This might be a nit to pick, but on November 23, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said on Fox News that Obama had indeed spoken with Gov. Blagojevich about his successor:
I know he has talked to the governor 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."
(Jake Tapper has more context).
Transition officials did not have immediate comment. Update: the press office later released this statement in Axelrod's name:
I was mistaken when I told an
interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor
Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any
time discuss the subject.
Again -- it'd be more unusual if Obama hadn't talked to Blagojevich. Was Axelrod mistaken? Was he referring to a staff-level contact? Did the discussion occur before the election?
These questions have become somewhat burdensome for the Obama staff, especially since the president-elect has long considered Blagojevich to be a clot in the artery of Democratic power. Axelrod, too, has been privately critical of the Illinois governor, a former client. The touchy context for this indictment is the larger circle of Chicago political insiders who Obama befriended on his freeclimb to power. A long trial will expose to the public many unsavory Chicago political traditions -- the same traditions that John McCain haltingly tried to turn into a political issue during the presidential race.
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