Blagojevich on O'Reilly: Purported Obama Emissaries Offered to Raise Money for Me If I Appointed Their Candidate

RodBlagojevich told Bill O'Reilly that purported Obama emissaries offered to raise a bunch of money around the country for him if he in return appointed a certain candidate that they were interested in. Appearing on FNC's O'Reilly Factor, Blagojevich admitted that the offer was made to his chief of staff at the time. While this may have the initial impression of a quite revealing and forthcoming interview with Blagojevich, such admissions were actually far and few between during the six-minute interview. Blagojevich actually spent much of the interview obstructing, stonewalling and ducking and dodging, which stood in severe contrast to what Bill O'Reilly famously calls the interview segments on the Factor: the No-spin Zone. Clearly, to the extremely bad comb over-possessing Blagojevich (Blago to his Chicago cronies), it didn't seem to matter where he was as he was going to do his darndest to weasel his way out of O'Reilly's tough questioning.

Blagojevich's interview on the Factor coincided with, a day earlier, his pleading not guilty to a revised set of federal charges that prosecutors filed to ensure a speedier resolution in his criminal trial. In addition to the prosecutor's reasons, eight new counts including racketeering, attempted extortion, bribery, bribery conspiracy, and extortion conspiracy were added to his original charges.

To O'Reilly's credit, though, he tried his aggressive best-stopping short of throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at the former governor-to squeeze an answer out of the now-disgraced governor, yet in the end, Blagojevich's shifty sidestepping around very basic, easy questions related not to any legal minutiae but to his mere opinions won out.

One can tell that Blagojevich is a trained lawyer-having graduated from Pepperdine University in 1983 with a J.D.-from how smoothly he was able to tiptoe around all of O'Reilly's questioning. Not to discredit O'Reilly or anything, but when a guest stubbornly just doesn't answer straightforward questions, there's nothing left to do except to yell at him (which O'Reilly did in abundance), interrupt him (again, O'Reilly did that in abundance, too), or just cut his mic and throw him off the set and not invite him back.

In a nutshell, O'Reilly's very elementary questioning focused on getting Blagojevich to disclose if the Chicago crony-players in his sordid saga-namely, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, etc.-were involved in discussing Obama's then-vacant Senate seat with Blagojevich. You will recall that Blagojevich's charges are related to lawlessly attempting to sell Obama's Senate seat in exchange for political favors. Contrary to Blagojevich's sneaky assertions, such general questions that don't go into the details of his case weren't off-limits as O'Reilly noted. After obstructing and resisting for about a minute, Blagojevich finally spills that he did in fact talk with Emanuel and Obama, but not necessarily in incriminating ways. For instance, he spoke with Obama at a governor's meeting about different issues; he also spoke to Rahm Emanuel the first weekend after the election.

Now, the stonewalling by Blagojevich will get so intense that it's ridiculous. When O'Reilly homed in on whether, according to Blagojevich's opinion alone, Obama or Emanuel would be damaged at least in perception when the now-notorious tapes the federal government recorded to indict Blagojevich are released, Blagojevich began to misrepresent the simple thrust of the question. He claimed he was under a court order preventing him from discussing the legal details of the case, yet O'Reilly's question about damage-perception was related to Blagojevich's opinion only, something not covered under the court order. After going back and forth between more Blagojevich stonewalling and changing the subject for a couple of minutes and the ensuing O'Reilly attempts to pin him down, O'Reilly still failed to get a straight answer from him. Blagojevich only will repeat the seemingly rehearsed mantra of blaming the media for taking things out of context if he does give his opinion, before finally settling on uselessly referring O'Reilly's questions to Obama and Emanuel themselves.

The pejorative adjective "shyster" is, I believe, an excellent description to capture Blagojevich's inexcusably humiliating and intentional ploy to stonewall his way through the whole sham-interview. While there are certain legal requirements to consider, O'Reilly made it perfectly clear that he was only asking for Blagojevich's opinions pertaining to very general, non-legal details. So Blagojevich had no justification for all that shiftiness...except that he's a Democrat from the Obama-cesspool of Chicago, which explains all the evasion. People always joke that they hate lawyers...and after this appearance, that assertion is solidified even more!

To send Marc questions, praise or criticism, you can email him at marc_schenker@telus.net

More Reading: Who is Meteorologist Jeff Masters?, John Brennan Claims Americans Who Criticize Obama Policies Serve the Goals of al-Qaeda, Proof John Brennan Doesn't Know What He's Doing

Sources:

"Web Producer," Rod Blagojevich Enters Plea in Federal Court, Tristate

Rod Blagojevich, Wikipedia

Jeff Coen, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrested on federal charges, Chicago Tribune

FBI Tapes Depict a Crude, Shrewd Governor, CBS News