THE OBAMA REPORT ON CONTACT WITH BLAGOJEVICH DOESN'T CLOSE THE DOOR
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 07:02PM 
Timeline provided by The Wall Street Journal
This Obama Senate seat appointment scandal is getting more & more bizarre. I'm not sure what position to take with Obama's internal report on his team's contact with Blagojevich. Here is one of my two theories:
1) Given Obama's hot-potato behavior, if there was inappropriate behavior, he'd get rid of the ones who engaged in it: Just look at his responses to those who with whom he has had prior relationships:
Rev. Wright: I'm still bothered by the fact that Obama was a long-time member of Rev. Wright's congregation and yet he denied knowing of Rev. Wright's statements:
"The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church." More here.
Why couldn't Obama simply have admitted to hearing his pastor make certain statements but state that he disagreed what was said? Obama's complete denial of knowing about his pastor's statements does not pass muster.
Bill Ayers: Obama and Ayers together served on the NINE-MEMBER board of the Chicago Woods Fund Board; however, when Obama was asked about their relationship, he said Ayers is "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," but "not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis." More here. And yet after Obama won the election, Ayers recalled the relationship quite differently, “We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.” More here.
Stanley Kurtz of the National Review Online stated: Obama was chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding.Furthermore, Obama was chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and driving force. While Obama was on the board, Ayers’s education projects received substantial funding. What's more interesting about this Annenberg relationship is that Mr. Kurtz attempted to access the collection, that's housed at University of Illinois at Chicago, however, his requests were denied. This smells fishy to me. Kurtz's article is here.
The fact that Ayers waited until after the election to make this statement, leads me to believe its credible. Why couldn't Obama simply have admitted to the relationship with Ayers? It does not pass muster that they sat on the same 9-person board together, worked together on Annenberg Challenge, lived in the same neighborhood for over 10 years and yet he's just "some guy" to Obama.
Tony Rezko: This is interesting: Rezko was recently convicted and sentenced on a play-to-pay scheme designed to help Gov. Blagojevich. Well, guess who else was invovled with Mr. Rezko? President-elect Obama! Not only did Rezko raise campaign donations for Obama, but he and Obama participated in a land deal together. Obama said:
"But I regret that while I tried to pay close attention to the specific requirements of ethical conduct, I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko," Obama said. "It was simply not good enough that I paid above the appraised value for the strip of land that he sold me. It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor."
Rezko also raised money for Obama. But what did Obama do with the money? Just like a hot-potato, he donated it to charity after Rezko went down. But just because the potato is out of Obama's hands, that doesn't mean he didn't previously touch it! In fact, Obama is still living in the house that was part of the Rezko deal! I also find it hard to believe that such a bright man as Obama with an ambition to become President of the United States would "misgauge" his decisions.
My theory is this: given Obama's history with those of whom he has past, intertwined relationships, if there was any "inappropriate contact" between Axelrod or Emanuel or any other members of his staff with Blagojevich, those people would be immediatly cut from the Obama team.
Notice the timing: I find it very interesting that while I'm up on the eve of Christmas Eve writing about this Blagojevich scandal, Obama is building sand castles in Hawaii with his family and Axelrod is en route to Africa. I also find it interesting that he waited until the end-of-business today to release the internal report. The timing is perfect for him: nobody is interested in hearing about this story. Instead, people are finishing up their Christmas shopping and flying to visit family across the world. Timing is everything...
Remember, this Blagojevich scheme is just beginning to unfold. Obama's report is not the end-all-be-all. This is just his own report on his own people. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald plans to unweave the spider's web...and once it's unwoven, there may be more questions for Obama and his team to answer...
Axelrod, Ayers, Blagojevich, Fitzgerald, Obama, Rezko, internal report, senate in Criminal Defense, Gov. Blagojevich, Obama 
