How Barack Obama Should Handle Rod Blagojevich

It should come as little surprise to those who know Illinois politics that Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich looks headed for a stay in "the big house." Politics in the Land of Lincoln is and always will be a contact sport. The stakes are high. The corruption, among Democrats and Republicans alike, is legendary.

If convicted, Blagojevich—who in 2003 broke the Republicans' almost 30-years-long hold on the governorship—will become the fourth former occupant of the Illinois governor's mansion to end up in prison since the infamous "Racetrack Scandal" led to the conviction of former governor and federal Appeals Court Judge Otto Kerner Jr. in 1974.

That's not an enviable record for any state to have.

The unfolding scandal is an example of public corruption in a state that is celebrated for it. As the old joke goes, the dying words of Mayor Richard J. Daley—father of current Mayor Richard M. Daley—were: "After I'm gone, bury me on the South Side so I can stay active in politics."

Few people will admit to liking the idea of corruption in government; indeed, the mere appearance of corruption was a major reason the Democrats lost control of the U.S. House in 1994 and one of the reasons they won it back in 2006. Its stench has derailed more than one successful political team.

To President-elect Barack Obama and his inner circle, Blago-gate provides reason for concern and opportunities to increase the public's confidence in him. Because Illinois is his home state and because one of the items on the bill of complaints against Blagojevich involves the alleged "sale" of the president-elect's now vacant seat in the United States Senate, questions about what Obama might have known and when he might have known it have already arisen.

To his credit, the president-elect called Wednesday for Blagojevich to resign. And there is no evidence Obama was involved in the scheme to peddle his Senate seat as if it were a sack of potatoes (albeit a very valuable sack of potatoes) or any of the other schemes identified in the indictment. It defies belief that he would be. He just doesn't seem the sort to engage in that kind of politics.

Unfortunately for the president-elect, he is learning one of the first lessons of the presidency the hard way. Events happen that are beyond your control, but people expect you to have an answer for them anyway, answers that have to be more substantial than "This is a sad day for Illinois, but given that the matter is under adjudication, I don't think I should comment on it further."

The pending charges involve more than a vacant U.S. Senate seat. They include threatening to withhold state assistance to an Illinois-based media company unless members of a newspaper editorial board critical of the governor were fired. And that efforts were made to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions, both in the past and before a new state ethics law takes effect next January.

Those are the kinds of displays of raw power that are sometimes still the mother's milk of U.S. politics.

For the nascent Obama administration to stay ahead of the game, it would be useful for the president-elect to take at least two steps at effective damage control because, like it or not, he and Blagojevich are already linked in the minds of the American people.

First, because he promised to change the way business is done in Washington, he should announce that all the members of his inner political circle—operatives, staff designates, fundraisers, and the like—connected to Illinois politics must affirm to him, either privately or by public statement, that they had no connection to any of the activities mentioned in the indictment or that, if aware of them, they reported them to the proper authorities. And he should announce that anyone who cannot make either of those two statements is no longer a part of the team.

Second, the situation provides a useful opportunity for the president-elect to clarify the status of the U.S. attorneys currently in office. Even though they serve at the pleasure of the president, they are appointed for a four-year term that does not necessarily coincide with that of the president. Most incoming administrations let those terms run out, but in 1992, shortly after coming into office, Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, formally requested all sitting U.S. attorneys to resign. This threw the system in chaos and very likely disrupted more than a few ongoing investigations and prosecutions.

It would do a lot to preserve the confidence the American people have in the president-elect if he were to announce that those U.S. attorneys currently engaged in such high-profile political cases, like Patrick Fitzgerald, who brought the indictment against Blagojevich in Illinois, and Alice Martin, who recently brought an indictment against the mayor of Birmingham, Ala., would be kept on. And it would say a lot about the priority the incoming president and his team place on the old-fashioned notion of "good government."

Peter Roff is the former political director of GOPAC and former senior political writer for United Press International.

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