Oh, past the cicada post, I have two more--non-Rezko related--Obama entries.
In the local media competition focused on digging up dirt on Illinois' junior senator, the Chicago Sun-Times step up to the plate and hits a home run.
For the uninitiated, Tony Rezko, a longtime Democratic political insider who was indicted on corrupton charges last fall, is Obama's former property neighgor who made buying his South Side Chicago mansion a little cheaper--and of course more affordable to the Obama family.
From the Sun-Times:
As a state senator, Barack Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens.
The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama's former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district.
Barack Obama backed the effort by Tony Rezko and Allison Davis - Rezko's partner and Obama's former boss - to win taxpayer funds to build the Cottage View Terrace apartments.
Obama's letters, written nearly nine years ago, for the first time show the Democratic presidential hopeful did a political favor for Rezko -- a longtime friend, campaign fund-raiser and client of the law firm where Obama worked -- who was indicted last fall on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.
The letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he's known Rezko, "I've never done any favors for him.''
Oops.
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Tony Rezko
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