We were approached “pay to play.” That, you know, he’d raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him [Senate Candidate 5] a senator.
~ Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (discussing the Chicago Way on FBI wiretaps)
As Barack Obama, other sundry Democrat politicians and their willing accomplices in the liberal media scurry around like a pack of alley rats in a dark corner disturbed by a flashlight, I can’t help gloating just a little bit. I mean, who in America is really surprised by the recent criminal charges brought against Rod Blagojevich, the embattled governor of Illinois who up to a few days ago was a good friend and a close political ally of President-elect Barack Obama?
Since I lived and worked in Chicago for several years (1994-97), I understand the milieu of Chicagoland and am familiar with “The Chicago Way.” What is this phenomenon? Think a Midwest version of “Tammany Hall” – the legendary corrupt Democratic political machine in New York from the 1790s to 1960s.
The Chicago Way is any person, politician, businessman, children’s hospital or entity within the boundaries of the state of Illinois that wants to do business in Chicagoland. You’ve got to: 1) know the right people, and 2) pay the right people. Basically, that’s how business and politics are conducted in Chicago. If you don’t like it, then Chicago may not be the city you want to live in.
So far, the public has heard about three minutes out of over 300 hours of FBI wiretaps of conversations Blagojevich had with “emissaries” from President-elect Obama’s administration and at least five different Chicago politicians or political appointees who wanted the governor to appoint them to Obama’s vacated Senate seat. The asking price: $500,000 to $1 million, said the good governor, to perform his constitutionally mandated legal obligation.
The state of Illinois is not alone in this business. Presently, David Patterson, the governor of New York, is publicly entertaining numerous “bids” for Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat since her acceptance of the secretary of state post with Obama, including from JFK’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg, who has absolutely no quantifiable experience for the Senate except for having a pretty smile, co-authoring a couple of books and graduating from Harvard Law School. … Oh, yes, and she’s a Kennedy.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a staunch Democrat, last Thursday on Neil Cavuto’s show admitted that when Sen. Arlen Specter was diagnosed with cancer last April 15, which turned out not to be terminal, that day Gov. Rendell said, “I received five calls to my office saying, ‘I want that seat!'” Disgusting indeed. Forget the fact that Sen. Specter gave Rendell his first political job, but to paraphrase the great rock star Tina Turner, “What’s loyalty got to do with it?”
Information on the FBI wiretaps indicates that “Senate Candidate 5” was Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and that somehow Jesse Jackson Sr. may have been involved, perhaps as an emissary. Both Jacksons now have lawyers and refuse to comment publicly on their association with Blagojevich’s Senate-seat selling scheme. As more and more details of the FBI wiretaps are revealed, you can believe that many more Chicago politicians and Obama associates will need personal legal counsel.
Who tipped off the feds? Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois congressman and Obama’s chief of staff? What about Eric Holder, a Clinton retread and Obama’s choice to be attorney general, whose insertion teams have become privy to all ongoing federal cases of President Bush’s Justice Department that Holder will soon head?
Furthermore, it seems like U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s ongoing investigation was interrupted too soon, before a larger net could be cast to catch more Chicago/Washington, D.C., alley rats. Why was the trigger pulled so soon? Perhaps Obama and his minions saw the handwriting on the wall and as his coronation, I mean Inauguration Day approaches, wanted to stop the FBI’s investigation before it got too close to Obama the Messiah.
In a revealing Wall Street Journal article on the Blagojevich scandal, an interesting sequence of events took place Monday Nov. 10 in a marathon two-hour conference call between Blagojevich, his wife, his chief of staff, John Harris, an unnamed adviser, Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, his original pick to take over his Senate seat, and “various Washington, D.C.-based advisers.” Who were these mysterious people from D.C.? Was Obama in the loop? I believe he was.
I think it’s safe to say that, except for the most dedicated Obama Kool-Aid drinker, the bloom has left that rose. Obama knows that he is neck-deep into the Blagojevich seat-selling scheme; after all, it is Obama’s Senate seat that is for sale. Obama didn’t defeat the Clinton machine, the Republican Party and raise almost a billion dollars in private campaign contributions by being naive and not paying attention to every detail.
Obama knew full well what was going on, and being true to form he treated Blagojevich like he did his sainted grandmother who raised him, the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the slumlord/convicted felon Tony Rezko and terrorist Bill Ayers – when the political heat got too hot, Barack does the Obama Shuffle and throws them all under the bus to avoid tainting his Messiah-like image. Meanwhile, the liberal media and the Democrat Party dutifully give Obama political cover. Thank goodness the American public can rely on the alternative media like WorldNetDaily and conservative talk radio to keep this vital story alive.
Remember Chicago is the land of Al “Scarface” Capone and bare-knuckle Democratic politics that oftentimes resort to savage Mafia tactics to get things done. What are these tactics?
- The Mafia would send one of their henchmen to a business owner and say, “You need protection; we can provide protection for you for X dollars per month. If you don’t pay us, if you don’t pay on time, you’re going to lose a lot business.”
- The Democratic Party tells Wall Street, tells the home mortgage industry, tells America’s Big Three automakers and tells conservative talk radio (through the so-called Fairness Doctrine): “You need protection; we can provide protection for you for X dollars per month. If you don’t pay us, if you don’t pay on time, you’re going to lose a lot business.”
To most people of goodwill, these outrageous Mafia tactics we see played out in Chicago politics today are truly disgusting, but to the movers and shakers in incestuous Chicagoland, people like Rahm Emmanuel, who took over Blagojevich’s congressional seat, David Axelrod, a Chicago insider going back 25 years to his days as a key adviser for Mayor Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson Jr., son of civil rights icon Jesse Jackson, Valerie Jarrett, former deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daly, Barack Obama and all his other Chicago cronies, it’s “pay to play,” it’s payola, it’s business as usual, it’s … The Chicago Way!
