What Obama SHOULD have said on Jarrett and Blagosphere

Instead of letting authorized flak co-sign misstatements or having his staff and himself spin out a series of non-answers “answers” to the timeline of what did he know and when, and to whom anybody did or did not talk to afterward, here’s what President-elect Obama should (and could) have said about the timeline of events on both sides of the Nov. 10 conference call between Obama’s and Blagojevich’s staffs.

First, I’d like to talk about Valerie Jarrett and my former U.S. Senate seat.

Yes, it is true that Ms. Jarrett was one of four people I preferred to have replace me as representing Illinois in the United States Senate, and it’s true that Rahm Emanuel conveyed a list of those names to Gov. Blagojevich. Yes, when Gov. Blagojevich’s staff contacted representatives of my team Nov. 10, they soon sensed that something more than a normal quid pro quo of modern American politics was at stake, and immediately relayed this information to me.

Acting on their analysis of the conference call, I determined that both for her sake and for mine, I needed to remove Ms. Jarrett from the governor’s cross-hairs. Still wanting her to serve Illinois and our country in a capacity equal to her skills, I offered her a position in the White House.

Next, I’d like to talk about how this relates to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation.

It’s true that nobody from my staff, nor I myself, thought if reporting Gov. Blagojevich’s Nov. 10 call to Patrick Fitzgerald. There are several reasons for that.

First, what my staff heard Nov. 10 apparently did not strike them as rising to the level of an attempt at bribery. While it seemed enough outside the political norm for them to decide to let me know about it as soon as possible, it did not seem like a criminal action. Knowing nothing else, and having their information being passed on to me at second hand, I took no further action out of lack of knowledge.

I obviously did not know that Gov. Blagojevich had a whole list of potential Senate nominees and that he was apparently prepared to play each nominee — and his or her political supporters — against each other as part of his enterprise. I did not know that supporters of at least one candidate were, by this time, already apparently conducting fundraising operations on his behalf. Nor did I know that this had come to the attention of Mr. Fitzgerald and had already come under his investigative eye.

Had I known any part of this additional information, let alone all of it, I would have contacted his office immediately.

Unfortunately, we got exactly none of this.

I’ve said before that I’m confident Obama did nothing wrong, and 99.9 percent sure of that with Emanuel. But, Obama has indeed come off looking like Just.Another.Politician.™ in this episode.

Since he ultimately has nobody to blame for that but himself, no, it doesn’t set a good impression as he comes into the White House.

And, while MSLBs have excoriated the conservative blogosphere for fixating on something apparently minor like Obama’s refusal to initially give Tom Brokaw a straight answer about his smoking, if seen as part of a pattern, it should be of some concern.

Note: I’m basing this suggested speech for Obama on the premise that Fitz’s unplayed cards don’t offer any exculpation for why Obama didn’t actually make a speech like this.