Jackson “5” And Obama’s Moonwalking

11 Dec, 2008 by Melissa Clouthier

Print this article Font size -16+

What a fiasco.

So Jessie Jr is behind door #5 according to the New York Times:

Mr. Jackson was described in an affidavit filed in Mr. Blagojevich’s arrest as one of at least six people being considered by the governor to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s unfinished term in the United States Senate in exchange for money or a new job.

Specifically, federal authorities said, Mr. Jackson is “Senate Candidate 5,” associates of whom, the governor said in a wire-tapped conversation, were willing to raise money for Mr. Blagojevich in exchange for the seat.

And Barack Obama (“the wheels on the bus go thump, thump, thump“) is calling for his friend Governor Blagojevich’s resignation:

In what the lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, called a “crisis situation,” Illinois lawmakers scrambled to find a way to force the governor’s exit while President-elect Barack Obama called for his resignation and Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, warned him that he should “under no circumstances make an appointment.”

Now, this mess is nowhere near finished. Obama’s lying about his relationship with Blago falls on rather deaf ears at this point. It reminds me of Bill Clinton’s women suddenly appearing right after he was elected. Wow, what a shock! Bill Clinton used his power to be a womanizer and worse, harasser. Everyone knew he had this character flaw. Most people considered what it might mean in the presidency–blackmail, extortion, etc.–and didn’t care. Likewise, everyone knew, vaguely, that Obama has ties to all sorts of nefarious characters and the chance that he was the only rose among these nasty big thorns was somewhere between slim and none.

Hope and change rhetoric intoxicates especially when compared with Grandpa Republican McCain. McCain was safe and experienced, reliable and nearly squeaky clean in an industry that taints almost everyone. How, boring!

Obama, in contrast, has scant experience, terrible judgment in friends and associates, speaks well, soothes liberal guilt and is a literal symbol of change. He wanted the presidency so badly he’d say anything (remember racist grandma?), do anything (go to Germany and chastise his home country), and do it all with a smile.

We’re going to be playing four years of the “imagine” game. As in, imagine that the president were a Republican. If Barack Obama had these associations and an “R” after his name, there would be no chance on God’s green earth he’d be considered to be elected: First, by his own party and second, by the press.

And yet, here we are, mere moments after the hope and changiness and Barack Obama turns out to be the same old sort of politician. He’s stuck making deals (or trying to not make deals) and consorting with the worst sort of characters (how else do you make it in Chicago?). And by the way, all due respect to James Taranto, Blago might have been pissed off because he had every reason to believe he was owed by Obama since he helped Obama before. And now that Obama has the position and power, he doesn’t need Blago. That would be infuriating, no? Victim, my eye.

The press might make some startling discoveries about Obama (have to ask the right questions), but I doubt it. They have staked so much of their reputation on Obama’s lily white reputation that sullying Obama, means dirt by association. It makes the press look bad for Obama to look bad. And, oh, right now, everyone is looking bad:

Surprise!

What, you didn’t know that Obama made his bones in the Chicago political machine? You didn’t know, for example, that he won his first election by getting one of his political mentors thrown off the ballot? Or about his financial support from corrupt Chicago moneyman Tony Rezko? Or how Obama and sidekick Rahm Emanuel advised the campaign of a machine hack named Rod Blagojevich?

You didn’t? Don’t feel bad. According to a post-election Zogby poll, a large majority of Obama supporters didn’t know key facts like these, either. And why should they? After all, NBC, The Boston Globe-Democrat and the rest of the Partisan Press had little interest in reporting these stories.

Instead, as the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass just wrote, the media “have been clinging to the ridiculous notion that Chicago is Camelot for months now. It must help them see Obama as some pristine creature, perhaps a gentle fawn of a magic forest, unstained by our grubby politics.”

And really, at this point, who cares? The press got what they wanted. They got a Democrat elected who had the extra bonus of being symbolic for race relations. In the liberal universe, it was a two-fer. What happens now, whether it’s good for America or not, doesn’t really matter, because really, in the big picture, Obama has to be good because he’s a Democrat. It’s axiomatic, no?

H/T Instapundit

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com