Like I said earlier: are his lips moving? Now, after his close friend and associate’s arrest:

“Obviously like the rest of the people of Illinois I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the US attorney’s office today…I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.”

Then — meaning November 5th, 2008, barely more than a month ago:

CHICAGO, ILL. — Now that Barack Obama will be moving to the White House, his seat in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois will have to be filled.

That’s one of Obama’s first priorities today.

He’s meeting with Governor Rod Blagojevich this afternoon in Chicago to discuss it.

Balls the size of church bells on this lying sack of shit. Who the hell does this sleazy, greasy Messiah think he’s fooling here, anyway?

Well, besides most of the media, more than half of the electorate, and all of the morons in the country, I mean. Which, as Mark Twain once said, is a big enough majority anywhere.

(Via a nice catch by Gatewaypundit)

Update! Roger Kimball tells it true:

The real news was that BARACK OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. It is not my regular practice to listen to NPR, but I happened to catch a bit of “All Left Things Considered” yesterday afternoon and the news from Chicago got a thorough airing. Sure, the name Rod Blagojevich came into the story, but each announcer in turn tripped over himself to assure the audience that BARACK OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

It was pretty funny, actually, to listen as these chaps who had labored so hard to help Obama get elected instantly closed ranks under the sign reading “presumed innocent.” Quoth one NPR announcer: It was nothing like Whitewater, a scandal that shadowed the Clintons for so many years. (But nota bene: if you go check out the MSM’s reporting on Whitewater back when it mattered, you’ll find that, according to them, Whitewater was basically a plot cooked up by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to discredit the Clintons.)

As it happens, I also think it unlikely that Obama had anything to do with the governor’s alleged malfeasance. Shaking down a contractor? Dumb. Threatening a newspaper? Dumber. Selling off a seat to the U.S. Senate to the highest bidder? Positively moronic. Obama is not stupid. He is in fact an exceptionally smooth operator. Therefore, I provisionally conclude, he had nothing to do with this ostentatiously sordid episode.

But here’s a little thought experiment with which to while away an idle moment. What if John McCain had won the election, and what if the governor of Arizona were not Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, but some Republican pol? And what if the governor had just been arrested on the slate of corruption charges facing Rod Blagojevich?

Oh, I think we all know the answer to that one.

Exit speculation: when it becomes evident that Obama had at least some knowledge of the rampant corruption eating away at the Chicago Democrat machine like a cancer, the MSM spin will be that Obama or someone close to him instigated if not spearheaded the whole investigation. He’ll be portrayed not as a close Blago crony — who, while smart enough not to involve himself directly, at least kept his mouth shut like a good Party hack should — but as a bona fide hero, a brave crusader against corruption and politics as usual.

After all, their own self-esteem is far too wrapped up in Obama’s ongoing lionization to allow for anything resembling honesty here. As with the Clinton admin’s manifestly rampant corruption, they’re in it as deep as Obama himself is by now; their callow investment in yet another cult of personality will demand no less than a complete whitewash — and the pathetic shards of their own long-shattered integrity be damned.