Transparency For Thee

But not for "The One"

Chicago scandal could take the shine off the Obama inauguration

In August 2006, when it was publicly known that Governor Rod Blagojevich and his staff were being investigated for corruption, Barack Obama took the microphone at the Illinois State Fair.

“We’ve got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois,” he declared to the crowd as he endorsed the Illinois Governor for re-election.

Now, with the allegations that Mr Blagojevich tried to hawk Mr Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder, the scandal — and the stench of Chicago politics that the President-elect hoped he had put behind him — is raising a slew of uncomfortable questions.

Mr Obama’s endorsement of Mr Blagojevich in 2006 was an example of the way that he operated in Chicago. He rarely bucked or challenged the corrupt status quo — in stark contrast to his image as a reformer.

His meteoric rise through Chicago politics was based on making strategic alliances with the city’s entrenched, and often ethically challenged, power brokers — Mr Blagojevich included — then moving on before being tainted by association. Several of these figures he once relied on have since become immersed in corruption scandals.

Mr Obama officially made transparency a central theme of his administration last week, yet he was facing growing calls yesterday to reveal what, if any, contact there had been between his staff and Mr Blagojevich over the efforts of the governor to sell his Senate seat.

I say it's time to have more than a little transparency. It's time to come clean, about that Senate seat for sale -- What did the President Elect know and when did he know it?

Shall we start with this -- Isn't it fascinating how this particular quote has been buried by the mainstream media. But, did Rahm Emanual say this --

"The president-elect can get Blagojevich's wife on paid corporate boards in exchange for naming the president-elect's pick to the Senate."

And furthermore, did you instruct him to say it, or was he just counting on your good graces to followup on the paid appointments to boards in exchange for your pick as Senate candidate. You do realize that is illegal don't you, sir.