Posted on 12/15/2008 4:58:08 AM PST by IbJensen
I have not seen it recorded whether John F. Kennedy, after he was elected president in 1960, held conversations with Massachusetts Gov. Foster Furcolo as to who would be appointed to fill his seat in the Senate.
History does record that Furcolo, just nine days before turning the governorship over to the Republican elected to succeed him, appointed one Benjamin A. Smith II, a college roommate of Kennedy’s and former mayor of Gloucester, who chose not to seek the seat in the next election in 1962, which happened to be the year in which Edward Kennedy turned 30 and was therefore old enough to run for it.
Memory tells me that there was little fuss made of this at the time. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy obviously wanted someone appointed to keep the seat warm for Teddy, and so it was done. And Edward Kennedy has turned out to be an able and accomplished senator.
That was a different tableau from the one we have seen unfold in Chicago this past week. Furcolo was an intelligent man, disappointed to have failed to win the state’s other Senate seat and destined not to win elective office again. But he knew that it would not pay to buck the Kennedys.
Rod Blagojevich, the governor who under Illinois statute has the power to appoint a senator to fill out the remaining two years of Barack Obama’s Senate term, is made of different stuff. He was arrested last Tuesday, and the U.S. attorney filed a criminal complaint and made public tapes of Mr. Blagojevich seeking personal favors in return for the Senate seat.
Mr. Obama denied having conversations with Mr. Blagojevich about his choice, though his political strategist David Axelrod said last month that Mr. Obama had. Mr. Obama declined further comment when asked whether his staff members had discussed the matter with the governor, but he then promised to reveal the details later.
In the ordinary course of things, there would be nothing wrong with such conversations (did Foster Furcolo decide on Benjamin A. Smith II without prompting?). And the construction of the evidence most negative to Mr. Obama one can currently make is that someone in Team Obama suggested nominating Mr. Obama insider Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Blagojevich simply refused or asked for something improper in return and Team Obama promptly broke off communications. Any impropriety in this version was on Mr. Blagojevich’s part, not on Mr. Obama’s.
Still, these are not headlines the Obama transition team wants.
So far, the president-elect has won wide approval for his performance since the election, with poll numbers significantly higher than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton got in their transition periods. His leading foreign, defense and economic appointments have won high praise from all sides, in some cases more from conservatives than liberals. And in a time of financial crisis and foreign threats, he has seemed to keep a clear head and a steady hand.
He has appeared to avoid all but small mistakes, and his theme of unifying the nation — muted perhaps necessarily in the adversary environment of the campaign — has come forth loud and clear.
From all this the Blagojevich scandal is an unwanted distraction. It is a reminder that, for all his inspirational talk of hope and change, Mr. Obama, like Mr. Blagojevich, are both products of Chicago Democratic politics, which is capable of producing leaders both sublime and sordid.
Mr. Obama has not always avoided the latter. For 20 years he attended the church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now thrown under the bus, and for more than a decade engaged in mutually beneficial exchanges political and financial with the political fixer Tony Rezko, now in federal custody.
Mr. Blagojevich, never a close political ally, has now been thrown under the bus, too, and seems likely to share Mr. Rezko’s fate. Obama fans can point out, truthfully, that other revered presidents had seamy associates and made common cause on their way up with men who turned out to be scoundrels. Franklin Roosevelt happily did business with Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly, though warned that he was skimming off money from federal contracts. John Kennedy no more thought to deny a request from the Mayor Daley of his day than Mr. Obama has thought to buck the Mayor Daley of his.
But as Kennedy supposedly said of a redolent Massachusetts politician, “Sometimes party loyalty asks too much.” The man in question was the Democratic nominee for governor and was not elected. Until Patrick Fitzgerald released his tapes, Barack Obama never said the same of Rod Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama has profited greatly from his careful climb through Chicago politics. But there is an old saying that in politics nothing is free — there is just some question about when you pay the price. Mr. Obama is paying it now.
Fancy that. A gift to the nation that keeps on giving.
GETS stained.... GETS stained?
Where has THIS a-hole been for the last 10-12 years?
Never mind...
Exactly! Obama IS a 'shining' member Chicago Politics. Now Chicago politics extends to the rest of America. God Help Us.
Yes, they've shown time and again only praise and honor will be accepted - or tolerated.
The Kennedys did it so it must be OK.
Gets? He cut his teeth in that vile sewer.
“obama gets stained by chicago politics”
correction: “obama IS chicago politics.”
IMHO
“And Edward Kennedy has turned out to be an able and accomplished senator.”
I had to stop reading after that line. I was eating my breakfast and no garbage can was nearby to upchuck into.
What floats to the top in a sewer?
I’ll leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.
No, we’re supposed to believe that 0bama lived and thrived amongst the vile corruption of Chicago politics and never participated in any of it.
There is only one person EVER who has lived among sinners and never sinned. And this is the parallel the left has been trying to draw all along.
In order to be a supporter of Obama, (different from voting for him) you would have to be able to accept as truth, things that can easily be proven not to be true.
They sure wouldn’t have the logic to complete a connect the dots picture.
How could a pure as the driven snow Obama rise so fast in politics in a state where only those who are part of a very close knit corrupt political machine controls everything to do with politics. I guess you could maybe believe he is not corrupt if his close friends and associates did not include A convicted felon, an indicted governor, a domestic terrorist and three rabid leftist ministers.
If you think about it, what close associations does this man have that aren’t corrupt? Name one person he has had business or poltical dealings with that is known for their strong ethics.
Having said that, I believe that Juan McLame would have been the biggest disaster to hit this nation.
Having said that, I believe that George W. Bush was a disaster with one exception: no 9/11s.
(Throw us two fishes, George: Campean and Ramos.)
At this point in his transition, W was still waiting for the election to be finalized. If he had made any appointments, the press would have excoriated him.
— muted perhaps necessarily in the adversary environment of the campaign —
Puleeeeeze. Every time Obama pulled the race card, McCain crawled on his belly like a beaten dog. In fact, he spent most of the campaign crawling on his belly. Except when he, as Rush so aptly put it, stood around with that "Yosemite Sam stare after the bomb explodes" look on his face.
You can stain a stain?
Who knew?
It’s no koinky dink that Caroline, and now Chris Kennedy (IL) are both being considered for senate seat appointments. Think about it. Who benefits most from Blago’s downfall, and his list of candidates for 0’s seat?
Why am I getting the feeling that Rham may be joining Grandma and Rev. Wright under the bus?
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