I vote with winstontwo.

From a 110% McCain supporter:

This is an interesting but very unimportant matter. If you took any of these choices, what would it matter?

Syd:

Fine, then what do you think probably happened?

Jim Lindgren

This seems like a very strange thing to be obsessing about. I hope the next four or eight years aren't going to be like this.

I think the Obama camp was well aware of the FBI investigation and the whistle had already been blown.

Brian K,

There were endless possible combinations. I thought it highly unlikely that a staff member would have called the FBI without asking Obama about it first. That's a big thing to do, with many repercussions.

The only situation where you wouldn't tell Obama about it is if you thought that Obama might be corrupt too, and no one I know thinks that's true (and the timeline cuts against that possibility).

Would you have chosen "Staff blows the whistle without Obama's knowledge of Blago's desire for lucrative job"?

My thought is not among your possibilities. I cannot believe I am alone in that, either.

Pierre has a point. I would also like to condemn the totally corrupt Paul Simon, Abner Mikva and Sidney Yates. Also Senators Paul Douglas, Paul Simon and Adlai Stevenson III and Governor Adlai Stevenson II.

They should all have been frogmarched out to jail long ago for being Chicaog politicians!

“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening."

Let's clintonize this ...

"I" = "Barack Obama, and only Barack Obama, but not including anyone employed by or associated with Barack Obama"

"contact" = "face-to-face meeting" (cf, "communication")

"we were not" = inoperative, superseded by the following "I was not" correction

"not aware of" = "not fully cognizant of and absolutely certain of"

"what was happening" = ambiguous -- what was happening? Horse trading? Bribery? Just kidding around? Gosh, even Fitz doesn't know for sure, when you get right down to it.

I think the most likely answer is the "horse-trading" one with the addendum that Obama wasn't comfortable with even that--

"
Sources also confirm that Emanuel made the case for picking Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett during at least one of the conversations. In the course of that conversation, Harris asked if in return for picking Jarrett, 'all we get is appreciation, right?' 'Right,' Emanuel responded.
"

(from ABC, via Politico)

Pierre has a point. I would also like to condemn the totally corrupt Paul Simon, Abner Mikva and Sidney Yates. Also Senators Paul Douglas, Paul Simon and Adlai Stevenson III and Governor Adlai Stevenson II.

They should all have been frogmarched out to jail long ago for being Chicaog politicians!

Sarcastro, don't you usually put your comments in [brackets] when you're being serious?

Geez, I hate it when the comments go all nasty. I have no problem with Lindgren or anyone else reasoning through a messy situation. This little scandal is fascinating to me and Obama's relation to it---whatever that might be---equally so.

And, anon345, I don't think any Presidency needs help failing. All modern presidencies have been failures. The question is whether they end up being spectacular failures like Clinton's or woeful failures like George W. Bush's. Don't you think it's interesting and useful to see how our goals, dreams, and aspirations are trampled by the process of actually trying to achieve them?

Until staff contacts were fully investigated, Obama couldn't be sure enough of all the details to be more specific without setting himself a cover-up trap.

weird wording on the choices-

here's mine- Obama knew the seat was for sale like any other Illinois deal, and played ball as far as it got, now he denies everything.

He knew everything, because everything like this is a given there.

This reminds me of the affair du Plame, where one side obsessed incessantly knowing for sure their cause was right. The difference, of course, being that the outing of an undercover agent had come from someone inside the administration. But apart from some ancillary conviction, the real story was never established. Here, we do not even necessarily know that anything untold came from the incoming administration and the evidence so far suggests the opposite. This never stopped anybody from chasing their big white whale.

The best part about opinions is how you don't need any evidence to be convinced they're valid!

None of the above. Obama knew what Blago wanted, and used other means of communication to try to make a deal. The deal didn't work out, so Obama and co. suddenly stopped pushing Jarret.

"This seems like a very strange thing to be obsessing about. I hope the next four or eight years aren't going to be like this."

Of course they will. This is the Halliburton standard.

Jim,

the larger point that i was trying to make was that the possible choices left out some that may better reflect reality. i personally also think that the choices were skewed towards your own personal beliefs as to what happened.

You forgot one:

I don't care.


Most of us do not care unless something untoward happened. Like with Bush in 2001, we give the president or president-elect the benefit of the doubt. Even with Clinton. It is when the conspiracy theorists started with Clinton that this started down the hill.

So Clinton had sex in the White House with a woman not his wife? Who cares? Bush started a war based upon bad evidence that he or his staff knew was bad. He messed up the war in Iraq. And we started a recession on his watch. Yeah, based on that, there were those who did not trust him.

Obama has given you no reason not to trust him. Sure, you don't have reason to trust him. But what kind of country are we if everyone starts with a presumption of wrongdoing?

Jim, you have to get a life. Trust what Obama says. Trust his motives. Be Reaganesque, if ou will, and verify. But to start on this blog with baseless allegations and innuendo does everyone a disservice.

Jim,

I didn't vote, as I haven't followed the story. I'm curious, though, can you point to your prior explanation of why you think this issue is so critical? Or, to the extent you haven't explained that and plan on blogging more about that one statement, might you be willing to explain why you think it is so important? I confess I am one of the VC readers who doesn't quite understand why you have focused so much on this one statement.

Where's the option for "I have no idea, but I'm sure he was lying somehow"?

I think that Blago asking for a lucrative job wasn't illegal (though his asking for money from the children's hospital in return for funds clearly was). So I don't care what Obama or his staff knew.

Was Obama angry at his wife the day he didn't beat her?

I see three separate issues here:

1. Governor Blagojevich did things that seem sleazy and may or may not have been illegal in regard to naming a replacement for the Senate seat that Barack Obama vacated. U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald is investigating these things. To me this issue seems important, interesting, and rather amusing.

2. There is very strong evidence that President-Elect Barack Obama or (more likely) a member of his staff had one or more conversations with Blagojevich about naming the replacement in which Blago made it clear -- explicitly or indirectly -- that he wanted a quid pro quo, and in which the Obama camp made it clear -- explicitly or indirectly -- that they weren't interested in playing that game. Although the Obama camp seems not to have made an offer, there are still three interesting questions: How involved was Obama? (My suspicion: Probably not very; I think it most likely that he was given a summary and then told his people to say "Not interested.") Did the Obama camp inform Fitzgerald (or other authorities) that they believed Blagojevich was soliciting a bribe? (My suspicion: Maybe, maybe not.) If the Obama camp did not report that they believed that Blagojevich might have been soliciting a bribe, was this illegal? (My suspicion: Very probably not.)

3. Barack Obama denied any knowledge of or involvement with Blagojevich's activities. Is he telling the truth? Is he telling a "Clinton truth," a statement that has to be parsed in exactly the right way to discern a true meaning from among a number of incorrect interpretations? Is he lying? Would he give the same answer if Fitzgerald asked him for a deposition? If he or his staff had innocent interaction with Blagojevich, why would he give this answer? I don't know the answers, but I consider the issue interesting.

Orin:
I'm curious, though, can you point to your prior explanation of why you think this issue is so critical?

I can't answer for Jim, but what why are you saying that he thinks its critical? Jim of course lives and works in Chicago, why wouldn't he blog on an issue that takes pretty typical inside Chicago politics out on the national stage?

A more interesting question to me is why are so many people trying to warn Lindgren off the story. Why is so important to you that no questions be asked?

Allan's comment above is pretty typical:

Jim, you have to get a life. Trust what Obama says. Trust his motives. Be Reaganesque, if ou will, and verify. But to start on this blog with baseless allegations and innuendo does everyone a disservice.

Do not ask questions, trust but verify, and if Obama stonewalls so there are no statments to verify then the questions dies. Allan also makes a reference to "baseless" allegations. I've just seen Jim layout the facts and try to fit them in a timeline. He has speculated about Emanuels contacts, and labeled it as speculation, but that has now been confirmed that Emanuel had multiple direct contacts with Blago.

The main reason I would like to see questions asked is because I do not want a President to have a chief of staff that would listen to a solicitation of a bribe such as "I'll trade a cabinet seat for the Senate seat" and then merely decline to participate and let Blago proceed to sell the seat to the next bidder. I'm sure that there are many future supplicants that will be encouraged by Emanuels discretion.

Relax, Jim.

Your conscience will soon enough be assuaged. But I might counsel you to desist from relying on bricolage in the future as a means to indict. Learn some patience. Or at least wait until you have some hard facts next time before you rush to judgement, even if youre feigning a soft-sell. Not every case of politico guile is Nixon recreating the Watergate smooze or Slick Willie porking the local barmaid.

Having said that, I suspect that this week Obama will have an epiphany or two: 1) he has a Rasputin or ten by his side; 2) he needs to recall Wilde's admonition that the truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Harmon responds to Sarcasto:

"'I would also like to condemn the totally corrupt Paul Simon, Abner Mikva and Sidney Yates. Also Senators Paul Douglas, Paul Simon and Adlai Stevenson III and Governor Adlai Stevenson II.'

Hey, Sarcastro - you need to chose your examples more carefully. None of those guys were Chicago politicians in the sense that Obama is. Simon was not even a Chicago politician in a physical sense - his political base was downstate. The others were located in Chicago, but their political base was anti-machine - they were what we called Lakefront Liberals.
Obama, OTOH, has a political base in the south side black wards that are firmly under the control of the machine."



Huh? Harmon?

Do you not know anything about Obama or Chicago?

Obama came up through Hyde Park's Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) , the very definition of Lake Front Liberal. His first sponser was Bettylu Saltzman who worked for Simon and Stevenson III. His first ally was Aldermen Toni Preckwinkle, who is the definition of anti-machine, in Chicago. In 2002, Obama lost in his challenge to Bobby Rush for Congress because he was tagged as the Lake Front guy, who was out of touch with the black south side.



As for the posts question, everyone in the country knows that the Governor would want to horsetrade something for the Senate seat. That's called politics.

"The best part about opinions is how you don't need any evidence to be convinced they're valid!" Sarcastro

There's the fact that in the formal criminal complaint, "there are a number of folks who are implicated in wrong doing who are big Obama donors" (brief video - and the formal criminal complaint itself).

There's the fact of the Obama camp's changing story, excerpt:

"A source with the Obama camp strongly denied Emanuel spoke with the governor directly about the seat, saying Emanuel only spoke with Blagojevich once recently to say he was taking the chief of staff post.

"But sources with knowledge of the investigation said Blagojevich told his aides about the calls with Emanuel and sometimes gave them directions afterward. Sources said that early on, Emanuel pushed for the appointment of Jarrett to the governor and his staff and asked that it be done by a certain date."

Then another morphing still:

"... Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly on 21 different taped conversations by the feds -- dealing with his boss' vacant Senate seat!"

Not to mention Obama's own self-exculpatory statements, including how they evolved.

There's attendant facts, Obama's 2002 support for Blago's first run for governor, four years later Obama's support for Blago in 2006, well after some Blago scandals became well known in local media. (And those 2006 Blago scandals involved - hiring practices and monetary bribes - so don't tell us Obama didn't know.)

There's supportive, now disappeared evidence (photo) in the same vein, reflecting upon the Obama/Blagojevich relationship. Out of sight, out of mind.

Likewise, in the MSM, there's disappeared questions, i.e. a continuation of that incurious quality. Out of sight, out of mind.

And (FredC) there's the fact of Obama's own rise within the Chicago/Illinois machine, including strong-arm legal offensives to remove (Democratic) opposition from the democratic ballot/election process.

In short, there is supportive evidence as pertains to both the Blago scandal specifically and Chicago/Illinois political machine politics in general. Obama's immaculate political conception is in doubt, as is the worthiness of the cult of personality that has enveloped him, including in the MSM.

You left out my answer - Obama knew exactly what was going on, because it exactly how he got where he is.

Two things constantly get left out - Blago's statements about being told to 'wait' for two years - which to me sounds like keep your mouth shut while people are looking and you'll get your pay off down the line - and Obama's own rise and his wife's appointment.

No way he didn't know.

Orin's bewilderment at why this issue interests Jim deeply puzzles me. Unless you think that Obama's statement is unambiguously (a) clear and (b) honest, it obviously matters a great deal which of Jim's interpretations (or some other) is the right one. That's because they would suggest quite different things about the character of the President-elect or (more probably) his advisers, which is an obviously important question; I'm certain that doesn't need to be spelled out. So, despite not having voted, I take it Orin must have a view about what Obama meant and why it's innocuous. Perhaps he'll tell us?

(I don't really have a good feel for the answer; my gut says Obama's clean, and at most may have thought there was a horse trading proposal. But I don't need to know the answer to recognize, by reading it, that the question is important.)

I'll vote for one that wasn't there:

Blago misunderstood what the BHO team meant by appreciation; they meant "appreciation" but they - as did pretty much everyone else - knew that Blago was being investigated or at least under suspicion for being corrupt. They would have shown him "appreciation" if he wasn't such a loser as to say incriminating things over the phone. Instead, they realized that explaining what "appreciation" meant was too risky and they thought of their greater good.

Orin,
Because in my experience, a blogger doesn't write a long series of posts about a topic unless he thinks that it is important to readers.

Judging from the comments, this is an issue of interest to readers. Importance, I guess we'll find out.

I'm glad you explained about the space alien thing because I was somewhat perplexed. There are a lot of disperate topics discussed on this blog, and I've been reading it since back when Eugene, Sasha, Randy Barnett, Bernstein, and Juan-non Somebody were the whole crew and there were no comments. In those years I've never seen any of the conspiritors ask in the comments "why the hell are you blogging about this?" or words to that effect. I don't know about emails behind the scenes of course. When I see something totally unprecedented like that I was just wondering. Thank you for explaining it too me in terms I could relate to.

Jim L.,

I think Obama has played ball plenty of times before and Blabbo expected him to play now just like before. You don't get that angry at someone you've approached for a payoff for the first time. And Obama's initial statement to the press was just classic lying. He's actually a pretty bad liar without hours of preparation and a teleprompter.

Also "A source with the Obama camp" really should go to jail for lying to the Sun Times. Hey! I'll bet Obama talked to him too!

Also, retracted stories are now evidence of the story. Furthermore, up is down and black is white.

Orin,

As you know, I was one of the first people in the commentariat to suggest that a close comparison of the facts in the press with the allegations in the affidavit suggested that most likely Obama was offered a deal and flatly refused it, after which his camp tried to keep their distance from Blagojevich.

I was really hoping that you would express an opinion on this since you thought that I was being unfair when I suggesting long ago that the most likely scenarios would render Obama's statement misleading, though not necessarily literally false.

I couldn't figure out what likely facts you believed that could render your comments to me fair ones. I suspected that you just hadn't thought much about it, and were thus shocked when I pointed out the implications of Obama's decision to just deny things. And now, unfortunately, you still refrain from expressing an opinion.

Is it really plausible that Blagojevich's approaches were so subtle that no one in Obama's camp knew that the governor was seeking a lucrative job with a new charity or an SEIU affiliate? The New York Times reports that an SEIU official has confirmed that SEIU official Tom Balanoff ferried messages relating to Jarrett, so that looks even less likely than it did weeks ago.

If someone in Obama's camp knew that the governor was seeking a lucrative job, how likely is it that no one told Obama about it, even as he was taking relevant actions, such as withdrawing Jarrett's name?

This whole dispute is very revealing about whether one can take Obama's statements at face value or whether one has to parse them for their Clintonian meaning.

And, if early this week Obama doesn't reveal the two contacts alleged in the government's complaint in which Blagojevich attempted to convey his deal (and if either of those two attempts occurred and no reason is given for nondisclosure), then we will discover whether the press is going to do its job.

Jim,

You hardly get credit for objectivity by saying "most likely Obama was offered a deal and flatly refused it, after which his camp tried to keep their distance from Blagojevich." The "offered a deal" premise permits you to question this one statement by Obama, but ignores whether Obama might ever have considered that Blagojevich would appoint his successor and what it might take to get Obama's choice. Isn't it more likely that Obama knew he wouldn't want to give whatever Blagojevich was asking for and instructed his staff accordingly, than that Obama was "offered a deal" out of the blue?

If someone in Obama's camp knew that the governor was seeking a lucrative job, how likely is it that no one told Obama about it, even as he was taking relevant actions, such as withdrawing Jarrett's name?

Very possible, because they knew before there was any job seeking that Blagojevich was toxic, and whatever he would want would be too much, and the President Elect a) would not have been surprised or interested, and b)wanted nothing to do with it.

Orin,

Since you made a point of saying you didn't vote, I assumed you didn't have a publicly stated view (a pretty reasonable surmise, frankly). But I did go back and re-read your earlier post, and I'm still confused. All I see there is a good guess at the meaning of a contextually ambiguous statement. You don't purport to say in that post that Obama's meaning is unambiguous, such that no one could propose another reasonable interpretation. In fact you say just the opposite: "I am not sure, but"; "suggests"; "apparent"; "presumably"; etc. So how does that advance the ball? You're wondering aloud why this question is of continuing interest to Jim; don't you need to show that only your answer is plausible in order to make the question itself a dud? (Or that the answer doesn't matter, but that's obviously a non-starter.)

lindgren:

This whole dispute is very revealing about whether one can take Obama's statements at face value or whether one has to parse them for their Clintonian meaning.

Comments here and elsewhere tend to indicate that I’m not the only one who thinks that it’s your name, not Obama’s, that belongs in the above sentence.

As an Illinoisan who has noted the fact that our governor, The Haircut, is dumber than a box of rocks, and further, that this fact is trivially obvious to the most casual of observers, I tend to lean towards something like Snaphappy's scenario.

On the other hand, what I am most intrigued by is what Obama did not say. He did not say some variation of: "It's been a busy time so I haven't had any direct contact with the governor, but some staff members have had some discussions focused upon getting a senator in place who will be an excellent representative for the people of Illinois, and a great senate colleague who will help to enact the policies which the American voters have just given me a mandate to enact."

You, know, a statement which is politically astute, puts the best possible spin on things, and is probably even more or less the truth. If we have a president who lacks the skill to make such a statement, and/or the judgement necessary to know to make it, it's going to be a very very long four years.

Count me as one of the people who doesn't see his Blag-O-Rahm-a scenario in the poll list.

It's sounding more and more likely to me that Rahm might have gone 'off the reservation' on this.

It's hard to see why Obama *wouldn't* want to convey suggestions on who should fill his seat, even just as flattery to those who made the list, to Blagojevich but it's *highly improbable* that Obama signed off on any 'pay for play'. Rahm grabbed the suggestion list and started to run with it, partially to prove that he still has(had) pull in Chicago Democrat circles, partially because he's more comfortable playing hardball than Obama, and possibly to keep potential rival Jarret out of the White House. Obama was too busy to closely supervise the process, didn't think much was going to happen, and his management style certain seems quite, well, relaxed. Axelrod probably knew more about how much Rahm was doing than Obama did. When it looked like Hot Rod was going to go along with Team O, Axelrod wanted them to get the credit. After the deal fell through, he started remembering they really had nothing to do with it.

Rahm didn't figure on Blago begin quite so dense, greedy, and desperate to get 'appreciation' up front because either Fitz or a bunch of players in the Chicago cesspool were going to ride him out of town on a rail. Since he was off the reservation, Rahm couldn't throw the full weight of Team O into getting the deal done. This is where the idea that that Team O (actually just Rahm) were going to 'stiff' Blago dies. Blago wanted 'appreciation' now, the best Rahm could do was promise to get Blago something down the road when he was safely in the White House, and so Rahm had to back off as Blago went shopping for a better deal. Blago's reaction doesn't do as much to exonerated Team O as most of the Obamabots think. Blago clearly knows what he is, what Rahm is, and the only thing they are haggling over is price.

Rahm went to Obama with part of the story as the deal broke down, probably just that Blago was looking for 'immediate appreciation' but not detailing how much he had negotiated, and Team O publicly yanked Jarrett from consideration to try to contain the damage. Thus the blizzard of 'misspoke's, disappearing stories about Obama involvement in picking his successor, and Obama's stumbling reactions to questions about how much contact his team had Blago. Rahm had presented the meeting(s) to Obama as if obtaining 'appreciation' was all Blago's idea, Obama assumed that his preferences had been expressed and nothing more, and so he was caught flatfooted when information that deal-making involving his team started to come out.

Fitz knew all along what was going on from his bugs (he didn't need to hear it from Team O) and wanted to wait until Blago consummated a deal but the Tribune blew the lid off the story early and forced him to shut it down.

Blago is clearly in trouble. Rahm is only in trouble to the extent that his attempted deal looks unsavory and if he's too cute if Fitz puts him in front of a grand jury (he better practice saying "I heard about the deal as if for the first time" convicingly). Obama isn't in any trouble and hopefully has gotten the wake up call that being President(Elect) isn't like being the front man for running a campaign.

Even if he felt like spilling all his possible information in an orgy of transparency, would that not possibly cause potential problems with the pending court case? I'm not a lawyer but would understand his close statements to avoid being dragged into a court case that had little to do with him.

You need to show the question that Obama was answering, to judge the words that he replied with. This has been pointed out to you before, yet you persist in not including that detail. This is the opposite of the fairmindedness that I associate with this site. Oh...and I'm not even an Obama lover. Am well to the right of McCain.

TCO said it better than I did.

Amen to everything that Guessed said.

It continues to baffle me that you think something significant will come of this. The most plausible scenario is that, Obama staffers, likely including Ehmanuel, had contact with Blago, and may or may not have reported him to the feds. Obama was then careful with his words, because his (perhaps excessive) lawyerly instincts kicked in and warned him that republican partisans would give him the Ken Starr treatment if he misstated any facts. Ironically, republican partisans are now using the fact that he was careful with his words to give him the Ken Starr treatment.

Obama was then careful with his words, because his (perhaps excessive) lawyerly instincts kicked in and warned him that republican partisans would give him the Ken Starr treatment if he misstated any facts. Ironically, republican partisans are now using the fact that he was careful with his words to give him the Ken Starr treatment.

The partisans aren't using the fact that he's careful with his words, they're using the fact that he was careful with his words in a way which gave a misleading impression. These are not synonymous.

"The partisans aren't using the fact that he's careful with his words, they're using the fact that he was careful with his words in a way which gave a misleading impression. These are not synonymous."

That is obviously untrue, as Orin has already pointed out, if you actually listen to the question he was asked. If all of Jim's indignation turns on whether Obama was misleading, this is even sillier than I had thought.

He was going to get the Ken Starr treatment no matter what.

The game here is to keep making as much noise as possible until "Cokie's Law" comes into effect: "At this point,it doesn't much matter whether [he] said it or not because it's become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about."

IOW, once it reaches a critical mass, it doesn't matter if there's no "there" there - the fact that people are talking about it makes it newsworthy. And JL is cynically fanning the flames by writing post after post after post to help it reach that critical mass. It's hackery of the first order, and beneath the usual standards of the VC.

Okay, I'll bite,

Elliot said: '"This seems like a very strange thing to be obsessing about. I hope the next four or eight years aren't going to be like this."

Of course they will. This is the Halliburton standard.'

What does this mean?

This whole dispute is very revealing about whether one can take Obama's statements at face value or whether one has to parse them for their Clintonian meaning.

This is what drives me nuts about Professor Lindgren's whole series of posts on this -- and why I do not think Professor Lindgren can truthfully deny placing a partisan spin on all this. Because I just can't understand how a simple, straightforward, declarative sentence, based on personal knowledge and limited to personal knowledge, raises the spectre of a "Clintonian meaning."

As far as I know, the only meaning of "I had no contact" is "I had no contact." Is that a Clintonian meaning? What is the difference between that and "face value"?

Professor Lindgren, if you would not mind answering a follow-up question, suppose the following:

1. Obama really had no conversations with Blagojevich or Blago's staff that were in any way related to the open Senate seat.

2. Obama did not know what conversations his staff may have had with Blago or Blago's staff related to the Senate seat.

3. Obama is asked whether he had any conversations with Blago or Blago's staff related to the open Senate seat.

How can Obama truthfully answer that question without being Clintonian?

How can Obama truthfully answer that question without being Clintonian?

Now, isn't that a Clintonian question!

1. It answers a question with another question.

2. "How can Obama" could mean Obama, or it could mean Obama's people. That kind of wiggle room could be left to further some sort of nefarious scheme.

3. "Truthfully answer" has a number of possible connotations. Is this the legal standard of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" Is it about public perception? Is there really an objective Truth?

4. "that question" could be any one of all sorts of questions Jim has asked.

5. "without being Clintonian" first covers all sorts of things, since lots of things are not Clintonian. Additionally, exactly what is Clintonian is ill-defined, with various blogs defining it as anything from being charismatic to being a rapist-killer.

These are only questions, and I'm sure Steve H doesn't really have anything to hide. Nevertheless, questions remain.

I'm sure Steve H doesn't really have anything to hide.

If you only knew ...

Mwaa! Haa! Haa!

Next time, put in a voting option "Obama lying".

And I suspect you could put down Left_Wing_Lock as voting for that option preemptively.

e.g:

Poll: What's up with Obama and Blago?
LWL: Obama's lying.

Poll: Should Obama have invited Pastor Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration?
LWL: Obama's lying.

Poll: What's your opinion about whether Wickard should be overturned?
LWL: Obama's lying.

Mr Lindgren isn't misled by Mr Obama. But Mr Lindgren presumes that Mr Obama attempted to mislead.

Above, Mr Lindgren responds to Orin Kerr:

... you thought that I was being unfair when I suggesting long ago that the most likely scenarios would render Obama's statement misleading, though not necessarily literally false.

Here, Mr Lindgren asserts his superior discernment: Mr Lindgren alleges that Mr Obama's statements might have misled him, but in actual fact, Mr Lindgren was not misled.

Mr Lindgren further writes above:

This whole dispute is very revealing about whether one can take Obama's statements at face value or whether one has to parse them for their Clintonian meaning.

“Clintonian meaning” is an interesting turn of phrase. Earlier, Mr Lindgren explained what he means by “Clintonian”. He stated his explanation in the form of a question:

As with Clinton, should we presume that Obama is saying something that is technically not a lie, but that the full truth is closer to the opposite of what he is trying to make us think?

(Emphasis added.)

Note that presumption!

Later, Mr Lindgren stated with respect to the December 9, 2008 Los Angeles Times interview:

It was the first confirmation that Obama's denial was a Clintonian one and that I had read Obama exactly correctly.

Taking Mr Lindgren's statements together, we see that Mr Lindgren starts with the presumption that Mr Obama's statements are misleading.

Mr Lindgren was not ever misled by Mr Obama's statements, nevertheless —based on his presumption that the statements were misleading— Mr Lindgren proceeds to find the statements misleading.

Let's see, the first comment to this thread by poster "winstontwo" suggested that this poll was an irrelevant bit of frippery by an embittered McCain supporter.

Mr. Lindgren then demonstrates that he is wholly non-partisan and motivated solely by a search for the truth by promptly deleting winstontwo's comment in toto.

nice.