Obama's Ethic Reform Legislation Led to Blago Downfall
Interesting piece up in the New York Times this morning:
In 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.
We'll just have to chalk this one up to Obama having no record and no accomplishments, I guess.
good post. but reps are going to keep attacking Barack on this forever.
December 10, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dog will hunt.
December 10, 2008 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the info. This Obama thing just gets better all the time.
December 10, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using (and abusing) a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions (many of them polite and reasonable) can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California.
"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down; it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1208/Blagojevich_questions_censored_on_Transition_site.html?showall
Looks like Obama supporters don't want to talk about it, and they don't want anyone else talking about it either.
December 11, 2008 5:34 AM | Reply | Permalink