It started back in September, when former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald predicted on local radio that, if Barack Obama was elected president, "one of the first things that would happen is that they would remove Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago."  Days before the election, Tribune columnist John Kass suggested that an Obama administration might take such action out of indebtedness to Mayor Daley.  Now Illinois GOP Chair Andy McKenna is stoking those flames in conversations with national reporters:

[I]n a Politico interview, Illinois state Republican chairman Andy McKenna, pressed Obama to commit to keeping U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in his post until the corruption cases run their course.

In pressing to get such a commitment from Obama, McKenna is implying that Obama has wavered or been silent on whether he intends to keep Fitzgerald in his current post.  But that's simply not the case.

As we've previously noted, Obama had only positive things to say about the prosecutor in both 2005 and earlier this year.  Moreover, Sen. Dick Durbin -- a close adviser to Obama -- stated affirmatively last month that he thinks Fitzgerald should stay on as U.S. Attorney.  Finally, as I wrote following the Kass column:

[G]etting rid of Fitzgerald would be a disaster.  Beyond the great respect for him among many Illinois residents, Democrats and progressives nationwide hold the prosecutor in great esteem thanks to his spearheading of the CIA leak investigation.  The mainstream media is also intimately familiar with Fitzgerald thanks to that prolonged legal battle. If he were removed, it would become an instant national controversy. 

This is only more true after yesterday's events.

(H/T TPM Election Central)