Posted on 12/11/2008 9:01:42 AM PST by BGHater
President-elect Obama said he has not spoken with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) about filling his former Senate seat.
Obama, at a Thursday news conference in Chicago, pledged to research who on his staff had been in communication with the governor's office and promised to report back.
"I was as appalled and disappointed as anybody by the revelations earlier this week," Obama said of Blagojevich's arrest on federal corruption charges, including a charge the governor allegedly tried to profit from filling Obama's seat. "I'm confident that no representative of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat. I think the materials released by the U.S. attorney reflect that fact.
"I've asked my team to gather the facts of any contacts with the governor's office about this vacancy so that we can share them with you over the next few days," Obama said.
Obama repeated his call on Blagojevich to resign, saying the governor cannot effectively serve. "I want to make sure that the next senator from Illinois ... is not tainted by what has taken place so far," Obama said.
A public servant who came of age in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics, Obama said Blagojevich's actions were on the "far end" of "a culture that thinks of politics as a means of self-aggrandizement."
"There are times when people are not thinking about what's best for the public good," Obama said. "This Senate seat does not belong to any politician to trade. It belongs to the people of Illinois, and they deserve the best possible representation."
The president-elect said neither he nor his transition team have been contacted by federal officials seeking interviews in the matter, and pointed out that the affidavit filed on Tuesday makes it clear Obama's team was hesitant to make any deals.
The president-elect also made light of Blagojevich's frequent profanity-laced tirades, in which he used various vulgarities to refer to the president-elect. "I'm not going to repeat back some of the things said about me," Obama joked. "This is a family program, I know."
The people of Illinois haven't hadn't decent representation in quite awhile. Why start now?
wow, a bit mean spirited aren’t you being?
“I’ve asked my team to gather the facts ...”
Didn’t Bill Clinton say something just like this when the Lewinsky scandal was starting to brew ?”
I don’t know about Clinton, but remember that OJ defiantly asserted “When things have settled down a bit I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman. They are out there somewhere. Whatever it takes to identify them and bring them in, I will provide somehow.”
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