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Bored and Lazy Big Media Drooling to Catch Obama in Blagojevich Dragnet

Have you noticed? The Big Media have been desperately trying to shoehorn Barack Obama into the ethical problems of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, even though there’s not a particle of evidence that he was in any way involved. The Chris Matthews Crank-It-Up-Loud-and-Stupid Machine over at MSNBC presented a good example of the ugly process in action:

“MATTHEWS: Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption. But Fitzgerald made clear that Obama was not implicated today. Here he is, quote, ‘The complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever.’ Obama said this afternoon that he had no contact with Governor Blagojevich over who was gonna fill that Senate seat.

“Still, there are many unanswered questions, including that one. What conversation did occur between Blagojevich and Barack Obama about who would fill his Senate seat once he became president? Obama said this afternoon there were none at all.

“What conversations, if any, did Governor Blagojevich have with Rahm Emanuel about his replacement as a Democratic candidate in the special election in Chicago? Will this Illinois scandal in any way distract Obama from dealing with the financial crisis? What happens to Obama’s Senate seat now? Who gets to fill it? The disgraced indicted governor? The state legislature? Who? And what is it about Illinois that seems to make the state’s politics so relentlessly corrupt?”
– Chris Matthews, “Hardball,” Dec. 9, 2008, as quoted by Media Matters.

Jeepers, Tweety, that’s one Olympic leap of pure, empty, pull-it-out-your-keester speculation. Wasn’t Matthews once seen in a public men’s room in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the Republican National Convention? Wasn’t Sen. Larry Craig convicted of soliciting men for sex in a similar place? What does this say about Matthews? And what is it about Minneapolis that seems to attract so many gay men to their public facilities? There are some ‘unanswered questions’ concerning Mr. Matthews’ conduct in Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention and the American people demand answers. (See the way this works? Take even the most tenuous, ridiculous association and blow it out of proportion ending with the dire ‘unanswered questions’ malarkey. There are always ‘unanswered questions’ about everyone and everything – it’s just that most of them are time wasting and ludicrous. Eating in a restaurant where mobsters occasionally dine does not make you a Mafia kingpin, except in the RNC’s Bizarro World of infinite guilt-by-association and silly questions.)

As far as the ‘relentlessly corrupt’ Illinois, Tweety and his pals should check some other states such as Alaska, Alabama and Florida, all of which ranked ahead of Illinois in the number of political scandals between 1998 and 2007. Wait, as Jamison Foser at Media Matters recently noted, USA Today already did: “[O]n a per-capita basis … Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007…”

This is the line of ‘logic’ being used as the BM line up to slather over yet another invented ‘scandal’ for Obama — already they’re trying to make this his ‘Blagogate.’ Even the New York Times has the green-eyeshade on backwards as it attempts to conflate Obama’s passing acquaintance with Blago with involvement in some sort of shady business with the Rodster. As Eric Boehlert points out:

“The larger point is that in order for the Beltway press to gin up the Blago story this week, basic journalism guidelines had to be set aside and in some cases brazenly ignored. That’s the only way this story worked because simply reporting the facts as presented by the prosecutors would have made it painfully clear that, in terms of Obama’s involvement, there was none. In fact, Obama had thwarted Blago’s money-making scheme.”

But the worst of the bad lot was Liz Sidoti of the (Guilt By) Associated Press. In her December 10th article “Analysis: Scandal threatens to dog Obama,” she actually kicked off with these two vapid, meaningless paragraphs:

“WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even stepped into office and already a scandal — not of his own making — is threatening to dog him.

“Obama isn’t accused of anything. But the fact that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a fellow Democrat, has been charged with trying to sell Obama’s now-vacant Senate post gives political opponents an opening to criticize him. A slew of questions remain. The investigation is still under way. And the ultimate impact on Obama is far from certain.”

Got that? It’s not Obama’s scandal and he isn’t accused of anything, yet a ‘slew of questions remain.’ (Only to a lazy halfwit reading RNC Talking Points, Liz, and straining to create a story out of nothing.) Of course the ultimate impact on Obama is uncertain, as is the rest of the future unless the AP or Ms. Sidoti have powers of clairvoyance they aren’t telling us about. And here’s a hot news flash: political opponents are criticizing Obama. Thanks, so is the AP, obviously – and where is the water’s still wet report?

Personally, I’m keeping my eye on Sidoti and using her same approach to journalism to do so – I think she may very well be one of the most corrupt and evil reporters that ever existed. I have no proof of that, but I notice her last name has three vowels — many gangsters have three vowels in their last name, such as the late Carlos Marcello, so she could be connected to organized crime, and her last name also ends in a vowel, just like Mafia Don John Gotti, which is a big tip-off that she may or may not be a gun moll or something. Plus, it sounds like it might be an Italian name – don’t we know that all Italians are probably involved with the mob in some way? I think the ultimate future proof of my observations is far from certain, but they could, possibly be true, and they leave a slew of questions to be answered. Of course, this is all patent nonsense, but no different than Sidoti repeatedly mentioning Obama in a piece about the Blagojevich scandal, just because they’re both Democrats from Chicago, ‘in a state,’ of Illinois.

Listen, I live in Chi-town – once you get past the fact that we all carry our Thompson submachine guns in music cases, genuflect to statues of Al Capone, and collect the bag from local businesses every Friday, when we aren’t running an illegal bookie joint, a craps game in the alley, shaking down school kids of their lunch money, bribing a cop to look the other way, or paying off the vig to a mob boss — we’re pretty honest and law-abiding folks.

Watching twits like Tweety and reading lightweight Sidoti’s thin gruel makes me wish a pro like Mike Royko were still around – he’d have all these BM harlots running in shame.

BLAGO LAUGH-A-BULL:

“Why has no bigtime talking head yet suggested that Governor Grabitall out there in Illinois go all-in at the crazy table and announce that he is appointing Patrick Fitzgerald to take Barack Obama’s Senate seat? Why am I not an elite pundit with ideas like this?”
– Charles Pierce, posted at Altercation, Dec. 12, 2008.

Just to elaborate on Mr. Pierce’s hilariously excellent idea, after Count-the-Dough Blago names Fitzgerald, he could then call the wife on his cellphone and, with the Feds listening, say something like, “Okay, the deal’s done. Fitzgerald had the $100K delivered and I named him to the Senate seat.” Let the Federal Prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois talk his way out of that one.