Rahm Emanuel, former congressman from Chicago and current chief of staff for Barack Obama, has found himself in the middle of the “ Hot Rod” Blagojevich saga. There is speculation amongst the MSM that he is the Obama staffer that spoke with the governor's office regarding the appointment of a replacement for Obama's Senate seat.

In tapes that the FBI released earlier this week Blagojevich is heard angrily demanding that the Obama camp pay-to-play if they wanted Obama's friend to be appointed to the Senate. He claimed that the seat is a valuable thing and that if they wanted Valerie Jarrett to be the next senator from Illinois that they should either pay money to his campaign fund or give him a high-level appointment.

Emanuel was confronted at Chicago City Hall, where he was listening to his children perform with their school. Instead of answering the question like a good servant of the people should, he hid behind his children. As the Chicago Sun-Times put it regarding Emanuel's evasion:

Emanuel was uncharacteristically absent from Obama’s news conference this morning. He was spotted two hours later in the lobby of Chicago’s City Hall. He was there to listen to his two children performing in a concert with their school, Anshe Emet.

A Sun-Times reporter pressed him to comment about whether he was the emissary named in the criminal complaint.

“You’re wasting your time,” Emanuel said. “I’m not going to say a word to you. I’m going to do this with my children. Don't do that. I’m a father. I have two kids. I’m not going to do it.”

Asked, “Can’t you do both?” Emanuel replied, “I’m not as capable as you. I’m going to be a father. I’m allowed to be a father,” and he pushed the reporter’s digital recorder away.

You're a real big man there, Rahm.

Props go to Drudge for the heads up.

SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times article

The Obama campaign ran on leftist principles, much to the delight of the moonbats in the Democrat Party. However, now that he is president-elect, he seems to be moving toward the Center. The so-called Progressives (read: Communists) in the Democrat Party are upset that the most liberal Senator in the country may govern from the center of the aisle.

This is not a problem unique to the Dems however. Republicans have had their problems with candidates that run as Conservatives but rule as Centrists. But this proves the axiom that says that the majority of the electorate are Center-right. The Daily Kos and the MoveOn crowd on the Left and the talk radio shows and Pat Buchanans on the Right, do not represent the majority of the American people. If a candidate could get past the primaries without having to pander to the extremes of either party, we might have a real revolution in politics.

This is the prime reason we need an independent candidate. The party system in this country has done nothing but harm it. As I've mentioned before in this blog, I used to call myself a Republican. But I could see that standing on the party line was not always where I wanted to be. I still hold to many of the planks in the Republican platform, but I know that there are some things—probably many things—on which we can compromise

Unfortunately, Obama has shown that not only was he running to the Left during the campaign, he also legislated from the Left when he was in the Senate. The idea that he will actually govern from the Center once he takes the oath of office stretches credulity, in spite of his choices for leadership positions in his administration.

But stranger things have happened.

SOURCE: Politico story

Unless you were hiding under a rock for the past twenty-four hours, you probably know that Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich—a Democrat—was arrested yesterday. Among other things, he is accused of trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's recently vacated Senate seat. Now this is classic Chicago politics. It's “ pay-to-play”.

Probably the most interesting things about the indictment are the tapes. The governor was being wire-tapped by the FBI from October through the election. The thing is, he knew that he was being taped. And yet he continued to act as if he were bullet-proof.

The lead investigator went to great lengths yesterday to point out that there was no evidence—at least in the tapes sited in the indictment—that Obama knew that Blagojevich was asking for favors from the transition team in return for appointing one of Obama's aides to the Senate seat.

However, some missteps from the Obama camp lead me to believe that there is more going on here than the FBI is willing to admit. For one thing David Axelrod, Obama's senior advisor said that the president-elect had been in contact with the governor about possible choices for the Senate appointment. But yesterday Obama said that he had not been contacted by the governor.

I think that it's clear that the squeaky clean exterior of Barack Obama is slowly, but surely, coming off.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Blagojevich story

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Axelrod story