Emanuel Had Contact With Blagojevich
None other than the New York Times reports that Rahm Emanuel did, indeed, have contact with the governor of Illinois. There is no indication that Emanuel is being investigated in any way, however. Yet the Obama camp is refusing to answer any questions about contacts between them and Blagojevich’s office.
CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, communicated with the office of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois about potential candidates for Mr. Obama’s Senate seat and provided a list of names, according to two Obama associates briefed on the matter.
The Obama associates said the interactions concerned several people who might fill the seat. Such contacts are common among party officials when a political vacancy is to be filled. It was not clear whether the communication was via direct telephone calls.
It is perfectly common for politicians to have contact in a situation like this. So why the mad scramble to practically hide Emanuel from the press?
The initial knee-jerk reaction of Obama to hastily announce that his staff was not involved in the scandal sounds more and more like Clintonian parsing. Did Emanuel do anything improper? There is no hint of that at this point. So the right thing to do would have been to announce – immediately – that Emanuel had been in contact but had not participated in the pay for play game Blagojevich was running. This was a serious mistake by Obama and his advisers.
By Rich Horton, December 14, 2008 @ 9:54 am
Its funny. Obama’s team is by and large not a gang of political neophytes.
So, whats with the rookie mistakes?
It very easily leads one to think “Unless….”