Pay to play

Unless you were hiding under a rock for the past twenty-four hours, you probably know that Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich—a Democrat—was arrested yesterday. Among other things, he is accused of trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's recently vacated Senate seat. Now this is classic Chicago politics. It's “ pay-to-play”.

Probably the most interesting things about the indictment are the tapes. The governor was being wire-tapped by the FBI from October through the election. The thing is, he knew that he was being taped. And yet he continued to act as if he were bullet-proof.

The lead investigator went to great lengths yesterday to point out that there was no evidence—at least in the tapes sited in the indictment—that Obama knew that Blagojevich was asking for favors from the transition team in return for appointing one of Obama's aides to the Senate seat.

However, some missteps from the Obama camp lead me to believe that there is more going on here than the FBI is willing to admit. For one thing David Axelrod, Obama's senior advisor said that the president-elect had been in contact with the governor about possible choices for the Senate appointment. But yesterday Obama said that he had not been contacted by the governor.

I think that it's clear that the squeaky clean exterior of Barack Obama is slowly, but surely, coming off.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Blagojevich story

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Axelrod story