Rod Blagojevich’s cartoonish defense lawyer did get one thing right in his closing argument—that the Obama team was “negotiating” for a Valerie Jarrett appointment to the U.S. Senate.
Sam Adam Jr. has just accused President Barack Obama and his transition team of negotiating with Blagojevich.
The offer came from Rod to Tom Balanoff, Adam says. Balanoff brought it to Valerie Jarrett and word came back from Rahm Emanuel through John Wyma. It’s a negotiation they were in, he said of Obama and Blagojevich.
“You start high and they come low,” Adam said.
If they weren’t negotiating, we did it take multiple contacts to pass along a simple message?
The Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown doesn’t draw a distinction between negotiation and “cutting a deal.” I guess he’s been immersed in Chicago corruption so long he’s numb.
And let’s be honest with ourselves. If Blagojevich wasn’t so obviously radioactive in November 2008, the Obama administration may very well have tried to cut a deal with him for that Senate seat.
Brown did, however, make our original point without realizing it. Why, indeed, was the Obama team having any contact with the Blagojevich team when Blago was “so obviously radioactive.”
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