{"id":6129,"date":"2010-07-16T00:37:50","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T04:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=6129"},"modified":"2010-07-16T00:37:50","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T04:37:50","slug":"arlen-specter-shows-rod-blagojevich-how-to-negotiate-with-the-white-house-without-getting-indicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/6129\/arlen-specter-shows-rod-blagojevich-how-to-negotiate-with-the-white-house-without-getting-indicted\/","title":{"rendered":"Arlen Specter Shows Rod Blagojevich How to Negotiate with the White House without Getting Indicted"},"content":{"rendered":"

If only the indicted former Illinois governor<\/a> could have passed on the chance to be first elected official to do business with the Obama White House political machine he too might be just another \u201ccoincidence\u201d in need of rationalizing.\u00a0 At first, Blagojevich seemed to be a bad Sopranos version of a big state governor.\u00a0 The hair, leather jackets, and the boyishly insincere claims of innocence made it easy to dismiss him as a buffoon unskilled in the art of negotiating political favors.\u00a0 (FBI tapes of him dropping f-bombs while daydreaming about running a nonprofit or a cabinet department didn\u2019t help either.)<\/p>\n

Then came revelations that Democratic Senate candidates Joe Sestak<\/a> of Pennsylvania and Andrew Romanoff<\/a> of Colorado were offered varying types of political compensation not to run against Obama\u2019s preferred incumbents.\u00a0 Now it sounds as if Arlen Specter \u2013 the party switching moderate Sestak defeated \u2013 is signaling he\u2019d like a sweetheart deal<\/a> after Keystone State voters refused to renew his contract.<\/p>\n

Sources tell ABC News that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania, has informed the White House that he would like to consider remaining in public service after his Senate term ends at the end of this session, and White House officials are keeping an open mind about possible job openings for him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, THAT\u2019S the difference!\u00a0 Blago should have \u201cinformed\u201d the White House that \u201che would like to consider\u201d increasing his public service to include Washington, D.C. \u2013 perhaps after the governor nominated President Obama\u2019s friend Valerie Jarrett to fill his Senate seat.<\/p>\n

Hey, distinctions are helpful.\u00a0 They\u2019re also dubious if the following report from ABC News<\/a> is true about Specter\u2019s motivation:<\/p>\n

Some who know Specter say he’s eager to go out with a bang — to have a more majestic career-ender — and not to be known in perpetuity as a party switcher, an inquisitor of Anita Hill, or as a leading advocate on the Warren Commission of the single-bullet theory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If only the indicted former Illinois governor could have passed on the chance to be first elected official to do business with the Obama White House political machine he too might be just another \u201ccoincidence\u201d in need of rationalizing.\u00a0 At first, Blagojevich seemed to be a bad Sopranos version of a big state governor.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1347,30,143,351,1561,1308,933],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-andrew-romanoff","tag-arlen-specter","tag-barack-obama","tag-corruption","tag-democrat-party","tag-joe-sestak","tag-rod-blagojevich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6129"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6132,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions\/6132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}