I happen to know Jake Tapper, the ABC News correspondent who wrote the Political Punch piece you cite. He wrote
a book on the Jesse Ventura campaign and talked to me regarding it. I believe him to be a good reporter and credible journalist. He is also a fun guy to drink beer with.
Being a member of the unwashed masses, I unfortunately don't have the advantage of having beer-drinking buddies that are movers and shakers in the national political world. Therefore - to paraphrase Will Rogers - all I know is what I read in the newspaper or see on the internet.
Your report of his piece is one-sided. In it, Mr. Tapper also said,
"There are no allegations that President-elect Obama or anyone close to him had anything to do with any of the crimes Gov. Blagojevich is accused of having committed.
"In fact, there are indications that Mr. Obama and his team refused to go along with the 'pay to play' way Blagojevich is accused of operating, offering only "gratitude" if the governor appointed his friend Valerie Jarrett to take his U.S. Senate seat, much to the governor's chagrin."
My post was not a report - it was an statement that included a short quote relative to your original question which inquired whether or not Obama and Blogo had spoken about the vacant senate seat. I also said there was "quite a bit of other information" and linked the entire article for everyone to read and form their own opinions.
That is the point I was making by asking THawk for his sources. While there is no doubt in my mind that people will believe what they want to believe regarding political corruption and pay to play, and will base their beliefs on shaky information, some of us still have an interest in the facts.
We're not talking about "shaky information" here. There's no denying the fact that Axelrod made the statement - by now, most everyone has seen the recording. It's common knowledge that Axelrod is Obama's most senior advisor and knows both parties very well. The Obama camp claimed he "misspoke", but not until after the Gov. was arrested and all these charges came to light. He made this statement on two different TV shows, so it couldn't have been something that just slipped by them unnoticed. Why didn't they release an immediate correction after the first interview instead of allowing him to repeat it? If there's any spin involved, it's coming from the Obama camp.
Hard facts come not from partisan spin masters or from being "all over the internet," but from things like primary-source documents, such as the criminal complaint in this case.
There's a difference between editorializing and objectively reporting facts. I'll be the first to admit these two activities are blurred quite a bit these days, but there are still a few reporters that manage to expose factual information to the public. Were the reports from KHQA regarding meetings between the Gov. and Obama factual? Hard to tell, since they've been swept under the rug, but I don't see anyone specifically refuting them yet. There's a lot more still to come out in this case that's not included in the criminal complaint.
I wouldn't count on anything other than more of the same though. You've got too many leeches and ignoramuses in purgatory, uh Chicago, to expect otherwise. It's good to hope but I wouldn't hold my breath.
