Candidate 5 or Agent 007?
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
December 18, 2008
Here we had been thinking that Jesse Jackson Jr. was just another of the Chicago politicians trying to wheedle a Senate seat out of Rotten Rod Blagojevich.
But now Jackson is telling us that all along he was an undercover agent fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, or at least the Illinois way.
If that¹s the case, Jackson may have been very slow to get results, but did manage to keep his cover better and longer than even Leonardo DiCaprio¹s character in The Departed.
Jackson said through his spokesman on Tuesday that he first contacted the FBI about Blagojevich years ago.
A supporting anonymous quote provided to the AP indicates that the Blagojevich told Jackson that his wife had been rejected for a key patronage post because her husband had failed to make a large enough contribution to Blagojevich¹s 2002 re-election.
The congressman from Chicago¹s South Side also let it be known that he had been dropping the dime on some other, unnamed colleagues in Illinois.
Jackson¹s statement came as he was in the midst of a series of involuntary conversations with federal investigators trying to figure out exactly what he as "Candidate 5" did to try to secure an appointment to Barack Obama¹s now-vacant Senate seat.
The suggested inference to be drawn from Jackson¹s statement and accompanying anonymous quotes is that the congressman¹s connection to the alleged corruption of Governor Rod is only a result of his work as an informant. Not collateral damage in a laughably rank kickback scheme, but a modern Elliot Ness on a one-man mission to clean up Chicago politics.
Some politicos are finding it hard to believe that as the direct beneficiary of his father¹s decades-long shakedown of the American political and business communities, Jackson would have so low a tolerance for the coarser side of Chicago politics.
After all, we know that a group of Jackson¹s most ardent supporters, including the congressman¹s brother, threw a fund raiser for Blagojevich the weekend before the governor was led in his Sopranos-style tracksuit and matching manacles before a federal magistrate to face corruption charges.
The documents supporting those charges indicate that Jackson¹s backers had also pledged to raise $1.5 million for Blagojevich if the governor named Jackson as heir to Obama¹s Senate seat.
And Jackson himself told us in a news conference last week that he had met with at great length with the Governor just two days before the bust to ask for the appointment.
Add to all that the fact that real-life gang buster Patrick Fitzgerald¹s office has done nothing to corroborate Jackson¹s story about being the government¹s inside man on Illinois political corruption, and it¹s understandable that Jackson¹s claims would raise eyebrows.
More likely, though, his assertions are only exaggerated.
One can assume that the FBI¹s Chicago office would be fairly beset by politicians snitching on enemies and looking to inoculate themselves against investigations just like the one that now has America laughing at the gangster-style Blago and his wife.
Those who have walked on the shady side of the political street know the value of the federal government in settling political scores and scuttling enemies. If you can¹t beat them at the ballot box, there¹s always the jury box.
And there is also the common practice of getting out ahead of an investigation. When a politician is concerned that they may have edged into a gray area, making a partially clean breast early can prevent a future indictment.
That Blagojevich was up to no good seems to have been an open secret in Illinois. Even as Jackson, Obama, and others were hustling for the governor¹s 2006 re-election, it¹s apparent that he was regarded as an unsavory character. While it might have been nice for Jackson to have told someone else -- say the voters of the Land of Lincoln -- about his deep misgivings about
Blagojevich¹s operation, that¹s not the way of the Illinois political world.
The man you rat out to the FBI and look for ways to stop in private is the same one whose probity you tout in public.
Jackson has probably spent plenty of time with federal investigators, but he¹s no untouchable. After all, this is a guy who slammed his own father when the elder Jackson got caught in an embarrassing hot-mic moment talking about rearranging Obama¹s anatomy. Would snitching on a political adversary really be that much of a stretch?
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at cstirewalt@dcexaminer.com
Follow The Examiner
