Obama's Narrator?

I found the video attached above on a more obscure site than You Tube. If you attempt to locate this video on You Tube, it states that it has been removed due to copyright issues. Believe me, there are thousands of other Fox related videos that are still available on You Tube. Often, what is removed from that site is often more significant than what is added. In the video above, David Axelrod explains that Barack Obama has been in contact with Governor Blagojevich regarding his picks for a senate seat replacement. Axelrod has later said that he was "mistaken" when making this comment.

The longer the Blagojevich situation continues, the more I wonder how it will play out. Will Rahm Emanuel's 21 recorded conversations with Blagojevich's office regarding the Illinois senate seat come back to bite Obama? I can't imagine it not. Obama's quick pick of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff always did seem opposite of his "no drama Obama" campaign mantra. Was Emanuel actually Obama's first choice, or was it more of an David Axelrod decision? Emanuel and Axelrod are such close friends that Axelrod even signed Emanuel's kettubah (Jewish wedding certificate). There were many times during the primaries and the election seasons when I wondered whose campaign was it - was it Obama's or Axelrod's.

Remember the Hillary Clinton comment about change you can Xerox; the jab did not work out well for her - but what she was referring to was the similarity between some of the content of Obama's speeches with that of Deval Patrick. He is the current Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the first African American to hold that office. Both Obama's and Patrick's campaigns were guided by David Axelrod. Here is a bit of the speech similarities (see below):

I can remember the first time that I had that feeling of a blurring between Axelrod and Obama. It was when reading an old story about Axelrod in the New York Times Magazine (see photo below).
It was titled, "Obama's Narrator," and it spoke about Axelrod's history and force in politics:
In the last four years, Axelrod has helped steer campaigns for fully four of the Democrats now running for president — Obama, Clinton, John Edwards and Chris Dodd — and one who dropped out (Tom Vilsack); framed the messages for the new young governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick; and served as the chief political adviser for Representative Rahm Emanuel when the congressman helped orchestrate the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives last fall.
Axelrod, who is 52, is lumbering, sardonic and self-deprecating, and he still has the old Chicago street-fighter belief that you can see what matters about politics most clearly when you’re slumming in the wards. His bookshelves are filled with Abe Lincoln biographies, but what he says he admires about Lincoln isn’t just his philosophy but his political effectiveness, the Great Emancipator’s secret shiv. Professional opinions of Axelrod in this pitted, rivalrous field vary, but Axelrod, working from Chicago, has become perhaps the consultant with the tightest grip on his party’s future. “So many consultants are fighting the last war, but David is fighting the next one, and that makes him very, very dangerous,” the Republican consultant Mike Murphy told me.

Please note that Vilsack was just chosen today as Obama's pick for Secretary of Agriculture, but more about that in tomorrow's blog. I think the part of the story that really got me the most, was the description of Axelrod's shelves being filled with biographies about Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was whom Obama has often stated had the approach to politics that he most respected. I can remember thinking - where does Axelrod stop and Obama begin?
I feel like I should clarify that I do respect Barack Obama, and feel that he was the far better choice for President of the United States. What I wonder however, is if Axelrod is a god-like force in today's politics, can he likewise - giveth and taketh away? I guess we shall see the answer to that question.