It’s all very well to insist that Obama be as forthcoming and transparent as possible concerning any connection between himself and his staff and the Blagojevich matter. Transparent, open government was an important part of what Obama promised as a candidate, and he should be held to his pledges. Even so, am I the only one who finds it absolutely crazy that anyone is this concerned about Obama’s answers on Blagojevich when we have just had a Senate report released that confirms that the highest levels of the current administration were implicated in and responsible for serious violations of the law? This is the sort of thing that some people have insisted not be investigated and prosecuted during the next administration’s tenure for various unpersuasive reasons, and not least because of the concern that it would appear to be a partisan witch-hunt. Obviously, we are not concerned about such appearances in Blagojevich’s case, because we think it important to enforce the law here, so why not enforce it when the crimes involved are far more serious and there are far greater breaches of the public trust? We are watching a strange spectacle, in which the entire country fixates on egregious corruption of one prominent public official while appearing to be largely indifferent to the systemic corruption and illegality of the highest officers in the executive branch of the federal government relating to matters of national security and prisoner abuse. To answer Prof. Cole, there is nothing mystifying in the timing of the report’s release–Congress’ desire to bury this issue and avoid doing the hard things necessary to defend the rule of law is evidently very strong.