Talking to Blagojevich

Okay, so President-elect Barack Obama hasn't been tainted by the "Blagojevich ugliness," said Steve Huntley in the Chicago Sun-Times. But as the investigation continues, it will be interesting to learn what people on Obama's team said when Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich suggested he was looking to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat. Did Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, keep what he knew to himself, or did he act like a hero and "blow the whistle"?

Don't worry about Emanuel, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. "My guess is that the transcripts will demonstrate that Emanuel's love for an expletive is as abiding as the governor's—and nothing more damning than that." So the Democrats should push for full disclosure, fast, so they can concentrate on saving "a Senate seat they should never have put at risk."

Not so fast, said the Rocky Mountain News in an editorial. Obama says neither he nor his transition team participated in any deal-making, but Obama's chief political adviser, David Axelrod, said the president-elect had talked to the governor—so Obama really needs to follow through with his promise to share all the facts with the rest of us.

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Republicans should be careful about trying to "exploit the Blagojevich scandal," said David Corn in CQPolitics. The country has serious problems to face, and trying to make the Blagojevich mess "more of an issue for Obama than it seems to be" will almost certainly backfire with voters who are "worried more about their jobs than that particular opening in the US Senate."