How long, I wonder, before this trial gets a continuance to January 21st, 2009?
An e-mail message made public on Monday in the fraud trial of Antoin Rezko, a businessman and political contributor, brought attention to Senator Barack Obama’s role in discussions involving a state health planning board that Mr. Rezko is accused of improperly influencing.
The message indicated that Mr. Obama, now a Democratic presidential candidate, and other top Illinois politicians consulted in 2003 on legislation to keep the board, which approved the construction of health facilities, from expiring under sunset provisions in state law.
The vaguely worded message also seemed to raise the possibility that Mr. Obama, who at the time was chairman of the Illinois Senate’s health committee, had been involved in recommending candidates for the board.
Mr. Rezko is accused of using his influence in state government to stack the board with associates, including some who made political contributions to Mr. Obama and other top Illinois politicians, and of seeking a bribe on a hospital project.
But David Wilhelm, a former campaign adviser to Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois who asked that the e-mail message be written, said in an interview that he had never talked about the appointment process to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama has said he had nothing to do with Mr. Rezko’s activities with the board.
Mr. Obama has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and his name is expected to come up only tangentially during the trial. But given his tight race against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, each mention of Mr. Obama’s name is being closely watched.
Now, Obama has spent a lot of time lately trying to make it seem like Rezko was just this guy he had dealings with from time to time…but Rezko was actually a very close friend and political associate of Rezko. The reason Obama is deserately distancing himself from Rezko is because of things like this – you know, the sort of connections to corrupt lobbyists and wheeler-dealers which had Democrats accusing the GOP of having a “culture of corruption” in 2006. When Matt and I were writing Caucus of Corruption we didn’t just put anyone into the book – we put in people we felt were excellent examples of the level of corruption in the Democratic party, and Obama fit very neatly into that catagory. Keep in mind, its not just Rezko and Obama; its the governor of Illinois and a whole bunch of politicians, government employees and associated hangers-on who have been helping Illinois to approach New Jersey levels of political corruption. To think that a politician would emerge out of such an immoral stew without a few skeletons in the closet is to hope against hope.
There is, unfortunately, plenty of corruption to go around in politics and GOPers have not been immune to the lures of money, power and sex – but the GOPers who do these things eventually get caught and punished; the problem, as Matt and I showed in great detail in Caucus, is that Democrats only very rarely get called to account for their corruption. Tom DeLay was indicted for alleged violations of a very obscure Texas law, and he’s out of politics – William Jefferon has been indicted for major corruption and he gets standing ovations from his fellow Democrats, and Speaker Pelosi tries to get him on major House committees. We’ll never cure all corruption in politics, but just so long as Democrats are nearly immune to punishment for corruption, so will the horrific levels of corruption in politics continue.
UPDATE: The Obama file.
Blogs For Victory 
Yup.
You’ve got such a victim delusion. We’ll talk about punishing Obama as soon as he’s shown to have done something wrong. Putting his name in the same sentence as someone on trial only rises to the level of schoolyard name calling.
The long, enduring friendship and monetary support afforded by Tony Rezko to Obama is not a big secret. Nor is the fact that Rezko is one shady character in Chicago. He did not win a lottery to end up on trial. And what is known about Rezko is that when he gave you something he expected something in return even if laws and ethics had to be broken, hence the trial. How Obama fits in will come out during the trial and then we’ll see what really went on for all those years of “friendship.” I find it in the least a case of poor judgement for Obama to have been so tight with Rezko. Common sense is that if you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get up with fleas. Time will tell, but it doesn’t look good for Obama.
None of you leftists think there is the least concern that this known criminal arranged a highly sustpect sweetheart land deal for the potential future President of the US of A?
You are all ok with the fact that the $3 million dollar mortgage for Obama’s house was financed not by a bank, but by a rich Iraqi, who seems to come out of the wood work?
None of these allegations warrant greater scrutiny???
I remember hootin’ and hollerin’ from the radicals over there in LeftyLand when they were able to come up with a photo in which Bush and Abramoff were in the same room.
Jack didn’t help George buy an expensive house, or buy the land next to it so he’d have a nice big yard. But he was in the same photo. Not very close—actually, at some distance, in a very crowded room—but it was enough for the rabble on the far Left.
Of course these were the same mindless mouthbreathers who thought it witty and relevant to scream “Bush’s GRANDFATHER did business with HITLER!!!”
There are two issues here. It’s bad enough to turn a determined blind eye to wrongdoings just because they are committed by people on your side, but it’s even worse to, at the very same time, pretend to hold the Higher Moral Ground and attack everyone on the other side for any kind of trumped-up or exaggerated allegation of transgression.
The selective outrage is bad enough, but the hypocrisy is too much.
When the Right had to deal with a couple of very minor allegations—dirty talk online, no physical contact whatsoever, with an adult, or what was deemed to be an unacceptably wide stance at a toilet bowl—we said fine, you guys should know better, so out you go.
When the Left has a homosexual brothel run out of a Senator’s residence, when a Representative has actual sexual contact with a minor (same-sex) page, when another has bribes stored in his freezer, when a Senator has a shady real estate deal, when ANOTHER Senator has an even shadier real estate deal—-that’s not only all right, but it is just downright HATEFUL to even mention it. You guys even reward this kind of behavior.
It’s why we don’t take you seriously.
winnowhead, how can one have a “victim delusion” about someone else?
As usual, your post makes no sense.
Now, take it the way it is supposed to be written, the Dem focus on Victim vs Villain—in this model, Obama is the poor victim of the villainous Right.
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I have a very serious question. It is not an attempt to sling mud, or imply anything—it is a sincere query.
I heard that Michelle Obama had been making a little over $100,000 in her job doing some kind of public relations for a Chicago hospital or hospital company, and then got raised to something like $340,000 a year. I genuinely want to know if her salary is typical for those in her job or the equivalent, and also when this raise took place.
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Also, she has been making speeches about the terrible hardship she and Barack faced, having to pay off those onerous student loans. I felt terrible, of course, that they had been forced to attend presitgious Ivy League schools, when they could have saved so much money by going to community colleges or even state colleges, but that ship had sailed, they already had their Ivy League degrees and commensurate salaries and poltiical positions, so all I could do was grieve with her.
But now she is taking a year off to campaign for Barack—-a big new fancy expensive house, just recovering from those student loans, I just wonder how they are getting by?
Almiranta,
Another thing Matt and I found out in researching “Caucus” – Democrats would just about rather die than admit that any of theirs has a corruption problem. One ill-famed crook was eulogised on his death because while he was stealing everything not nailed down, he at least talked as if he wanted to help the poor…what got Toricelli out of the Senate? Not his manifest corruption, but the risk that he might lose his seat – to Democrats, the only bad thing is a lost election; had the Torch been able to show he could win, Democrats would never have done anything about him…Barney Frank hooked up with a whore, had him move in with him, wrote letters to his parole board (the guy was on parole due to a conviction for sex with a minor) and then tried to tell us he didn’t know the whore was, well, running a whore house out of Frank’s apartment…Frank, of course, is still in office…because the people of his district just don’t give a damn about such things, and no national Democrat will care because Frank keeps winning his elections…
Phil,
Sorry, but while Obama is not the subject of this trial, he is hip deep in Rezko…you should be concerned that someone as dirty as Rezko is this close to Obama.
Waa waa waa! Corrupt Republicans get “caught and punished” but Democrats get off scot free!
Cry me a river…
Minnowhead,
I am looking forward to Obama getting the nomination and campaigning for President while the Rezko trial is going on. Late night TV comedians are going to have a field day with this. And Obama is going to spend lots of time ‘splainin how that land deal was just sagacious negotiating on his part.
Damn Mark… I’m surprised you didn’t delete your own post #10 for being “Off Topic”. Please try staying on topic… which is Tony Rezko on trial and you TRYING YOUR DAMNEST to tie Obama to it.
Almiranta’s post #9 is a typical thing on this site… lob out accusations in hopes that someone believes it and spreads it as truth.
What happened to that “innocent until proven guilty” thing that everyone cried over with the DeLay fiasco? The only difference here is that Obama ain’t on trial for squat! Yet you folks keep tying him to Rezko.