Why does any evidence linking President-Elect Obama’s connection to the Senate seat-selling scam always seem to vanish?

Many in the media are taking Obama’s denials at face value. He is a bona fide historic figure and, yes, he could be a miracle man who walked through the sewers of Illinois politics without getting a spot on the hem of his garment. It is possible. Harry Truman was the one of the few clean polticians when his state was run by legendarily corrupt Pendergast machine. So Obama could be as clean as an Easter-Sunday hat.

Still, odd bits of contrary evidence keep popping up. Obama has repeatedly said that he and Blago had never discussed the senate seat. Campaign adviser David Axelrod told a local Fox TV afiliate that the president-elect had indeed talked about the seat with the now disgraced governor, but Axelrod soon recanted.

Now Derek Hunter over at the First Friday has some new evidence: a local news story (KHQA-Chicago ABC affiliate) saying that Obama and Blago were meeting the day after the election to discuss… who will fill his senate seat.

You have look at the screen shot at First Friday because KHQA has taken the story down. Want to look for it on Google cache? Good luck. Search for the headline “Who Will Fill Obama’s Seat” and the byline “Carol Sowers” and you get zero results. At least, I did.

As for the Axelrod video that every one was talking about last week, try finding it now. YouTube has taken it down and so has the local Chicago station that taped it.

That is two embarrassing local news stories erased in two weeks.

Instead of forcing the President-Elect to explain, the inconvenient evidence is being pushed down the memory hole. While over-protective staffers can make innocent politicians look guilty, what is the overly protective press doing? Whatever it is, it can’t be called journalism.

Whatever happened to “afflicting the comfortable” and “speaking truth to power” and so on? Is that going down the memory hole too?

If so, the country has lost a lot more than the reputation of one Illinois governor.