The Sun-Times recently demanded answers from Patti Blagojevich:

No one argues with Patti Blagojevich’s wish to earn a living, have a career, sell real estate. She is entitled to her own life. But when some of those sweet real estate deals involve a man who has been indicted by the feds, it’s only natural questions are going to be asked about the relationship between the governor’s wife and this man, developer Tony Rezko. Mrs. Blagojevich received just over $47,000 from the sale of industrial land abutting Irving Park Road.

One would expect a liberated and self-assured woman like Mrs. Blagojevich to stand up for herself, to face the public and explain her business dealings with Rezko, a man who had the uncanny ability to sniff out up-and-coming politicians and donate to their campaigns. He has hooked up to politicians such as Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Luis Gutierrez and new Cook County President Todd Stroger in addition to Gov. Blagojevich, who has given Rezko’s friends seats on influential state boards and hired former Rezko employees for state jobs.

Mrs. Blagojevich has remained silent about her real estate connections to Rezko, quaintly preferring to let the governor’s aides do the speaking for her. And the aides claim the press has “outdated and biased assumptions about women’s abilities in business.” The only assumption we have is that a successful businesswoman can speak for herself. So Mrs. Blagojevich, what’s the story?

I thought about this over the holiday break and a question came to my mind: How many real estate deals has Mrs. Blagojevich done since Rod Blagojevich was elected that were completely free of political taint? We know of most of them, I think, and if I remember correctly they all had something to do with insiders to one degree or another.