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...As Obama entered the room it was absent of the regular fanfare of cheering and clapping. The diners were polite; staying seated at their respective tables and waited for the President-elect to come to them to stand up...

And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house. That 2002 endorsement came at the same time that Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client. According to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, Emanuel, then-state senator Obama, a third Blagojevich aide, and Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, David Wilhelm,...

"Obviously like the rest of the people of Illinois I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the US attorney's office today," said President-elect Obama this afternoon in Chicago, speaking of the criminal complaint against Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption. "But as this is a ongoing investigation involving the governor I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time." Asked what contact he'd had with the governor's office about his replacement in the Senate, President-elect Obama today said "I had no contact with the governor or his...

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will tomorrow discuss whether or not it should take up the case of Leo C. Donofrio, Applicant, v. Nina Mitchell Wells, New Jersey Secretary of State, a case that challenges the citizenship of President-elect Obama. After the Justices meet -- and assuredly decline to hear the matter -- the anti-Obama activists supporting the case will hold a vigil near the steps of the highest Court in the land. The theory -- which is without evidence -- is that Mr. Obama's birth certificate is faked, and that he was not born in Hawaii but...

In case you care… "For nine months, I kept quiet," Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said today at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, "because I saw that the good words that I spoke about this beautiful young man" -- President-elect Obama -- "at our Saviours' Day convention and the way they were misused. I decided it would be better for me to just be quiet rather than be drawn into the controversy that was swirling around his pastor, Father Pfleger, and others." "I feel freer today to say the things that are in my heart," said the controversial religious leader....

This evening in Miami, Sen. Barack Obama taped an interview with Ellen DeGeneres for a piece that will air tomorrow on her show -- a surprise appearance. I regret to inform you that he did, indeed, dance.

A civil suit was filed against Mutual Bank Corporation this week regarding the Rezko-Obama land deal that has called the Democratic candidate so many headaches. Kenneth J. Conner filed a $4.2 million suit against his former employer this week in Cook County Civil Court (see the suit HERE) alleging the bank was engaged in systematic fraud. Conner used to perform real estate review and analysis for the bank and he says that in June 2005 Amrish Mahajam, the president and CEO of Mutual, approved a loan to Rita Malki Rezko so she could purchase a 9,090 square foot vacant parcel...

With the news that the McCain campaign is launching a full assault on Obama's associates, preparedness, and judgment in a TV ad campaign to start Wednesday -- as detailed in this morning's Washington Post -- the Obama campaign is planning a pre-emptive assault on the TV airwaves to start Monday. Gov. Sarah Palin got the ball rolling this morning, going after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for his association with Professor William Ayers, a former member of the radical group the Weather Underground, saying Obama "is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling...

UPDATE at end of post: the can has already been opened!Without question, ABC's Jake Tapper is one of the few members of the mainstream media who's actually willing to publish less than favorable reports about Barack Obama.In a "Political Punch" blog posting Saturday about new revelations involving indicted fundraiser Tony Rezko, Tapper deliciously summed up a Washington Post piece as claiming that "Sen. John McCain's campaign...is about to open up a can of whoop-ass on Obama with a focus on his personal associations." I kid you not (emphasis added, photo courtesy ABC): Story Continues Below Ad ↓ The Chicago Sun-Times...

The Senate Finance Committee has published a summary of some of the additions to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. There are many provisions in the bill that will directly benefit millions of Americans -- what's called the "AMT patch," for instance, which will protect 20 million middle class Americans from seeing a tax increase in 2009. Or tax deductions for tuition, and for teacher expenses. Corporations will see extensions of popular tax cuts -- for research and development, or renewable energies. But there's also some other stuff. My colleague Z. Bryon Wolf points out that it bears mentioning that all...

Saturday afternoon so as to prevent leaks, as members of Congress and the Bush administration rolled up their sleeves to try to hammer out a compromise bill. The BlackBerries, with Post-It notes identifying their owners, vibrated away in a small trash can, and later were spread out on a table for later retrieval, as their owners tried to help their bosses resolve the legislative logjam in one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's offices on the second floor of the U.S. Capitol building. House Republicans, who had not been meaningfully involved in the process until Thursday, when they announced they would...

President Bush and Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain pleaded with GOP members of the House to end their party rebellion and quickly approve a Wall Street bailout plan.

ABC News has learned that President Bush called Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., this evening and invited him to participate in a meeting about the Wall Street bailout bill tomorrow afternoon in Washington, DC, with other congressional leaders, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Obama accepted the president's invitation, a source tells ABC News. The invitation comes at an interesting time. The President has not been in the middle of negotiations with Congress, leaving that task to his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. McCain earlier today announced he was suspending his campaign -- and his participation in the first presidential debate Friday night...

Sen. Barack Obama better not mess with his running mate Joe Biden's guns...or else. In an out-of-nowhere attempt to re-assure a southwestern Virginia labor crowd about gun owners' rights, Biden -- who regularly scores "F" ratings from the National Rifle Association -- warned Obama that if "he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem."

Earlier this week, the campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., seized upon a column in the New York Post that described Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as having urged Iraqi leaders in a private meeting to delay coming to an agreement with the Bush administration on the status of U.S. troops. "Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a drawdown of the American military presence," Post columnist Amir Taheri wrote, quoting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who told the Post that Obama, during his meeting with Iraqi leaders in July, "asked why we were...

"Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. "The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.” How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007? Q: “Well the dimension of...

Jake Tapper catches up with Obama's gun problem, and correctly notes that Obama's bizarre, rambling answer on guns to a friendly Pennsylvania audience on Friday September 5th has "ricocheted around the country," but Jake doesn't tell you why. In a nutshell: Obama concluded his curiously defensive answer that day with a hypothetical: ---------------- "The bottom line is this. If you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here’s another...

GOLDEN, COLO. -- "We're going to make everything more open," Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said here yesterday, "and more accountable, and more attractive to those who want to serve." Good government groups have told me that in general, when it comes to transparency issues, they're very happy with both candidates on the top of the ticket. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are both seen as "reformers" by these groups. Sure, there have been glitches here and there (Obama's broken promises on public financing comes to mind) but in general they see both men as allies. Enter Gov...

Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds. I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically. He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it...

Well, who is it? I am surprised that the brave, independent-thinking members of the Fourth Estate haven’t given full rein to the terrier instinct on this question. Obviously, someone inside the Obama campaign is out to sabotage The Chosen One’s credibility and, just as obviously, the journalistic profession speaks with a single voice when it comes to favoring The Obama over every other candidate. So where are the investigative reporters when we–or, rather, when they–need ‘em? Wouldn’t the cause of electing Obama come hell or high water be better served by suspending inquiries in to Todd Palin’s 1986 DUI citations...