Early in the morning of December 9th 2008, agents with the Federal Bureau of investigation surrounded the home of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The governor’s phone rang, the voice on the other end told him he had fifteen minutes to dress and surrender to authorities outside of his door. He asked if it was a joke. He was told, no. What has followed has been a sordid tale of reality of how the head of the Illinois State Government acted out his own real life version of “The Sopranos”. The Governor was caught on wiretaps attempting to receive payment from the highest bidder to fill President Elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, extorting funds from a Children’s Hospital and leveraging state contracts and tax incentives on businesses to play by his rules and even fire their personnel. As the Attorney’s Office called it and justly so, it was a one man political crime spree that would give cause for Lincoln to turn over in his grave. That’s one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is the way some key members of the GOP are seeing it, as a means and way to thrust a damaging blow to President Elect Barack Obama before he has even taken office.
The intention is clear, to muddy the water around Obama and to weaken his position. Why? One can not fathom why the GOP would attempt to pick up political points at a time when America is on the precipice of a depression and in the middle of two wars. The incoming President-Elect is going to need every bit of clout, cache and momentum in order to move swiftly and take up the task of generating enough traction to change the path America has been set on for the past eight years.
But what do we hear from the Republican side of the aisle?
Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the new GOP House whip: “The serious nature of the crimes listed by federal prosecutors raises questions about the interaction with Gov. Blagojevich, President-elect Obama and other high ranking officials who will be working for the future president.”
Robert M. “Mike” Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee added: “Americans expect strong leadership, but President-elect Barack Obama’s comments on the matter are insufficient at best.”
All of this while Chicago, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said prosecutors were making “no allegations” that Obama was aware of any scheming. Blagojevich himself, in taped conversations cited by prosecutors, suggested that Obama wouldn’t be helpful to him. Even if the governor was to appoint a candidate favored by the Obama team, Blagojevich said, “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation.”
Yet, we hear muddy water from Republicans. We hear sour grapes from an election lost and the lingering pains from tender wounds inflicted by their own party’s current Presidency and mismanagement of White House privilege and power.
At all cost, it appears the GOP would rather retrench rather than move forward in the spirit of collaboration to move our country forward. No matter how truthful, they will view and skew each statement from Obama as an attempt to cover or mislead. They will seek not truth but leverage to wound the President Elect and give him, as the Muddy Waters song suggests, “Tough Times”. Moreover, they will also use it to torpedo any Democratic backed agenda, from financial bail outs to any allocations of federal funding. The question is, are they serving America by doing so or serving themselves the same old politics.
It is the mission of the Republican party to attack and create cracks in the very message that swept President Elect Obama to victory. In order to gain their footing they must attack “Change”. It is in their best interest to prove or give the appearance that there is none or very little. If this sounds like a campaign, it is. Surprise, the campaign has never ended. Sarah Palin is on tour repairing her image, Mitt Romney is already retesting the waters for 2012 and a GOP poll shows Mike Huckebee is viable. All this even before the new President Elect has taken office. Washington is in a perpetual state of campaigning not to better America, but to destroy their opponents across the aisle. The mantra is not new: through my opposition’s weakness I find strength. Strength, not from new ideas, but through their perceived opponent’s weaknesses. The campaign tactic the GOP would like to continue against the President Elect is guilt by association, even when the association is non-existent or would exist because their world or government function dictate that it must.
So what is a President Elect to do? President Elect Obama must continue to do what he so successfully did during his campaign. He must be the one to define who he is and not relinquish that to the GOP or any other entity which would like to create and define his message for him. Because of the culture in Washington he must do as he did on the campaign trail: Stay on message. Our country’s future and the fate of the world depends on it.
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