Flip (Sheila) and Flop (Abby)

Operating without the cover of a multi-million dollar television advertising campaign, communicators for Governor Rod Blagojevich can't keep their stories straight — even on the same day.

One spokeswoman just told the Springfield State Journal Register that mum is the word when it comes to federal investigations of the administration.

Abby Ottenhoff, spokeswoman for the governor, said her office has "refrained from discussing investigations at the request of the entities that are conducting the reviews."

"Our concern is protecting the integrity of the U.S. attorney's investigation," Ottenhoff said.

Several hours earlier, the Daily Herald printed a Q and A with Deputy Governor Sheila Nix, who was far from tight-lipped about the investigations. She even predicted that U.S. Attorney's Patrick Fitzgerald's massive probes will result in zero indictments in the governor's office.

Q. The governor will serve his second term as all of these corruption investigations into his administration continue. What do you think the impact of that will be politically?

A. We talked a lot about this during the campaign. One of the things the governor was effective in communicating is that while there are these things going on, we're still getting a lot of work done. You know, a lot of these things that are out there and that people are talking about and are being investigated were really as a result of the information that we found from the inspector general that we appointed.

Q. Are you confident there will be no more indictments in a second term?

A. Yeah, I don't feel like we've had any indictments.

Q. (Top Blagojevich fund-raiser) Mr. Rezko was indicted.

A. There's been nobody in the governor's office, you know, that's even implicated in any wrongdoing.

Q. So you're confident no one will be indicted?

A. Yes.

Sheila and Abby ought to share cell phone numbers and talk occasionally. Flip-flopping on the same day is quite a way to start the new year.

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