emil Jones. And yet The Times pretends that Obama had to "court" him in 2004.
This is absolutely laughable, even for the New York Times.
But obviously there is no fantasy too big or too ridiculous to spin out in order to protect their Anointed One.
That is not the the Gov. Blagojevich that I knew.
No, it’s not. Amazing how someone could know so many people, yet not “know” them. Either Barack-the smartest man in the world- just nods his head like a bobble head doll when these people are speaking and acting and is spacing out and really doesn’t know what’s going on or else he really does “know” these people and has found that his “kind eyes and hopeful smile, as well as his soothing voice” is enough to convince the millions of stupid idiots who voted for this charlatan that he can convince him he doesn’t
‘know” them. Either way, it’s a scary thought.
How can Obama possibly be clean with all this swirling around him?
No, no Wait a Minute… He’s not longer the Messiah… He’s the “GREAT LESLIE”!!!!!
A brief ’splanation and a link for the ages:
The PERFECT movie metaphor for this whole Blugoiavich fiasco specifically, and Obama’s upbringing in Chicago politics generally, is the pie fight scene from the mid 60’s epic comedy “The Great Race”.
Set up: This is where all the principles in the cast get murdered in the quintissential pie fight that adds laughs and irony in equal doses.
The metaphor:
*Cast members are Chicago Politicos
*Pies are Chicago curruption
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq4tQg4QYLQ
The laughs:
*lots everywhere. Jack Lemmon plays the bad guy, the “Professor” and gets hammered. In a dual role he also plays the doofus, perenially DRUNK prince. I like to think of Peter Falk as Blugoiavich.
The irony:
Tony Curtis plays the “Great Leslie” (Obama) and manages to stand in the middle of this melee and not have any of the pies touch him… My 16 year old son watched this and asked “how does he keep from getting hit?”… I replied “Smoke and mirrors my son and many, many retakes.”
Let’s admit: the comparisons are real. Bill Clinton brought in a cloud of scandals when he and Hill schlepped their way into our lives, just like Barry and Michelle are about to accomplish.
With Bill Clinton, the White House was home to a pair of Arkansas lawyers who had their hands in as many shady (corrupt) schemes you can get away with, seeing them snowball from the ‘92 primary to the ‘94 subpoena of Rose Law Firm records, which held clues if they hadn’t already been thoroughly sanitized.
After dodging repeated subpoenas for 2 years [could you or I get away with ignoring a court-ordered subpoena for 2 years?], in 1996, Hill made history as the only First Lady ever called to testify before a Grand Jury inquiry.
Despite dodging would-be scandals in the two-year primary season, we see the emergence of “candidate-with-a-past”, starting with what seems innocent, almost quaint concerns: Is he a secret Muslim?, Did he get sworn in to the Senate with his hand on the Quran?, What’s up with that name? etc, then graduating to deeper, more character-defining choices he made along the way: If you can sell out to Bill Ayers, is there anything you won’t sell out? How can you say you never knew of your spiritual mentor’s core message if you sat in his audience for 20 years, named one of your life-lesson autobiographies after one of his speeches, and walked past the lobby kiosks in his church that were peddling the very dvd videos of the reverand’s hate-filled message?
Soon after the primary season was over, Hill and Bill set forth on erecting their legacy. Some of it not so good (”Don’t ask, don’t tell”, Waco, the 1993 WTC bombing), but there, nonetheless, for the press to ignore. (How often do we hear of the innocent people that Janet Reno and Bill Clinton killed in that Justice Dept/Army tank engagement? It seems lost to history.) Their spree ended up graduating from billing fraud, bimbo eruptions, and the like to darker, more sinister levels: Vince Foster, James McDougal, Ron Brown, Mary Mahoney, to name just a few. (see a list here: http://www.greaterthings.com/N.....iends.htm)
It looks like our election-season scandalizing caps off with a “pay-to-play” embroglio which, at this writing, seems to be a whirlpool of Chicago Politics which hasn’t YET caught our man-boy Barry in it’s undertow. I say yet because federal prosecutor Fitzgerald acted just in time to contain the contanimation to only the Illinois governor’s office. Patrick may know that the Obama office had contacted the Blagojevich office in order to “play”, but both parties, that is Emanuel and Patrick, are keeping quiet. Throw the governor overboard in a string of Resko-type associations that we will have to brace ourselves for during the next four or eight years.
Flaws and overspending aside, George W Bush, his father, and Reagan never brought in this kind of darkness to the White House. For the past US generation, we have been treated to deeply flawed, corrupt, and murderous Democrats. Obama is simply continuing the pattern.