BURYING SCANDAL
“Political pros know that the best time of the year in which to bury a scandal is Christmas week. People are busy. Reporters are on vacation. Almost no one is watching the news,” Howard Fineman writes at www.newsweek.com.
“So perhaps you can excuse me for being a little suspicious about a recent announcement from Barack Obama’s office. It said that he would release an internal report about his team’s contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich - the man the Feds allege is a one-man influence-peddling crime spree - in ’the week of Dec. 22.’
“I’m betting on Boxing Day, Friday, Dec. 26. Or maybe at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve,” Mr. Fineman said.
“The original release was supposed to be this week. But it was pushed back, the Obama camp said, at the request of the official investigating Blago: Chicago-based U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the 21st-century Eliot Ness. Fitz’s office confirmed that he had made the request, though there is no way of knowing how adamant he was about it. The reasoning seems clear enough: Fitz does not want any information about the Obama’s team’s contacts to be made public because it might give Blago’s bad guys - who allegedly tried to solicit bribes - clues about how to cover their tracks. But surely, if they acted wrongfully, they have gotten their stories straight by now.
“So the timing of the report is more complicated than that. At least it seems that way from the manner in which Obama’s own camp has been acting. They have been cautious and quiet in the extreme.
“The key to understanding what is going on almost certainly is Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago congressman and former Clinton administration insider whom Obama tapped to be his chief of staff. Emanuel wasn’t just another hire: he was the first person the president-elect chose. He is the foundation of the whole Obama administration edifice.”
PERJURY TRAPS
“Will the Blagojevich scandal damage the incoming Obama administration?” Byron York asks at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
“Given Rod Blagojevich’s profane railings against Barack Obama, revealed on federal wiretaps, few observers believe - although none know for sure - that the Obama camp engaged in any pay-for-play dealings with the governor, and therefore few see any legal problems for Team Obama resulting from the criminal investigation,” Mr. York said.
“But that’s not the only way the incoming administration might be caught up in the Blagojevich affair. The probe is being conducted, after all, by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the man who prosecuted one of the most intensely investigated and politically charged perjury-and-false-statements cases in Washington history.
“In that case, the [Valerie] Plame affair, no one was charged with any underlying crime, yet several Bush administration officials went through repeated sessions before a grand jury, plus interviews with investigators, with their statements subjected to extraordinarily close scrutiny. You don’t think the Blagojevich matter could cause trouble for Obama? Then you haven’t looked closely enough at the Plame affair.”
Mr. York quoted Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who was a vocal critic of Mr. Fitzgerald’s handling of the Plame affair, about what the Obama team may encounter: “There’s always a danger that people will make a mistake, get it wrong. There’s human frailty. They may also lie. Fitzgerald will try to do perjury traps, because that is what he does.”
KEEPING TRACK
“I wrote a story last month noting that President-elect Barack Obama had broken the record for number of press conferences held by an incoming POTUS,” reporter Christina Bellantoni writes at www.washingtontimes.com.
“Since then he’s shattered every record imaginable,” Ms. Bellantoni said.
“His morning presser Wednesday marked No. 11 since he won the White House.
“During his first, on Nov. 7, Mr. Obama called on nine reporters.
“This month he is averaging three or four questions each time.
“I’ve been keeping a tally of who gets called on:
“He has fielded four questions each from CBS, Associated Press and Reuters.
“He has fielded three questions each from the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg News.
“He has taken two questions each from NBC, CNN, ABC, Politico, Chicago Sun-Times, Wall Street Journal, the Chicago ABC affiliate, National Public Radio and USA Today.
“He also has taken one question each from Fox News, Telemundo, McClatchy, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, the Chicago NBC affiliate, Des Moines Register and Denver Post.
“He also did a sit-down interview with the Chicago Tribune last week.
“For the record, The Washington Times hasn’t gotten a question yet, but in all fairness, I have only been in Chicago for half of the press conferences. He called on me many times during the campaign, and I have no doubt he will again.”
DUE DILIGENCE
“Where was the SEC? Such is the plaint lofted in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal,” Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr. writes
“Huh?
“When has the Securities and Exchange Commission ever found a fraud except by reading about it in the newspapers? Anyway, who said the agency was supposed to prevent investors from losing money or relieve them of having to perform due diligence?” Mr. Jenkins said.
“Mr. Madoff’s many honorable and accomplished clients chose to deal with their man outside the institutional checks that come from, say, a heavily regulated bank or a highly transparent mutual fund, perhaps one whose parent is also publicly traded and doubly subject to the checks of a watchful stock market. That was their choice.
“It is common to wax nostalgic for a time when a man’s word was his bond, business was done on a handshake, etc. This is poppycock. It has always been a client’s job to sort out the dealer who could be trusted from the one who couldn’t. Personal connections may give comfort, but are no substitute for true institutional checks or true experience of a man’s character, which many of Mr. Madoff’s clients seemed not to have.
“Instead, they went on ’reputation,’ which is to say they acquired their faith in Mr. Madoff more or less the way people acquire their faith in global warming and many other things, from people equally as ignorant as they.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or e-mail Greg Pierce.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.