I doubt that anything illegal happened here, but there certainly is an appearance of impropriety and the scent of the backroom now threatens to overwhelm the fresh air Barack Obama promised.
Presidential administrations have always played these kinds of games, looking to protect the people they consider friends, targeting those they consdider political enemies or potentially problematic. Lyndon Johnson was a notorious horse-trader and Karl Rove’s fingerprints were all over nearly everything done to help Republicans during his boss’ eight years in the White House.
So the Congressional approbrium is a bit, well, hypocritical.
That, however, does not mean the president and his chief of staff should not be called on the carpet for what is being alleged. It is seamy and old-school and completely at odds with the campaign promises Obama made — remember chage?
Someone needs to apologize, at the very least, and it would not bother me if Rahm Emanuel were sent packing (his appointment was the first obvious indication that change and politics as usual were not all that different).
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 