Posted By: Stonecipher

Dec. 14, 2008

Last Tuesday, just hours after the FBI arrested the now-infamous Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, on suspicion of fraud, Joe Gelman, the owner of the Neocon Express blog posted the following headline:

Hope and Change: Close Obama Ally Arrested.

Immediately beneath the headline, and above the fold, he placed a picture of Gov. Blagojevich, Barack Obama and Mayor Daley standing together while sharing a laugh. Above the picture was the caption "The Chicago Way."

Below the picture was the following text:

"In what is described by US Attorney's as a "corruption crime spree", Illinois Governor and close Obama ally was arrested this morning in Chicago. Three areas of extreme corruption are alleged: He tried to sell Obama's open Senate seat for money; used "pay to play" strong-arm tactics on contracts for government funded projects; and tried to get newspaper columnists at the Chicago Tribune who were critical of him fired in exchange for government funding. Some Republicans are now demanding that Obama release all communications between his transition team and Governor Blagojevich."

If you're a sharp reader you can probably pick out the three underlined words above that caused my blood to boil.

Yep, "close Obama ally".

At best, Mr. Gelman's use of that phrase to describe Obama's relationship with Governor Blagojevich was made out of pure ignorance of the situation. Given that Mr. Gelman is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News (and, as far as I can tell, not living in Illinois) I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that this comment was simply made out of ignorance. But, if that's the case, and you don't know whether or not Obama and Blagojevich are allies then don't report it as fact, Mr. Gelman.

With that said, what leaves some doubt in my mind about Mr. Gelman's intentions is the way he added a link to the phrase "Governor and close Obama ally". The implication of a link in any blog post is that the story being linked to is supportive of the claim being made in the text. In this case, the implication is that whatever is on the other end of that link will add credibility to Mr. Gelman's claim that the Governor [of Illinois] and Obama are political allies. However, if you click the link and read the FOX News story (shocking that a neocon would use FOX as his source), you'll see that nowhere in the entire article are Obama and Blagojevich tied together as allies.

The link is misleading, which leaves open the possibility that Mr. Gelman's error was more than just ignorance of Illinois politics, but worse, a deliberate attempt to mislead his readers.

Anyone who has followed Illinois politics knows that Obama and Blagojevich are by no means "close allies," or allies at all, for that matter. The extent of any alliance between the two begins and ends with the fact that they both happen to be members of the same political party from the same state. They're two Illinois Democrats.

In 2002, when Blagojevich was locked in a tight gubernatorial Democratic primary, Obama did not endorse B-Rod. Then, in 2004, Governor Blagojevich returned the favor by not endorsing Obama in his tight primary race for the U.S. Senate. Since when do political allies skip the opportunity to endorse each other?

But, if the lack of endorsements area little too subtle to convince all those Gelman-types out there that these two are not allies, the Governor himself has provided us with some much more direct and straightforward evidence, namely that the FBI tapes from the Blagojevich investigation catch the governor calling President-Elect Obama a "motherfucker."

Blagojevich, an apparent fan of the F-bomb, used the four-letter word in reference to Obama several times during the course of the FBI tapes. It is clear that Blago does not consider Barack his friend, in any way, shape or form.

Blagojevich and Obama are not allies and have never been, and there is no evidence to suggest that they are.

So, Mr. Gelman, I call on you to remove any reference on your blog to Obama and Blagojevich being allies until you have the evidence to prove it. Additionally, I call on you to run a correction and explain to your readers that simply because you found a picture of Obama and Blagojevich standing together, and that they happen to be members of the same political party from the same large and diverse state, that does not mean they are allies.

Maybe a call to tell the truth is asking a bit too much of a neocon though. After all, a little lie about a political alliance in order to further the neocon agenda is nothing compared to the neocon lies of the past decade. At least this lie won't launch an ill-advised, preemptive war.