Axelrod Endorsed Blagojevich-Style Politics in 2005

David Axelrod, scolding Fitzgerald's investigations:

Patrick Fitzgerald’s charges against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have drawn a chorus of shock and outrage.

But Barack Obama’s message man David Axelrod once staked out a much more nuanced position on Fitzgerald’s anti-corruption crusade.

In a 2005 op-ed, Axelrod argued, in effect, that trading political favors – including jobs – is part of the grease that makes government work.

He ripped Fitzgerald at the time for trying “to use the criminal code to enforce (his) vision” of “entirely remov(ing) politics from government.”

The piece in the Chicago Tribune was prompted by Fitzgerald’s indictment of aides to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley for conspiring to give city jobs as political favors. Daley was Axelrod’s client at the time.

But let's not examine the Culture of Corruption Obama springs from to give context to the story.

One Man's Crime. That's all it is. No larger message here.

The real news? Obama's innocent.

rick question: what was the stop-the-presses news coming out of the Windy City yesterday?

Nope, it wasn’t that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested for corruption–for, inter alia, attempting to sell Barack Obama’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat (which by state law is in the governor’s gift), attempting to get editorial writers for the Chicago Tribune who were critical of him sacked, and attempting to shake down various companies that had contracts with the state. That was not so much news as a longstanding tradition in what wags are now calling “Crook County,” Illinois.

The real news was that BARACK OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. It is not my regular practice to listen to NPR, but I happened to catch a bit of “All Left Things Considered” yesterday afternoon and the news from Chicago got a thorough airing. Sure, the name Rod Blagojevich came into the story, but each announcer in turn tripped over himself to assure the audience that BARACK OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

It was pretty funny, actually, to listen as these chaps who had labored so hard to help Obama get elected instantly closed ranks under the sign reading “presumed innocent.” Quoth one NPR announcer: It was nothing like Whitewater, a scandal that shadowed the Clintons for so many years. (But nota bene: if you go check out the MSM’s reporting on Whitewater back when it mattered, you’ll find that, according to them, Whitewater was basically a plot cooked up by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to discredit the Clintons.)

Did Obama have anything to do with Blago's latest "crime spree of corruption," while Obama was running for President and Blago was politically radioactive and under investigation by a head-hunting and headline-hunting US Attorney? Almost certainly not.

Did Obama have play the corrupt Chicago political game with Blago prior to the past two years? Open question, but given Obama had no problem making deals with the blazingly corrupt Tony Rezko, it seems likely.

Will the MSM look into this? Of course not. Their mission is to bury the truth, not discover it.

The Obama Rule seems to be that he need only spend a short time "distancing" himself from his shady past associates and, as if blessed by Jesus, he is absolved of all prior political sins.

posted by Ace at 02:14 PM

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