The "Ongoing Investigation" Thing

Keep trying Mike.

Well, this is actually a decent point. If Obama's clear of this, why is he being coy?
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At his press conference yesterday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that everyone who knows anything should come forward.
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Although there is a difference between coming forward to the USA and coming forward to the press.

He might still be learning things himself. You don't want to open your mouth and put something out there before you yourself have gotten the full story. Even if you have absolutely nothing to worry about, you can still get yourself in trouble.

Or it could be that this scandal is being linked to Obama by a bored media and sour grape Republicans. Did Obama and Blagojevich know each other? Of course. Did they have to work together? Certainly. Does this make Obama culpable for what Blagojevich does on or off the job? Not so much. Let's face it, we're all sick of hearing about the economy and nothing distracts more (or sells newspapers, ad time or fills campaign coffers)then a nice juicy scandal.

Read the link Cliff.
Q: Have you ever spoken to [Illinois] Gov. [Rod R.] Blagojevich (photo left) about the Senate seat?

O: I have not discussed the Senate seat with the governor at any time.

The on going investigation part was answering a question about Rahm's role. You know, the part that is actually part of ongoing investigation.

Well, why shouldn't he take that tack? It worked very very well for the bushies, and enabled them to literally get away with murder, war crimes, and the entire Treasury. Maybe reporters didn't *like* it, but they rolled over with it. In other words, that is the most successful way to handle something like this, whether innocent or not innocent. Stonewall, and then issue curt, unsubstantive, uninformative statements. It works.

Yawn

Nate at fivethirtyeight.com actually read the documents and discusses them. You know, reporting. So quaint.

Day 2 of the Blagojevich mess and it has already spun from 'haunting' Obama to harder questions about the president-elect's use of a traditional DC dodge to hide guilt. What's for Day 3, Michael, reports on the drumbeat for impeachment?
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The more this unfolds, the more it appears the media see their role as schooling Obama on the ways of Washington, the real way politics is conducted. Much as they did for those other outsiders, Carter and Clinton. They didn't have to toughen up Bush II, since he had surrounded himself with old-school guys from Daddy's administration.

It's going to be a very long four years, isn't it?

the game still remains the same

This isn't a game, you moron. Responsible adults don't give lies to questions for which they don't yet know the answers.

Michael-If Obama says I don't know anything, what is he supposed to then comment on? Do you want him to implicate himself or his team? Do want him to expose what if he anything, he has talked to the FBI or Fritz about? The evidence is being collected by the investigators and Obama is not on the investigating team, nor directly involved, as far as I know.

Scherer is deceiving you.
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"I think it would be inappropriate for me to, you know, remark on the situation beyond the facts that I know."

From a recent NY Review of Books:

These... frozen scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging the cable news shows and the blogosphere and the bookstores. The titillating story that never ends, the pundit gabfest that never ceases, the gift that never stops giving: what is indestructible, irresolvable, unexpiatable is too valuable not to be made into a source of profit. Scandal, unpurged and unresolved, transcends political reality to become commercial fact.

We remember, many of us, a different time. However cynically we look to our political past, it is there that we find our political Eden: Vietnam and its domestic denouement, Watergate—the climax of a different time of scandal that ended a war and brought down a president. In retrospect those events unfold with the clear logic of utopian dream...

However tenaciously the mythmakers of our society—and especially journalists, who are after all the stars of this idealized drama—cling to this happy scenario, recent history has not been kind to it. For it rests on an image of journalists and journalism that has become, to put it charitably, outdated. Journalists as the self-abnegating seekers after truth, defenders of society's conscience: had this happy description ever been true, even during Watergate, it now bears little resemblance to the scandal-mongering world of cable news shows and gabfests, for which scandal, the gaudier the better, provides the vast and complicated narratives that are the lifeblood of the twenty-four-hour news cycles. As the first Persian Gulf War begot CNN so did Monica Lewinsky's pouty lips beget Fox News.

Scandals, the more complicated and richer the plotlines the better, have above all to endure. Scandals provide the fodder for on-air confrontation, the verbal slash and parry—which is what television, a terrible medium for conveying information of any complexity, does best, and does most cheaply. Scandals provide subplots and minor characters and spin-offs. They offer, to the post-Watergate, high-profile, well-coiffed, colleague-of-the-powerful journalist hero of today—could anything be further from the deeply irreverent working stiff cracking wise in Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday (1940)?—the true venue for the highest practice of his art, the television studio.

That art relies on, or anyway thrives on, scandal. Scandal denotes success. Scandal shows he is doing his job. Scandal means pay dirt. And scandal represents that media-age dream, the perpetual story. Scandal can be rehashed, debated, photographed, from initial leak, to perp walk, to hearing, to trial, to appeal. Scandal offers an endless stream of what the business is after all supposed to be about: news. As in: what is new. Scandal brings the heart-pumping, breath-gulping surge of stop-the-presses excitement, letting us know that into our fallen world the Gods of Great Events have finally come down from on high to intervene. Scandal represents movement, the audible cracking of the ice. And yet it is all an illusion, for beneath the rapidly moving train of gaudily hyped "breaking news," beneath all the grave and breathless stand-ups before the inevitable pillars of public buildings, beneath the swirling, gyrating phantasmagoria of scandal lies a kind of dystopian stasis. Everything changes and nothing does.

About an hour ago:
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President-elect Barack Obama believes that Gov. Rod Blagojevich should resign, his advisers said on Wednesday. "The President-elect agrees with Lt. Gov. Quinn and many others that under the current circumstances it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois," Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, said.
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Other than that, nice to see MS is in good company with sprinkles. Here's Steve Benen:
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The scandal isn't dogging Obama, but the AP believes it's threatening to dog him. Hmm. All we know at this point is that Obama didn't play along with Blagojevich's tactics, Obama didn't help Blagojevich, Blagojevich was livid with Obama's lack of cooperation, and federal investigators haven't implicated Obama with this mess in any way.
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And yet, here's the Associated Press, telling a national audience that this story may mean trouble for Obama. It's wildly irresponsible.

I guarantee you all will enjoy this Cole post:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=14494

Mike, you mean "Obama refuses to comment" as in "Obama calls for Blogojevich to resign?" That's after commenting, as you already cited, "he never talked to Gov. Blagojevich about any of this."

You guys just can't freaking get enough of the false equivalence.

Jeezuz, why don't you try doing some actual reporting for a change, instead of constantly playing Republican spin artist?

It's so weird when people write untruths and then include links showing that they are not to be trusted.
Klein and his "Wright is a black separatist". Scherer and this nonsense.
Weird.

You're right, Paul-NNTO, I should have taken a closer look at the links.

First let me point out that I don't recall Liberals being particularly outraged over McClellan's refusal to comment over an ongoing investigation. The blatant lies about Karl Rove's knowlege of the situation and the constant feigning of ignorance by reporters who were privy to the truth but commented at length on the 'mystery' anyway wrankled quite a bit. So the double standard Micheal is claiming fails in the first test. Secondly I'v noticed that Obama isn't shy about explaining to reporters that if he doesn't know the answer to something, he's not going to pretend that he does. To people who's entire stock in trade is baseless speculation, this must be infuriating. Thirdly, one of the other fascinating aspects of the Plame investigation was Fitz's ability to hold his cards close to his chest. His discipline, in the face of the slobbering on both sides of the issue for leaks was a wonder to behold.

The fun part is that now, how deeply one is seen to be wanting to dive into the speculation and innuendo game is precisely to what degree you may be regarded as a hack by indepoendent observers. If I were MS, I'd be careful. The internet has a LOOOONG memory.

It's funny how Scherer will quickly jump into the comments whenever a pop reference is made but never does so when his misleading scribblings get challenged.

I think it would be inappropriate for me to, you know, remark on the situation beyond the facts that I know

Should I mention that that is not begging off because of the ongoing investigation. That's begging off baseless speculation.

Uh, Scherer, all the people you mentioned using the "ongoing investigation" dodge were up to their elbows in or targets of those investigations. Obama is not. See the difference?

Teh stupid, it burns.

Perhaps it worthwhile to take a look back at the well-worn Scherer practice of rabid wanking.

Thursday, December 10, 2008 at 1:26 pm
WHY HASN'T OBAMA DEMANDED BLAGO BE JAILED? HIDING SOMETHING?
Posted by michaelscherer

I had been wondering what Scherer would do with all that free time after his guy got trounced in the election. Now we know – he'll use his experience misrepresenting reality about Obama to (are you ready?) misrepresent reality about Obama! Couldn't see that one coming.

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As mentioned before, if the Powers That Be at Time are looking for ways to cut their costs they needn't look farther than this post – the winner of the award in the category "Pathetic Excuse for National Affairs Coverage."

just a couple of thoughts
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Scherer says:
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Why is Barack Obama declining to comment because of an "ongoing investigation"? At his press conference yesterday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that everyone who knows anything should come forward. He gave no hints of a need for secrecy. "There's a lot to be said for exposing this to the sunlight," said Fitzgerald.
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But uhmmm didn't the Chicago Tribune publish an explanation yesterday about why THEY held back on reporting information because of requests by the prosecutors?
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If you are wondering Scherer yes thats a link to YOUR post yesterday.
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Oh and all of those journos that Scherer says were miffed about Bush dodging blame about Valerie plame...
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A google search reveals
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Results 1 - 10 of about 230,000 for George Bush Valerie Plame
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Results 1 - 10 of about 331,000 for Barack Obama Rod Blagojevich
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Your honor, I rest my case.