obama-blago-120208

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

No contact??  From Ace, picture taken 120208.

“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.”

Depends on the question you are asking about…huh?

“This is a huge distraction at the worst possible moment,” said Lanny Davis, a former White House special counsel who did damage control for President Bill Clinton.

And it can grow if not handled properly. “It’s like the whirlwind,” said Chris Lehane, another veteran of the Clinton teams. “You get pulled into the vortex more and more.”

Jesse Jackson Jr. said in his news conference yesterday that he hadn’t met with Governor Rod Blagojevich in 4 years.
Ah, look at JJJr crying like a baby and bear huggin’ Blogajevich.

Video version of the cryfest at the Chicago Tribune.

Then there is that 2 hour long call that his advisors were in on.

WS J :

The call lasted about two hours. On the phone were Mr. Blagojevich, his wife, his general counsel, an unnamed adviser, and John Harris, the governor’s chief of staff and his co-defendant in this week’s case.

But what’s drawing the most interest is who was on the line from Washington, and the sequence of political events that followed that same night and in the ensuing days regarding Barack Obama’s close friend and adviser, Valerie Jarrett.

According to the FBI, there were “various Washington, D.C., based advisers” on the call with Mr. Blagojevich & Co., although the Washington callers are not named.

…Blagojevich and those closest to him allegedly detailed virtually every one of their ideas for turning Mr. Obama’s open Senate seat into something valuable. Specifically, the governor asked “what he can get from the President-elect for the Senate seat,” the FBI alleged, adding later that callers talked about how to “monetize” Mr. Blagojevich’s connections.

Mr. Blagojevich also bemoaned what he called his financial struggles, although his post reportedly pays about $177,000 per year. “The immediate challenge,” the governor allegedly said, “[is] how do we take some of the financial pressure off of our family.”

Wah!