Michael Isikoff has questions for Obama. The odd thing is he asks them in Newsweek – not the first publication that springs to mind when one thinks of questioning the One. 

We’ d like to know the answers too, but don’t expect a swift reply. 

1. Define " inappropriate, " make good on your pledge of transparency and show us the internal report. All of it.
Mr. President-elect, you have said that nobody on your staff was "involved in inappropriate discussions" with the governor or his aides about his apparent plans for your Senate seat. Please define "inappropriate." And, in light of your pledge for greater transparency in government, will you also turn over a full, unedited copy of the internal report conducted by transition lawyers into this matter, including the notes of all interviews they conducted with your staff members, as well as all phone records and e-mails documenting the contacts between your staff, Blagojevich and his team?

2 Explain what happened with Senate " Candidate 1. "
In the criminal complaint released by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Blagojevich is quoted in a Nov. 11 tape recording as saying that you wanted him to name Senate Candidate 1 (since identified as your close adviser Valerie Jarrett), but that you and your aides were "not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them." How would Blagojevich have gotten the idea that this was your view? Were you or any of your aides aware, at any point, that Blagojevich wanted more than "appreciation"—such as contributions to his campaign fund or a seat in your cabinet—in exchange for appointing Jarrett? And why did she withdraw from consideration right after this conversation?

 

3 What did you know about Blago ’ s exit strategy?
In other parts of the complaint, Blagojevich is quoted as saying that he wanted you to tap wealthy "Warren Buffet types" and put up "10, 15 million" for a political advocacy group that the governor could then head up, and draw a salary from, after he leaves office. Were you ever told of Blagojevich’s interest in creating such an organization?

4 Have you shared everything you have on Rezko?
The criminal complaint makes a number of references to Tony Rezko, a convicted Blagojevich fundraiser who also raised money for your campaigns and who, on the same day that you bought your South Side Chicago home in June 2005, purchased property from the same owner right next door. Are there any records in your possession relating to your contacts with Rezko that you have not publicly released?

5. Will you promise to leave Fitzgerald alone?
Will you pledge to keep Patrick Fitzgerald as your U.S. attorney in Chicago and guarantee that he will face no impediments to completing his investigation by your Justice Department—wherever it might lead?

 Victor Davis Hanson wrote in yesterday’s Investor’s Business Daily:

Once upon a time, Obama and his fans asserted that Iran was a hyped-up threat, that we could go openly into Pakistan if need be to beat al-Qaida, that the surge wouldn’t work, that the Patriot Act and the Guantanamo Bay prison have torn asunder the Constitution, that we have alienated our European allies, that defeating terrorists is more a matter for criminal justice than military force, and that pushing democracy on traditional Islamic societies is culturally chauvinistic and naive.

But like his predecessors, the Obama administration will quickly learn that present U.S. foreign policy is mostly a result of reasonable decisions taken amid bad and worse choices. Therefore, don’t be surprised if a President Obama continues much of what we are now doing — albeit with a kinder, gentler rhetoric of "multilateralism" and "U.N. accords."

Obama has not assumed office yet, and already Iran has mocked the president-elect’s campaign suggestions for unconditional diplomacy. Already, old-new Defense Secretary Robert Gates has indicated a desire to stabilize Iraq before withdrawing forces.

Already, commanders have told the president-elect that a simple surge of more troops into Afghanistan offers no magical solution. Already, we are learning that whether we try more aid or ultimatums, Pakistan will remain Pakistan — a radical Islamic, nuclear failed state that is deeply anti-American rather than merely anti-George Bush.

As Inauguration Day approaches and campaign rhetoric ends and governance begins, words begin to have consequences. Truth is, there are not many alternatives to the present strategy against Islamic terrorism.

Obama doesn’t want a terrorist attack after seven years of quiet — certainly not of the sort that occurred in Mumbai last month. He may tinker with, but not end, Homeland Security measures. He may better articulate the complexities of a tribal Middle East, but he won’t stop American efforts to foster democracy there.

A President Obama may show more anguish over the necessary use of violence, but I suspect he won’t cede a military victory to terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will talk up the Atlantic Alliance, but likely complain in private that the U.S. inordinately does the heavy lifting in NATO. And if terrorists dared again to kill hundreds of Americans here at home, our new president would probably take military action.

Most conservatives and moderates expected that candidate Obama’s grand campaign talk of novel choices abroad would end with President Obama’s realist admission of very few new options.

His problem is instead his left-wing base, which for some reason believed Obama’s electioneering bombast that he could magically make the world anew — and so now apparently should do just that or else!

We think this is a fair prediction. But it implies that Obama himself will make decisions. We doubt that he will. We doubt that he can. A man who voted neither yes nor no most of his time as a Senator is not likely to become suddenly decisive. He will float above the hurly-burly of decision-making for as long as he can. Eventually, however much it will pain him, he’ll have to take responsibility for the decisions made for him by others – such as Rahm Emanuel (if he survives the Blackguardovich scandals), and, in foreign affairs, the Clintons. 

 

We suspect that Obama would have liked to appoint his long-time friend and some-time colleague William Ayers, the Commie terrorist, as education secretary, but hasn’t got that much audacity. Next worst choice, the one he made, is Arne Duncan, for reasons touched on politely by Investor’s Business Daily.

Note the ‘reform’ idea of Duncan’s to educate homosexuals separately. 

Duncan’s record has been unimpressive. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), Chicago Public Schools have remained below the national average during Duncan’s term.

Under Duncan, Chicago schools’ average reading scores rose just one point on average from 2002 to 2007, to 250 out of 500. The national average in 2007 was 263, and 75% of Chicago students scored less.

In math, scores rose from 254 in 2003 to 260 in 2007. But the national average that year was 280. Again, 75% of Chicago students scored below the national average. In writing, the story was the same, with about half falling below the national average.

One notable reform proposal of Duncan’s — a separate-but-equal high school for gay, lesbian and transgendered students. "If you look at national studies, you can see gay and lesbian students with high dropout rates … I think there is a niche there we need to fill," the Chicago Tribune quoted Duncan as saying in October.

Duncan also had ties to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded and financed through the efforts of ex-Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers [and Barack Obama]. Ayers saw the CAC as a chance to radicalize Chicago public school teachers and students.

In a recent Education Week article, Ken Rolling, the executive director of the CAC and a former associate director of the Woods Fund, which Ayers was also involved with [as was Obama], said Duncan relied on the CAC to build the Chicago Public Schools agenda.

Like most efforts to improve the government monopoly by throwing money at it, the CAC was a failure, and a costly one at that. The CAC ultimately threw $160 million at the problem.

A report on that effort said "the Challenge had little impact on student outcomes." The report added on page 15: "There were no statistically significant differences between Annenberg schools and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain."

But in rates of indoctrination ‘gain’? Betcha! 

The Democratic Hurray Chorus, otherwise known as the Mainstream Media, mined the depths of their malice to blacken the name of Governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, an honest and honorable public servant if ever there was one, with lies, in the hope of destroying her. They did this because they feared her. The degree of their viciousness was the exact measure of their fear. She was a real threat to the election of their chosen One. 

Will they tell the damaging truth about certain iniquitous Democratic women in the public service and/or the public eye?  Probably not, is our guess.  

Fortunately Michelle Malkin has taken on the task: 

Mrs. Blago, the former Patti Mell, won the hearts of old-school thugs everywhere with her f-word-filled rants captured on FBI wiretaps, some of which were colorfully detailed in the criminal complaint against her hubby last week. It’s old news to folks in Chicago, but the woman who masquerades as a sweet gubernatorial spouse dedicated to children’s advocacy is a cutthroat wheeler-dealer in heels who schemed with the gov to fire pesky editorial writers and get herself placed on paid corporate boards in exchange for naming the president-elect’s pick to the Senate. First Lady by day, Dragon Lady by night.

Potty-mouthed Patti is the daughter of famed Democratic Chicago Alderman Richard Mell. Hardball ward politics runs in her blood. "Pay to play" is the family way. As a high-powered realtor, the Chicago Tribune reported, Mrs. B. raked in more than $700,000 in commissions on business deals after Hot Rod began raising money in 2000 for his first gubernatorial campaign. The feds have been investigating for years.

Close political observers are waiting for the other shoe to drop on Mrs. B. – or be used as leverage to force her hubby, to whom she has been fiercely loyal (to the point of alienating Daddy), to ‘fess up.

Corrupto-convict and Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko was one of Mrs. B.’s biggest clients of the last decade. Behind him stood his housewife-in-hot-water, Rita, who whiled away some of her time as a patronage appointee to an obscure Cook County government board before getting entangled in the land swap couples’ deal between her husband and the Obamas – the one the president-elect called "boneheaded." On Tuesday, Rezko’s sentencing was postponed, suggesting he’ll be singing even more to the feds.

Michelle Obama was apparently friendly with the sordid sorority, according to Chicago Magazine. Writer James Merriner reported on a fashion show/political back-scratching gala chaired by Mrs. Rezko and co-chaired by Mrs. Blago two days before the November 2006 elections:

"Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, was a special guest that day (even though the news had just broken about Rezko’s participation in a funky real-estate transaction involving the Obamas’ Hyde Park home). The fashion show attracted little if any media coverage, which may have been exactly as its organizers and sponsors had hoped. Just three weeks earlier, Tony Rezko had been indicted on charges of extorting kickbacks from businesses seeking contracts from the Blagojevich administration."

Then there’s Anita Mahajan, wife of Chicago Mutual Bank owner Amrish Mahajan. Hubby is the Obama supporter and Blago fundraiser who handled that boneheaded Obama land deal and loaned cash to Rezko. Mrs. Mahajan hired Mrs. Blago to sell properties for her. In 2007, Mrs. Mahajan was indicted on fraud charges related to a contract from the state Department of Children and Family Services – awarded to her by the Blagojevich administration. Prosecutors say she bilked taxpayers out of $2.1 million. For the children, of course.

 

 We don’t agree with everything that follows from Power Line.

First, we do want to know what contacts Obama and/or his team had with corrupt Governor Blagojevich. Obama swam in the sewers of Illinois and Chicago politics for years, and the chances that some of the sewage stuck to him and will stink again in due course are very high.

Secondly we aren’t keen on government creating an infrastructure for ‘alternative’ sources of energy. We would like to see massive drilling for oil and natural gas, the continued use of coal, and the building of many nuclear power plants. 

But we do agree that Obama manifests no understanding of  economics.

Speaking for myself, though, I’m a lot less alarmed by anything Emanuel did than by Barack Obama’s utter ignorance of economics, a subject that was raised again at today’s press conference. It’s an interesting question whether we’ve ever had a President who understands less how our economy works than Obama. There is some pretty stiff competition, but Obama has never had a job in the business world, has never studied economics, and, as far as the public record shows, has never made any effort to understand the vast and diverse economy that he proposes to regulate and transform.

I find this scary, and it gets scarier every time Obama talks about how the federal government is going to create "green jobs" having to do with wind power, etc. It’s possible that the federal government could have a role in helping to facilitate development of an infrastructure that would enable alternative energy technologies, and if Obama made a coherent argument along those lines I’d be receptive to it. But he’s never done so. As far as I can tell, and as far as his press conference today reveals, Obama suffers from the misconception that the government can create wealth and jobs by subsidizing the inefficient production of energy. If he really is that dumb, we are all in big trouble.

 Jonah Goldberg writes:

There are so many things to love about the Rod Blagojevich scandal it’s hard to know where to begin.

Wait. That’s not right. There are so many bleeping things to love about this bleeping-bleep Blagojevich scandal it’s hard to know where to begin.

For starters, the folks at the Chicago Tribune are Christmas Pony Happy because Blago tried to strong-arm Trib ownership to fire members of the editorial board. Instead, Trib editors will get to have a big tailgate party outside Blago’s cell window.

Newspaper people love that sort of thing.

For the more historically minded, it’s a time for nostalgia. The past comes alive as Chicago’s grand tradition of corruption is sustained for another generation. As the Chicago Tribune once wrote, "corruption has been as much a part of the landscape as corn, soybeans and skyscrapers." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, as of 2006, when Blago’s predecessor, George Ryan, was sent to prison for racketeering, 79 elected officials had been convicted of corruption in the past 30 years. Among the perps: 27 aldermen, 19 judges, 15 state legislators, three governors, two congressmen, one mayor, two turtledoves and a partridge in a stolen pear tree. Especially in this holiday season, it’s so very important to keep traditions alive for the kids. In a sense, Blago did it for the children.

For partisans, there’s the schadenfreude that comes with watching the Democrats – self-proclaimed anti-corruption zealots in recent years – explain why Blagojevich shouldn’t be lumped in with Congressmen Charlie Rangel (cut himself sweetheart deals), William Jefferson ($90,000 in his freezer) and Tim Mahoney (tried to bribe an aide he was sleeping with not to sue him; and you thought romance was dead) as part of a new Democratic "culture of corruption" storyline.

There’s the enormous I-should-have-had-a-V8! moment as the mainstream press collectively thwacks itself in the forehead, realizing it blew it again. The New York Times – which, according to Wall Street analysts, is weeks from holding editorial board meetings in a refrigerator box – created the journalistic equivalent of CSI-Wasilla to study every follicle and fiber in Sarah Palin’s background, all the while treating Obama’s Chicago like one of those fairy-tale lands depicted in posters that adorn little girls’ bedroom walls. See there, Suzie? That’s a Pegasus. That’s a pink unicorn. And that’s a beautiful sunflower giving birth to a fully grown Barack Obama, the greatest president ever and the only man in history to be able to pick up manure from the clean end.

Obviously the list doesn’t end there… 

Read the rest. It’s all delicious. 

 Charles Krauthammer writes:

Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public – and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history. (I include here the extrasolar planets.)

It begins with a near $1 trillion stimulus package. This is where Obama will show himself ideologically. It is his one great opportunity to plant the seeds for everything he cares about: a new green economy, universal health care, a labor resurgence, government as benevolent private-sector "partner." It is the community organizer’s ultimate dream.

Ironically, when the economy tanked in mid-September, it was assumed that both presidential candidates could simply forget about their domestic agendas because with $700 billion drained by financial system rescues, not a penny would be left to spend on anything else.

On the contrary. With the country clamoring for action and with all psychological barriers to government intervention obliterated (by the conservative party, no less), the stage is set for a young, ambitious, supremely confident president – who sees himself as a world-historical figure before even having been sworn in – to begin a restructuring of the American economy and the forging of a new relationship between government and people.

Don’t be fooled by Bob Gates staying on. Obama didn’t get elected to manage Afghanistan. He intends to transform America. And he has the money, the mandate and the moxie to go for it.

From Little Green Footballs: 

Barack Obama has denied ever discussing his Senate seat replacement with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

But that apparently was not true. 

 A November 8th article at the KHQA website reports:

QUINCY, IL — Now that Barack Obama will be moving to the White House, his seat in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois will have to be filled.

Obama met with Governor Rod Blagojevich earlier this week to discuss it.

UPDATE at 12/10/08 11:17:50 am:

Another KHQA article on the meeting, from November 5th: Who will fill Obama’s senate seat?

CHICAGO, ILL. — Now that Barack Obama will be moving to the White House, his seat in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois will have to be filled.

That’s one of Obama’s first priorities today.

He’s meeting with Governor Rod Blagojevich this afternoon in Chicago to discuss it.

UPDATE at 12/10/08 11:48:08 am:

And at the Illinois Government News Network, an announcement that the meeting took place and the Senate seat was discussed, with the headline:

Governor Blagojevich Congratulates President-elect Obama and Discusses U.S. Senate Seat

UPDATE at 12/10/08 12:21:23 pm:

Curiouser and curiouser. KHQA has taken down both of their articles about the meeting.

 Obama is ‘saddened’ to hear that  Governor Blagojevich of Illinois has been arrested on corruption charges, for (inter alia) trying to sell Obama’s vacated seat in the US Senate. He knew nothing about it. If he had, he would have been shocked, shocked. 

Most media reports carry a denial, variously worded, that Obama can in any way be connected to Blagojevich’s alleged corruption. 

However, ABC News reports:

On the Chicago TV show "Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz" on June 27, 2002, state Sen. Obama said, "Right now, my main focus is to make sure that  we elect Rod Blagojevich as Governor, we…"

"You working hard for Rod?" interrupted Berkowitz.

"You betcha," said Obama.

"Hot Rod?" asked the host.

"That’s exactly right," Obama said.

In 2004, then-Gov. Blagojevich enthusiastically endorsed Obama for the Senate seat after he won the nomination [without paying a bean to Blagojevich?], and Obama endorsed Blagojevich for his 2006 re-election race in early 2005.

In the summer of 2006, the then-U.S. Sen. Obama backed Blagojevich even though there were serious questions at the time about Blagojevich’s hiring practices. 

 Atlas Shrugged notes:

Rezko is singing about the Giannoulias family and its longtime “business dealings” in Chicago, which would interest someone like Fitzgerald and the Justice Department, who have had a long ambition to crack Soprano-style business dealings in Chicago (the city known for Al Capone hasn’t changed much, really). The next plate to drop in this will be Fitzgerald then leaning on the Giannoulias family to give up someone bigger than them, who Fitzgerald once discussed in terms of hoping “he has the morals to do the right thing”, to paraphrase. We now believe that person Fitz was talking about is Barack Obama.

The Giannoulias family was involved with Obama as far back as his first state senate campaign in 1996. It has been long rumored here in Chicago that Obama obtained a sweetheart deal on his first town home here in Chicago — which he could not have afforded otherwise — and guess who the financing came from for that house? We’ve been told it was Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias bank. Now, this sets up a scenario where the Giannoulias family helps Obama with his campaign finances and gets him deeper in their pocket with his sweetheart mortgage deal (for the first home he owned that he could not afford) – all in exchange for quid pro quo to be determined later.

One favor political Chicago claims Obama did for the Giannoulias family was in 2006 when, out of the blue, 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias, with no experience, and without ever having voted before, decides to run for State Treasurer of Illinois. Also out of the blue, Barack Obama endorses Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer. This was a SHOCK to everyone in Chicago — and Giannoulias would have never become State Treasurer without Obama’s help. In political circles here, it has always been believed that this endorsement was bought years ago with that sweetheart mortgage deal Broadway Bank arranged for Obama to buy his town house.

So, the Tony Rezko sweetheart deal was not the first magic home loan Obama ever received to buy a house he could not afford.