Obama told reporters, "I had no contact with the governor or his office, so I was not aware of what was happening," clearly distancing himself from his home state and its governor, whom he previously had endorsed for re-election.
But Tapper noted Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, appeared "said something quite different" in an interview Nov. 23 with Chicago's Fox affiliate.
"While insisting that the president-elect had not expressed a favorite to replace him, and his inclination was to avoid being a 'kingmaker,'" Axelrod said, "I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."
Someone tipped Obama off.
Yet, today, America's leaders are reenacting every folly that brought these great powers [Russia, Germany, and Japan] to ruin -- from arrogance and hubris, to assertions of global hegemony, to imperial overstretch, to trumpeting new 'crusades,' to handing out war guarantees to regions and countries where Americans have never fought before. We are piling up the kind of commitments that produced the greatest disasters of the twentieth century.
— Pat Buchanan – A Republic, Not an Empire
