Barack Obama has been insisting that he and his staff have had no contact with Illin' Guv Rod and his Senatorial Auction Block.
Murmurrings across Chicago and Washington have cast a pale over the President-Elect's claims (Shadow is now on the list of possibly racist vocabulary, along with spade, brother and jigaboo).
The din has become so intense that the advisers to the first liberal politician to be thought of as holier, nevermind than thou, urged the last Senator from Illinois to make some noise about the impossibility of his involement with ilk like Illin'louse like Rod.
In a statement aimed at euthanizing for good the rumors of Barack's benign or otherwise contact with next Illinois political felon, Obama told the nation: " I have had no relations with that soon to be ex- Governor. For Allah's sake, I don't even speak Blagojevich!"*
* According to University of Chicago's Society of Cunning Linguists, Blagojevich is a rare Eastern European dialect spoken only by highwaymen, pimps and vampires.
