Saturday, December 13, 2008

Drip, Drip, Drip; Emanuel Gaves Blago Senate List

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It's been a long week for the President-elect with the Blago scandal breaking and his amateurish handling of it. Todays news on the scandal includes the fact that Emanuel gave Blago's people a list of what they considered "acceptable" Senate replacements:

Emanuel, who has long been close to both Blagojevich and Obama, has refused to respond to questions about any involvement he may have had with the Blagojevich camp over the Senate pick. A spokeswoman for Emanuel also declined to comment Friday.

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps.

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor's administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win.

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be "acceptable" to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.
Can any of those people now be considered to take the seat with these revelations? Of course they were not involved as far as we know but aren't they now tainted?

Second, let us hear what they have Emanuel on tape saying. I'm sure the transcript would make for entertaining reading with plenty of expletives and quid pro quos discussed.

Fitzgerald can let this thing linger until January 20th and beyond because the scandals are always worse when hot confronted directly. Rahm Emanuel has allowed this to stain the transition team and the President-elect by clamming up and avoiding answering questions and has given us a glimpse into just how secretive the new administration will be. It's evident that hope and change will mean duck and weave instead.

2 comments:

robert verdi said...

but in democrat party speak communications on paper are not the same as speaking, hence Obama and associates didn't really talk.

ambrosiajr said...

This is a joke, right? Secretive? Have you ever heard of The Dick Cheney? Lets talk secretive. The only time he crawls out from under his rock is when he goes to a fundraiser. Other than that, no one knows where he is hiding. He won't even release any of the logs to show who visits him. And you talk secretive? Gimmeabreak!