Is Obama in the clear?

I'll be frank. For a while, I've been persuaded that Fitz was really going after Barack Obama. I got that impression by reading between the lines. On the other hand, sometimes there's less between the lines than you would like to think.

This HillBuzz piece argues that Blagojevich is the target of the investigation:

In terms of Patrick Fitzerald, we’ve been told Blagojevich is, in fact, the highest level of target in this investigation. Fitzgerald has been leaning on Rezko to give up Blagojevich. There is no effort to lean on Blagojevich to give up anything on Mayor Daley or Obama. Blagojevich is who Fitzgerald has been after…so Blagojevich has no hope of Fitzgerald going easy on him, or of getting a deal for a reduced sentence down the line (if and when things come to that), because, unlike Rezko, there is no bigger fish in Fitzgerald’s sight.

Aside from Blagojevich, the only people being taken down by the Fitzgerald investigation will be people you have never heard of. One of the interesting things we heard tonight was that the prosecutor’s office is so booked solid with people to interview related to this case — in the mid-level range of importance politically — that even people like Jesse Jackson Jr. are being pushed back for their appointments…because everyone and their mother is rushing down to tell what they know, before they become targets too. People are singing like CRAZY, left and right. Fitzgerald’s office does not have enough investigators to interview them all in fast manner.

Hmm. You think one of those songbirds might sing a song of Obama's ties to Blago?

It is nevertheless the case that Obama and his cronies are sure acting guilty. First, we had the yarn about there being no contact between Team Obama and the governor re: the senate seat. We also had the (lesser-known) take-back of Rahm Emanuel's brag that Blago's campaign was headed by a small cabal including Rahm and Obama.

The feeling on the ground here is that, once again, WORM comes into play in terms of What Obama Really Meant…as in, he first says that no one on his staff talked to the governor about the Senate seat. What Obama Really MEANT to say was that in the use of the word “talked”, Obama really MEANT to say “no one talked about exchanging anything valuable for Blagojevich to pick one of Obama’s preferred candidates, as listed for Blagojevich by Emanuel”. Obama did not MEAN to say no one had been talking to Blagojevich, but that no one had been talking about exchanging anything valuable. All we can say is, this WORM stuff needs to stop because Obama won the election, and now the hard part comes

Of course, there are still Cheetoheads out there who insist that anyone who would tie Obama to Blagojevich must be racist...