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Tuesday, Jan 2, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller

Sen. Obama told the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board that he had never done any favors for Tony Rezko.

Obama added that he had never “done favors for [Rezko] of any sort. Most of the time, I’ve never been in a position to do favors for him. I don’t control jobs. I don’t control contracts. There were no bills that he was pushing when I was in the state legislature that I know of or that he talked to me about. And there were no bills in federal legislation that he was concerned about, so there was no sense of the betrayal of the public trust here.”

Then, over the holidays the Tribune ran a story entitled “Obama intern had ties to Rezko” in which we learn that Obama gave a 20-year-old a five-week internship answering phones and logging mail.

“Mr. Rezko told the senator of John Aramanda’s interest in an internship and asked that he be considered,” Gibbs said. “Sen. Obama advised him to contact the office, which he did. The application was put into the internship pool, where it was considered, and he was eventually offered an internship. Rezko did provide a recommendation for John.”

Hardly blockbuster material. Tom Bevan over at Real Clear Politics (not exactly the center of the Obama for President campaign) called the Tribune story a “joke” and a “gotcha” piece in a recent posting.

Please. If we went and made a federal case over every Congressional internship that’s been doled out over the years to the child of a friend or political contributor we’d run out of trees and ink by next Thursday.

Backlash to the blacklash?

Meanwhile, the LA Times had a decent backgrounder on Obama the other day, including several quotes from his colleagues in the Illinois state Senate. But this was the best paragraph, I thought.

Just a generation ago, when Harold Washington was campaigning to become the first black mayor of Chicago, he and Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale attended Sunday Mass at St. Pascalâ€™s, a white Roman Catholic parish in Northwest Chicago. They were spat upon, cursed and lucky to leave unharmed. In his 2004 Senate campaign, Obama carried every precinct but one in St. Pascalâ€™s Portage Park neighborhood. Talk to people who live there now and you could get the impression that Obama grew up one block over.

10 Comments

- Bill Baar - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 7:30 am:
I remember Washington at St Pascal’s very well. The jolt for me with Rezko and Obama was not the itern or the land deal, but that Obama said Rezko had noticed him back in 1990 and they’ve had dinner a couple of times a year ever since.

I guess lots of people are trying to do Obama favors now. Showing bad judgement over the land deal not so bad if they had just crossed paths.

But having this longstanding relationship with Rezko put Obama into a whole different frame for me. Unless you’re a real innocent, you don’t have dinner with a guy like Rezko over the years and not understand what kind of game he’s working.

- I can't believe we did it again - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 8:24 am:
This is why good people don’t run for higher office. Obama is guilty of nothing. Start talking about where he stands on issues, not who he has had dinner with.

- Snidely Whiplash - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 8:25 am:
I really don’t get the thrust of this post, going between the Reszko ties to the Washington comparisons. I almost take this as an implication that calling Obama out on his lie that he had never done any favors for Reszko is racist, but I don’t think Rich Miller plays things that way. So, is this just an Obamarama compilation?

- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 9:33 am:
Enough of these fake controversies. The MSM can’t seem to get beyond Obama’s smile. They don’t want to tell us what Obama stands for because they wouldn’t have his pretty picture to plaster on covers.

Few are telling us what he really is. He is pro-abortion, pro-government, and pro-tax. There is nothing new about him. He is an old school New Dealer who votes like Ted Kennedy, and talks like Jimmy Carter.

He talks about bringing people together, but his votes show he won’t budge beyond far left. I guess he just likes telling everyone else they need to move over to his side.

These fake controversies are intended to make anyone who doesn’t fall in love with Barak look like an extremist loon. Enough already with the People magazine approach to Obama. Time to treat him like the grown up he claims to be.

- Bill Baar - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 10:04 am:
I don’t think Obama’s past liberalism will count for much. Froma Harrop quoted him from his laterst book,

This leave-them-guessing strategy slips out in the bookâ€™s prologue. â€œI serve as a blank screen,â€ Obama writes, â€œon which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.â€ He notifies readers that â€œmy treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete.â€ It takes some doing for a politician to write a 364-page book, his second volume, and skate past all controversy.

He’s going to run as the blank-slate candidate and leave previous supporters like Ali Abunimah dismayed at the flip flops,

Illinois swept Barack Obama, a rising star in the Democratic party, into the United States Senate with a stunning 70 percent of the vote - a rare Democratic gain. Obama, whom I’ve met many times, has served as my local state senator in the Illinois legislature. I found him to be an inspiring politician, not least because he appeared to understand Middle East issues and take progressive views supporting Palestinian rights and opposing militarism. He participated in many events in the Chicago-area Arab community including a 1998 fundraiser with Edward Said as the keynote speaker. I even made contributions to his campaigns.

But following Obama’s nationally-televised address at the Democratic National Convention everything seemed to change. In the campaign’s final weeks, Obama proclaimed his support for tough sanctions and military strikes against Iran if it refused U.S. demands to give up its nuclear programs. According to the Chicago Tribune, Obama now says that the onus of peace in the Middle East “is on the Palestinian leadership, which … must cease violence against Israelis and work ‘to end the incitement against Israel in the Arab world.” The unique fact about Obama’s campaign is that he did not need to parrot the pro-Israel lobby’s standard line to get elected. He ran effectively unopposed. Such a capable and ambitious man must have calculated that any hope of higher office requires that he not offend when it comes to Israel and its interests. This begs the question: If a man like Obama will not speak frankly when it comes to Israel, what hope is there for a change in U.S. policy coming from within the establishment?

The old supporters will be left betrayed. The new ones bamboozled. And the only hard fact left will be those Dinners a couple of times a year with Tony Rezko since 1990.

That’s Obama’s blank slate yet to be completed.

- Bill Baar - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 10:24 am:
flip flops wasn’t a random choice to describe Obama either.

- Snark - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 11:12 am:
If you think Democrats are obsessed with Obama just turn to any of the Republican websites where it’s all Obama all the time. Something about Obama really strikes a nerve with Republicans.

- Bill Baar - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 12:27 pm:
Links snark?

- Papa Legba - Tuesday, Jan 2, 07 @ 2:35 pm:
Strip Obama down and all you have is an Illinois politician. A politician in the mold of our recent governors, not politicians in the mold of Lincoln.

Questions. 1)If Obama lies, will his ears grow? 2) How many people will Rezko ultimately take down with him?

- So-Called "Austin Mayor" - Wednesday, Jan 3, 07 @ 7:26 am:
Rich,

You are right on this.

Period.

– SCAM

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