Time magazine foolishly gave Chicago politics its clean government seal of approval last month. Celebrating Barack Obama's election, the magazine said John McCain's attempts to tie Obama to corruption in the Windy City failed because they were "based on an outdated caricature."The left-leaning magazine went on to note that Obama was bringing the Chicago trio of David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and John Podesta to the White House and insisted that these days, "Chicago Democrat appears to be a winning label."
Oops.
File that one under things you wish you'd never written, especially since the gushing article never mentioned Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, also a Democrat. It was no secret he was under investigation and, as the stunning criminal complaint filed against him Tuesday charges, Blagojevich spent much of November trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Time isn't the only news organization that turned a blind eye to the Chicago way of doing things. The swamp of the city's machine politics has never been drained, but the national media chose not to look too closely at Obama's connections, including to Blagojevich.
Now it will have to because of the breathtaking scams charged in the case. And with the money-hungry Blagojevich heard on secret wiretaps talking brazenly about his willingness to make a corrupt deal with the President-elect, Obama will have to explain what, if anything, he and his staff knew.
Obama's quickie statement Tuesday that he had "no contact" with Blagojevich isn't enough. Nor is his claim that it wouldn't be appropriate to comment.
It is not only appropriate - it is absolutely necessary that he clear the air on the explosive issue. Carrying any taint of Chicago corruption to the White House is the last thing Obama should want for his new administration. As it stands, the taint is already there, laid out in detail over 20 pages of the 75-page federal complaint.
Fitzgerald can presumably rest now, but some of us won't until we know how much the next President knew about the crime spree in his own backyard.Remember, there is no way that Obama can ever answer those questions sufficiently. There will always be more, it will never be enough. The question is whether or not the right can successfully feed the MSM the kind of juicy tidbits that will keep their small minds interested. The right understands how to appeal to the puerile sensibilities of the kewl kidz in ways the left never mastered. (All that boring talk about torture and unitary executives and bankrupt ideology is so booooring. ) What they want is something with a little tabloid zing --- easy to understand tales of individual bad behavior that allow them to cluck and gossip and revel in their own superiority. (For instance, the story today about the "modern day Lady Macbeth," Mrs Blogojevich, is giving the press simultaneous orgasms all over town.)