Playing It Safe

The scandal shoe is now on the other political foot, Michelle Malkin says:

"Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi can stop clucking now. For the last three years, Democratic leaders cheered GOP ethics woes. Dean accused Republicans of making 'their culture of corruption the norm.' Pelosi touted cleanliness as a liberal virtue. But with the eye-popping pay-for-play and bribery case against Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich topping a year of nationwide Democratic scandals, the corruption chickens are coming home to roost. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called the breadth and depth of charges against Blagojevich and his Democratic Chief of Staff John Harris 'staggering.' That's an understatement. Anything that breathed was a potential shakedown target. It's the Chicago way. Democrat Blago's so dirty he'd hit up a children's hospital for money. Oh, wait. He's accused of doing that, too . . .

"Fitzgerald says President-Elect Obama was not implicated in the plethora of charges against Democrats Blago and Harris. The national media went out of their way to absolve him, too. But declaring Team Obama's hands clean -- especially with Blago crony and indicted Obama donor Tony Rezko in the middle of it all -- is premature."

In Salon, Edward McClelland views the governor as a product of his environment:

"It's almost hard to blame Blagojevich for the trouble he's in. The odds were against him from the beginning. Three of his last six predecessors -- Otto Kerner, Dan Walker and George Ryan -- have gone to prison. Ryan, who as secretary of state sold drivers' licenses for bribes, is languishing in a federal pen in Wisconsin, pining for a Christmas pardon from President Bush.

"When Blagojevich was elected, he promised to clean up the state's 'pay to play' political culture. But nobody really believed him. He was the governor, for God's sake. The governor is the last guy who would do something like that. Who benefits more from shaking down political contributors?

"I never expected Hot Rod to get into a mess this hot, though. Frankly, I always considered him an amiable goof obsessed with hair care and jogging. Not smart enough to be competent, but not cunning or venal enough to hatch a Nixonian scheme like peddling a U.S. Senate seat as though it were a stolen flat-screen."

Here's a possible defense for Blagojevich, from Powerline's Scott Johnson:

"Is Blago nuts? That's the first question that crossed my mind yesterday upon hearing of the charge that forced the authorities to arrest Blago yesterday before he exercised his power to appoint Obama's successor. He must feel the exhilaration and invulnerability of the pathological narcissist.

"Is insanity a defense to corruption charges? That's the second question that crossed my mind yesterday. It is, though I'm not aware of it ever having been pursued in such a case. Perhaps the time has come."

Obama, meanwhile, is doing pretty well:

"President-elect Barack Obama is entering the White House with an enormous reservoir of goodwill from an American public that is rooting for his success in the face of bad economic times, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds . . . The poll found 73% of American adults approve of the way he is handling the transition and his preparations for becoming president." And Bush? "Just 18% say they are going to miss him when he is gone."