Jimmy Carter + Rod Blagojevich = Barack Obama

The negative political impact for Obama will grow even more as Gulf Coast
residents and visitors see the oil roll up to the shore for months and months
to come, along with wildlife carcasses covered with the goo. Fishing as a sport
and a livelihood will take a huge hit. A Florida friend of mine told me this
week that he and his friends and family are having a big seafood party this
weekend, “while we still can,” acknowledging the fact that important
parts of their life have changed, possibly forever. The rest of us will feel it
too, in food prices and availability, gas prices and the help we will give to
Gulf states, where the economy has the potential to crater.

Meanwhile, Obama and his comrades face the drip, drip, drip of scandal as
revelations about bribing candidates with government jobs if they will drop out
of a political race in favor of Obama’s pick make news. Exactly as fallen
former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is charged with doing. Obama aides will
testify at that trial, and the nation will see that Barack Obama has a long
history of engaging in the sleaziest of Chicago-style political deal-making.