What Barack Obama Should Do about Rod Blagojevich

Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is facing prosecution for, among other things, trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. Obama has not been directly implicated in the scandal, but inevitably it will become a headache for him.

Already there seems to be some question about what kind of contacts Obama had with Blagojevich and when he had them. Obama is quoted as saying that he had not had any contact with Blagojevich. But Obama's senior advisor David Axelrod was recently quoted as saying that Obama indeed had spoken with Blagojevich recently. Now an Obama aid is saying that David Axelrod "misspoke."

To deepen the mystery, Blagojevich is quoted as suggesting the Obama people were unwilling to go along with the "pay to play" scheme in exchange for naming Obama's favorite candidate, Valerie Jarrett, for the Senate seat. That would seem to put Obama in the clear, but then the question arises, how did Blagojevich know this? Who did he talk to on the Obama team with the demand for payment for the Senate seat? And was this meeting, however it took place, revealed to the U.S. Attorney?

Even more ominous, according to ABC's Jake Tapper, contrary to some reports, Obama and Blagojevich have a long-term relationship, dating back to Blagojevich's first campaign for governor in 2002 on which Obama served as an advisor.

So what should Obama do, now that he has his first scandal as president-elect? The first thing Obama should avoid is to go into a defensive stance, claiming that Blagojevich was just "some guy I knew in the neighborhood." The old principle, as old as Watergate, that it's not the scandal but the cover up that kills one still adheres.

Here are the do-nots.

Do not stonewall.

Do not lawyer up.

Do not parse words or make excuses.

Do not try to protect anyone on the staff who is implicated in wrong doing.

Do not withhold anything, either from the prosecutors, or from the public.

Obama's tendency, when faced with something embarrassing, is to try to prevaricate. He never heard Jeremiah Wright's ugly sermons. Bill Ayers was just some guy he knew in the neighborhood. All that does is to stretch out the scandal and make it worse in the end.

In other words, the best advice for Barack Obama is to tell the truth. In fact, he should be proactive about it, dumping it all out as soon as possible. The political advantage is that it will give the media not much, beyond the facts, to talk about. And it will be pretty refreshing.

Source: Questions Arise About the Obama/Blagojevich Relationship, Jake Tapper, ABC News, December 10th, 2008