Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times often gets the Obama version of events first from sources inside the White House. Her reports often are sympathetic and oblivious to obvious gaps in logic.
Here are a couple of whoppers from today’s Sweet blog post, complete with inside WH spin.
First, Sweet says that only biased people are noticing Obama’s report on Blago is filled with omissions and discrepancies.
Republicans and other Obama foes have seized on the omission of the Balanoff call in the report as an example, at the least, of a lack of candor from the get-go on the part of Obama, who was elected on promises of transparency and a new way of doing business.
Here is how Sweet explains it. See if you can follow her logic. I can’t.
A neutral observer, however, could conclude that knowing about the Obama phone call helps explain how Blagojevich knew Jarrett was interested in the Senate appointment. (Another way: John Wyma, a former Blagojevich confidant, testified that Emanuel told him Obama was interested in Jarrett replacing him.)
The Dec. 23 report, however, I am told, was designed not to fill in a political backstory starting the night before the election — but to demonstrate the more important legal matter that no one connected with Obama made a deal over the Senate seat or did anything inappropriate. The report was intended to address if there was a corrupt bargain — and there was not. That was the goal.
I thought the goal was to be transparent and honest. I guess not.
Here’s another bizarre WH/Sweet attempt at spin. It would fall apart on its face had Sweet read the Craig report closely. Apparently she has not.
• The Blagojevich arrest sent the Obama team scrambling — they were under pressure to get a government up and running but felt there needed to be some kind of a report issued quickly about possible staff contacts with Blagojevich.
So, the Obama team was so beseiged by setting up a government that Emanuel and Obama made calls on the Obama senate vacancy BEFORE the election and Emanuel continued to dial into Team Blaogojevich like a mad little political fixer while he was too busy “getting a government up and running.”
Our first point on this blog is just this—why was the Obama team doing anything but writing a letter to Blagojevich saying who his preference for the seat was. Anything else was an unseemly negotiation with an administration under intense federal investigation.
