What is it about a scandal that taints anyone connected to it, whether or not they were even involved?

Perhaps I just worry too much about people giving too much credence to wingnuts on the right. But still.

Look at Whitewater, where even though there was no evidence that Clinton did anything wrong, there was still this whiff around the whole thing, because people thought, well, if all these people are raising questions, there must be something to it.

There seems to be a perception that Obama is tainted by the Blagojevich scandal even though he and his transition team apparently refused to play ball with the governor. I’m trying to figure out why.

The only legitimate question I can think of — given that Obama’s team refused to enter into a deal with Blagojevich — is that if Blagojevich or anyone from his team even tried to play ball with anyone from the Obama team, then should the people on the transition team who were approached by Blagojevich’s team have gone to the U.S. Attorney’s office with the information? Did they? And if they didn’t, did they do something wrong?

Is Obama tainted because he endorsed Blagojevich for re-election two years ago even though there were corruption stories about him?

Look, lots of people during the primary season thought Obama was a gentle, idealistic naif who would be chewed apart by the Republicans. Few people thought he even had a chance of beating Hillary Clinton to the nomination. They were wrong. Obama has always been pragmatic and savvy.

On the other hand, some people thought Obama could walk on water and heal the sick. Obama encouraged this talk by giving amazing speeches and by holding himself to a higher standard, wanting to change the way politics is done.

But to get good things done in politics, sometimes you have to work with bad people. That doesn’t mean you have to make bad deals with them, but sometimes you have to at least work with them. In the last few days, Blagojevich has become radioactive, but he wasn’t two years ago, even if he was already being investigated at that time.

Obama is a politician. A Chicago politician. That doesn’t mean he or anyone on his team did anything wrong. But it does mean that sometimes you have to deal with scum, because the scum is there.