Barack Obama is experiencing the first “scandal” of his presidency before he’s taken office – or so sayeth the media.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is accused of (among much else) conspiring to sell or trade Obama’s Senate seat for personal benefit. Obama is accused of . . . well, nothing. In fact, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said specifically that the president-elect is not under investigation or accused of any wrongdoing.
Heck, an Obama staffer is on tape offering the furious Blago no more than “appreciation” for giving the seat to Obama’s preferred candidate.
Yet we have a media feeding frenzy, with “scandal” attached to nonscandalous behavior.
How did this happen?
Team Obama’s response has made what should have been a one-day story into a full-blown p.r. crisis. So far, it seems to have adopted the early Clinton-administration approach – turn a minor problem into a big one by mismanaging the media.
The Obama camp has managed to violate almost every tenet of crisis communications – starting with Rule No. 1: Get all the information out quickly, accurately and fully.
It’s imperative that reporters don’t learn something from a third party that you could have told them. And, in the era of nonstop news, “quickly” means within 24 hours. Any longer, and reporters begin to get frustrated (they’re under pressure from their editors) and feel that you’re stonewalling them. And why would you stonewall unless you were hiding something?
In reality, politicians have lots of reasons not to “tell all” even when they have nothing to hide. Some insiders may not be totally forthcoming with the communications staff, making it hard to get out the whole story. Or top staff may disagree on how to respond – and, failing of consensus, wind up producing a drip, drip, drip of information – which can have deadly results.
Obama’s response has been an exercise in dripping.
Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday, Dec. 9. As I write, almost a week later, the issue is alive as ever.
In the intervening time, Obama has repeatedly stated defensively that he had no contact with the governor or his office and had not discussed the Senate seat, as if either would somehow be inappropriate.
In a Dec. 10 interview, he refused to say whether Blagojevich talked with his top aides: “It’s an ongoing investigation. I think it would be inappropriate for me to . . . remark on the situation beyond the facts that I know.”
But then, in a press conference the next day, he had no problem stating emphatically, “I’m absolutely certain . . . that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat” – and then said he needed to “gather all the facts” about what contact took place so he could release that info.
Which left everybody scratching their heads: How could he be “absolutely certain” if he still had to gather the facts?
The day after that, The Chicago Tribune reported Chief of Staff-to-be Rahm Emanuel had been taped talking to Blagojevich about the Senate seat. This was really unremarkable – but it became big news because it didn’t come from the Obama camp. Why wouldn’t Obama just tell reporters there had been contact between the offices? Stonewall! Coverup!
The Obama team has sometimes claimed that it’s holding off on giving details at Fitzgerald’s request – and sometimes that it will talk specifics as soon as it has found exactly what contact occurred. Which is it?
Yesterday, the Obama team seemed finally to be getting the story under control, saying it has completed its internal review but will be holding it a week at Fitzgerald’s request. That conflicts with Obama’s past promise to release details “in a few days” but the Obama team can argue that it is out of their control.
Again, none of this should matter – because there isn’t even an allegation that anyone in Obama’s camp did anything illegal or unethical.
Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. He has the right – indeed, the duty – to give input into who’ll fill a Democratic Senate seat. Of course Emanuel spoke to Blagojevich with an “approved list” of candidates. What’s truly remarkable is that the Obama team seemed so unwilling to do any deal-making to get its candidate appointed.
The only scandal here, in short, is the way Obama’s camp has mishandled the whole matter. kirstenpowers@aol.com