What Didn't O Know, and When Didn't O Know It?

When a president-to-be does anything for the first time, it's interesting. Today we saw Barack Obama give his first denial related to a scandal. It's good practice, because sooner or later, a scandal (real or manufactured) will confront him while he's in office. As New York Sun reporter Josh Gerstein (I think it was he) used to joke: On any given day, you could ask President Clinton, "Mr. President what about the allegations?"

How did Obama do when asked about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's effort to hawk his Senate post? It was a bit of a muddle.

Obama was asked: "Were you aware at all about what was happening with your Senate seat?" He responded: "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening." He didn't want to go any further, citing the ongoing investigation.

It's hard to know what to make of this. As I wrote initially, Obama and his team come off quite well in the indictment. They didn't want to pay-or-play in any of the governor's games. In fact, this is what seems to have propelled Blagoevich into several bouts of plenteous profanity.

But Obama's answer wasn't terribly nourishing. First, as Jake Tapper notes, this seemed to contradict a statement last month by David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist. "I know he's talked to the governor," Axelrod said about the Senate seat, "and there are a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."

But Obama's answer wasn't terribly nourishing.

ziggy wrote:

But Obama's answer wasn't terribly nourishing.

Not very nourishing of what?

Keli wrote:

ziggy wrote:

But Obama's answer wasn't terribly nourishing.

Not very nourishing of what?

Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth...

Blagojevich questions censored on Transition site

President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.

It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.

The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.

"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California.

"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it.

Also removed as "inappropriate":

"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson, Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.

And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.