Kimberley Strassel picks up where Pete left off in enumerating the list of ethically-challenged Democrats :
Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune published a new story about Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who racked up $420,000 through a series of suspicious real-estate deals. Texas Rep. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, came under scrutiny this fall for questionable earmarking. West Virginia Rep. Alan Mollohan has been under investigation for a separate earmarking mess. And then there’s Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who has yet to answer questions about the sweetheart mortgage deal he received from Countrywide.
One unfortunate side effect of Mr. Obama’s long coattails was that they helped the party’s more ethically challenged members get re-elected. Pennsylvania’s Paul Kanjorski and John Murtha, who both struggled to keep their seats because of earmarking travails, will continue to answer questions about their actions. Mrs. Pelosi lost a problem when Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson — with his $90,000 in freezer cash — lost in November. Yet she has potentially gained a new headache with Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who may have wanted that Obama seat a little too much.
And Strassel observes that President-elect Obama better be careful or he’ll be sucked down into the ethical quicksand as well:
Is Mr. Obama taking notes? The president-elect is discovering the limits of his campaign strategy of ignoring inconvenient questions. One of his great achievements this year was to convince voters that his meteoric rise was unconnected to the Chicago political machine. His silence in the Blagojevich scandal has mainly served to make people wonder if that was true.
His Clinton-era appointments threaten to unleash their own round of stories, from a rehash of Eric Holder’s role in the Marc Rich pardon, to Bill Clinton’s foundation donors. And Mrs. Pelosi’s congressional problems threaten to become his own. Mr. Rangel, Mr. Reyes and Mr. Murtha — to name but a few — all head bodies that will be central to Mr. Obama’s agenda.
President-elect Obama is fond of reminding us that he is a tough customer, having learned politics in Chicago. But what he learned was to bob and weave, live among the crooks without either challenging the status quo or practicing the worst tactics of his Democratic colleagues. But that strategy of purposeful ignorance and avoidance simply won’t work any longer. The President of the United States can’t turn a blind eye to corruption in his own party. He risks losing his own moral authority, his Congressional majority, the ability to pursue his agenda and ultimately his chances for re-election.
This was acutely displayed in the handling of Blago-gate, when his chief of staff was not only aware of “what was happening” (as the President-elect vaguely offered), but apparently spent a good deal of time with Blago and/or his advisors chatting about the vacant seat. Clever answers and feigned ignorance isn’t likely to hold up, even with a largely compliant media. It works in Chicago to converse with crooks and claim innocence, but not when you occupy the White House. People begin to wonder why you are operating with the ethically impaired and why no one said “Enough!”
Sooner or later President Obama will need to become the reformer he advertised himself as, but never really was. If he doesn’t insist the stables be cleaned out, he will pay a stiff price. And the country will as well.