Dan Seals Finally Comes Clean On Dirty Money Taken at Northwestern University (UPDATED)

Tony Rezko has certainly has problems (hmm, pay millions in fines and spend 300 years in prison, or talk to the feds… not a lot of options…) but 10th Congressional District Candidate Dan Seals isn’t having such a hot week, either.

Amid continued criticism of his ill-advised gas give-away, Seals finally came clean on what was in the ‘mystery’ envelope that convicted felon and former congressman Dan Rostenkowski slipped to Seals in full view of Seals’ night class held two weeks ago at Northwestern University. For the full background, see here. There was much speculation that the envelope contained a generous campaign contribution from Rosty, which is the most common sense conclusion when someone hands you an envelope (that’s the Chicago Way, after all) and tells you it will help you in your campaign. The IL GOP called Seals on it, and challenged him to fess up to what was in the envelope. Unsurprisingly, no answer from the Seals camp was forthcoming.

In the long days of silence that followed, the story was largely ignored by the MSM, but it was picked up by a few other bloggers and even inspired a stinging video that continues to get a load of hits on YouTube.

Eventually, Seals must have figured out that the GOP was not likely to let go of this little bit of scandal. It still took almost two weeks for Seals to decide what to do, however.

Seals’ explanation is as follows: Yes, the envelope contained money (TA’s note: shocker, turns out the IL GOP was right). No, the check didn’t come from Dan Rostenkowski… but it did come from his wife (TA’s note: that’s right, his wife). But, says Seals, it’s a non-issue because he gave the check back (TA’s note: sure, after you were exposed), and you can check my FEC filings if you don’t believe me (TA’s note: now, why would we ever doubt you, Dan?).

Here are the salient issues and questions raised by the Seals disclosure:

Point 1: Seals essentially admits that taking money in front of his night class at NU was wrong, otherwise, why return the money? Note, however, that there was no admission of wrongdoing, an apology to his students, or to Northwestern.

Point 2: Seals emphasizes that he returned the check and no money from Rostenkowski will show up on his FEC filings. Again, he appears to admit that taking the money was wrong, but why? Is it because Rostenkowski is a convicted felon? If he’s good enough to come lecture at your class, why isn’t his money good enough to take?

Point 3: The funniest part of this is that the check was from Mrs. Rostenkowsi (I’m assuming that’s the name she goes under). Whose asinine idea was this? Do you think that Dan Rostenkowski is used to politicians being reluctant to accept money under his name, so he thinks that by running it through his wife, that somehow sanitizes the connection? It’s a little hard to even think that it could, considering these days of easy access to campaign finance information (what, we would have noticed a check from Dan R., but not his wife???) Maybe this wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t Dan R., not his wife, who presented the check personally to Seals (and in class). Are we really supposed to believe that Dan R.'s wife is a big “Dan Fan” and wanted to donate to Seals, but it just happened to be convenient that her husband was stopping by the class, so she asked her husband to personally deliver the check to Seals? Gimme a break. I don’t know where the Rostenkowskis live, but I bet it’s not the 10th District (just like Seals). And if we are to believe this tall tale, why is Seals giving the check back? If you believe his story, doesn't it seem like he should have just explained this two weeks ago, kept the money, and let the story die? Something doesn't add up.

I could go on, but y’all get the idea. Does anyone really think that Seals would have come clean and returned that check without the scrutiny he received on this? If he wanted to admit he was wrong, why not refuse the check in class, rather than wait two weeks. And if he’s admitting it was wrong, shouldn’t he make an explanation and full apology to the NU administration and get their absolution before going to the press?

As this space has said for months, we simply can’t believe that NU continues to let itself be associated with this clown.

You, the 10th District voters will decide if we send this joker to Congress. Let’s make the right choice, everyone.

GAS FOR VOTES UPDATE: Yesterday, Dan Seals found it necessary to write in to the Daily Herald with a non-apology apology. When you have to write to the press and explain your own stunt, that's a sign of a real disaster. But, if you read the letter, you will notice a distinct absence of any apology to the people who waited in line for discounted gas and were turned away, or an apology to those who wanted nothing to do with Seals or his free gas but were caught up in the huge traffic jam, or an apology for damaging the environment by creating a sea of idling cars.

And today, 11th Congressional GOP candidate Marty Ozinga shows Dan how it's done at the pump. Ozinga wanted to discuss the impact of gas prices with 11th District constituents, so he showed up to a local gas station and offered to pump their gas so he could chat while customers were filling up. Note that Ozinga didn't try to BUY gas for voters, nor did he try to blame any one congressman or anyone for high gas prices. He's apparently smart enough to know (or honest enough to admit) that high gas prices are the result of a lot of different factors, the most important of which is probably the law of good old supply and demand. Seals apparently slept through that course in undergrad, as well as any ethics classes that might have been offered.

Finally BackyardConservative has a great cartoon from the Lakeland Journals (scroll down the page) on the gas stunt, plus commentary on the NU-Rosty donation scandal.