On April 23, 2007 the Chicago Sun-Times published an article (with several sidebar articles) outlining the history of Barack Obama and an indicted slumlord friend, donor, and fund-raiser by the name of Antoin “Tony” Rezko. On April 24, 2007 the Sun-Times published a second article continuing its investigation. On April 25, 2007, Carol Marin, in a column for the Sun-Times summarized the articles and hit Obama hard “suddenly this gleaming presidential hopeful and paragon of new politics behaves just like any other dissembling, dismissive Chicago pol, ducking the discussion while pretending not to.”
“Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics. Open. Transparent. Different.” says Marin. But, when asked to explain his connections and business deals with Rezko, before and after it was known (due to plenty of newspaper and television reports) that his friend Rezko was in severe legal jeopardy and eventually indicted by the feds… well let’s let Marin say it:
“For five long weeks, Sun-Times’ investigative reporter Tim Novak called, e-mailed, requested, practically pleaded with Obama’s press people to provide information about the senator’s relationship to Rezko when it came to the development of low-income housing in Chicago. In an abundance of fairness and an excess of solicitousness, Novak sent a list of questions.
For five weeks, no answer.
Jointly, on behalf of both the Sun-Times and NBC5 News, Novak and I sent Obama’s campaign requests to interview the senator for both print and television.
Again, no answer.”
Before the latest series of articles the stink surrounding Obama and his indicted friend Rezko was smelly but not particularly pungent. Perhaps the transactions were bad in appearance but essentially innocent. The only thing we really knew was that Obama had bought a $1.65 million dollar house and on the same day his friend bought the lot adjacent to the new Obama house because Obama did not want to spend the additional $625,000 to purchase the adjoining land. Noses twitched when this was revealed but no more.
We also knew that after a short 6 month interval Obama purchased from his friend Rezko a portion of the land adjoining the Obama house. The Land of Lincoln suddenly became the land of link-on.
Obama did not help himself by avoiding answering questions by the Sun-Times, nor by his many “I don’t recall” type answers. [Click Here To See Video] Obama running away from reporters and cameras, car tires screeching away, played over and over on Chicago television news programs forced the Obama campaign to answer questions even if the answers had little to do with what was asked. There are plenty of questions still to be answered and many of the answers provided thus far lack credibility. The Obama/Rezko history belies Obama’s autobiographical boasts of being an affordable housing activist and representative. Obama’s answers on how much legal work he performed for slumlord Rezko are simply not satisfying and lack either honesty or logic or both. Taxpayers lost approximately $100 million on Rezko’s housing fiascos which Obama apparently did legal work on. Rezko is under indictment. The Sun-Times clearly does not believe Obama. The questions have just begun.
We will continue to have more on this story soon.
[...] We have written previously about some of Obama’s problems. The Chicago Sun-Times has been relentless in its coverage of the scandals surrounding Obama. In a recent editorial, the Sun-Times outlined the political, if not actual legal damage Obama, is, and will continue to suffer: “Kudos to the Chicago aldermen who are asking some of the same questions we had in response to a Sun-Times investigation published earlier this week: Why did the city and state continue to provide loans, grants and tax credits to projects that involved Tony Rezko when the city at the same time was suing his company in Housing Court for basics such as no heat? Why didn’t the city shut off the spigot as soon as his buildings ran into problems? Didn’t one city department know what another department was doing?” “The investigation by reporter Tim Novak found that Rezko’s development company, Rezmar Corp., got more than $100 million in government and private loans between 1989 and 1998 to renovate 30 apartment buildings for poor people. The projects quickly ran into trouble, and Rezmar was sued repeatedly by the city. Yet the city continued making deal after deal with Rezmar, which was paid nearly $7 million in development fees on the projects.” [...]
[...] What does this befuddled Rezko House Spouse mean? Maybe Michelle has forgotten her own role in the purchase of her Spouse’s Rezko House. Maybe Michelle wants all of us to forget about Obama’s Log Cabin. Maybe Michelle wants us to forget the Obama campaign continuing stonewalling of newspapers seeking answers to the Obama connection to now indicted Antoin…. [...]