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Did He or Didn’t He? (Only the U.S. Attorney May Know For Sure)
Deceiver.com —
... I had no contact with the governor or his office, uh, and so we were not — I was not aware of, uh, what was happening.
And now Axelrod throws himself under the bus in a written statement:
I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the president-elect has spoken directly to governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject.
Ben Smith at Politico notes that Obama and Blagojevich met just seven ...
What Blagogate Says About Obama
Weekly Standard Blog —
Ben Smith:
Perhaps the best way to see him is as a neutral in the (lopsided) battle between machine and reformers in Illinois. That's the stance he took in a defining battle, the 2006 contest for the presidency of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Reformers fault him for failing to support their champion; but he didn't endorse the machine favorite either. He stayed on the sidelines, and kept his focus on the White House. You can accuse him of cowardice for that, or you can grant him that he had decided to devote himself to larger ...
"It depends on what the meaning of the word ['contact'] is.”
The Volokh Conspiracy —
... that he did have contact: Obama and Blagojevich both attended the National Governors Association meeting last week in Philadelphia and were photographed shaking hands at the event. Before the meeting, Blagojevich was quoted saying he had asked Obama’s transition team for federal stimulus aid of $3 billion over the next three years to help fill Illinois’ estimated $2 billion deficit. ...
