Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Even cached articles on Obama-Blago Senate meetings go AWOL


Although President-elect Obama denied meeting with Governor "Fresh Fish" Blagojevich over his Senate successor, various news sources reported otherwise in November.

Earlier today the Google Cache's copy of a November Connect Tri States article looked like this:

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.

Obama met with Governor Rod Blagojevich earlier this week to discuss it. Illinois law states that the governor chooses that replacement. There's already been speculation about his selection...from Congressman Jesse Jackson, Junior to Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth.

But the original article is AWOL:

Content for Src="217582" of Type="application/html; src=cms-id" is unavailable.

And now even the cached copy has mysteriously disappeared down the memory hole.

There's a word that comes to mind and it starts with "cover" and ends with "up".

Update: Like David Axelrod, television station KHQA just retracted both of its stories that mentioned the Obama-Blago meeting (one written before and one written after).

KHQA TV wishes to offer clarification regarding a story that appeared last month on our website ConnectTristates.com. The story, which discussed the appointment of a replacement for President Elect Obama in the U.S. Senate, became the subject of much discussion on talk radio and on blog sites Wednesday. The story housed in our website archive was on the morning of November 5, 2008. It suggested that a meeting was scheduled later that day between President Elect Obama and Illinois Governor Blagojevich. KHQA has no knowledge that any meeting ever took place. Governor Blagojevich did appear at a news conference in Chicago on that date

That doesn't explain the second story which reported -- post facto -- that the meeting had taken place.

The second article was written by a different author than the first, which would imply that independent confirmation of the meeting may have taken place.

Update II: American Digest has more screen-shots.

Update III: Sweetness & Light: "SEIU Was Obama’s Go Between With Blago"

Update IV: Tom Blumer writes "Let's also not forget that Obama spoke at the National Governors Association conference last week, and that Blago was there."

Update V: I found another reference to an Obama-Blagojevich meeting in mid-November: This week Governor Blagojevich met with President-Elect Barack Obama and 47 other Governors to push for assistance.... Anything else discussed?

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