And the sad thing is we all knew this was going to happen even before we elected him. I remember one Democratic friend tell me "Just vote for Rod because we all know he's going to jail, and Pat Quinn (the Lt. Gov.) would make a good governor."
Anyway, after reading that story, I really hope Obama had something to do with the FBI investigation that caught Blagojevich. I like the idea of Barack playing hardball with the political scumbags that think they can squeeze him for special favors.
Labels: politics
My wife, who voted for Obama, had the same reaction as Danny.
(1) she thinks the best Obama can get out of this situation is for it to be neutral (maybe he's the new teflon president).
(2) she fears it may somehow bring discredit to him, unfairly.
(3) she believes this is further evidence of how corrupt politics is generally, and Illinois politics is specifically and therefore fears that Obama, as an Illinois politician, probably has dirt in his past that may eventually be uncovered as a result of this or other relentless journalistic digging. Like Danny, she doesn't want to see that happen.
I, who have more reservations about Obama as president than she, hadn't had any of those thoughts - I just assumed he was clear of this and that he'd kept his nose clean along the way so had nothing to fear from further journalistic digging.
At 12/12/2008 02:20:00 PM, 
Mike Clawson
Having lived in Illinois for the past 12 years, I've been following Obama a lot longer than others in the rest of the country, and my impression is that he is a lot cleaner than the average Illinois politician. Besides which, after these past two long years of the campaign, if they haven't found any serious dirt on Obama's past, I highly doubt there is any to be found. Do you really think there could be stuff still out there that both the Clinton and Republican machines, plus the whole massive cable news monstrosity have failed to find?
I feel like the governor can only hurt him or not affect him at all. If he had any contact with the governor, even if it was to stand up to him, he is going to take a lot of flack for it.
What I'm hearing around the web and the news is that the general opinion is that Obama probably has dirt in his past (who doesn't in politics?) and this is going to encourage reporters to search for it.
I really hope they don't find it. We need Obama's image to stay good for the morale of America.