Marathon Pundit: Why Rezko is an issue for Obama

There are plenty of people out there, and not all of them are Barack Obama apologists, who think that the Illinois senator's relationship, whatever it is, with Antoin "Tony" Rezko should be a non-issue.

They are wrong.

About the junior senator from Illinois: Here's a man who has never run even a small office. During his admirable stint as a community organizer on Chicago's far South Side, I'm not sure how much managing he did. How big was his staff? Did he plan budgets? His first boss in Chicago was Gerald Kellman, "Marty" in Dreams from My Father. Kellman, a Saul Alinsky disciple, left to do similar work in Gary, Indiana. The reader is led to believe that Obama was running things.

But midway through the book, Obama writes, "With Johnnie handling the organization's day-to-day activities..."

After law school, Obama spurned offers to work for a large law firm, such as Sidley & Austin, where he interned and met his wife, but accepted an offer from the small firm now known at Miner, Barnhill, & Galland. Obama was one of a dozen lawyers there, but don't be fooled by the size of the firm. The Miller is Judson Miller, who was Chicago's Corporation Counsel under Mayor Harold Washington.

Obama concentrated on voting and civil rights work, most famously a case involving ACORN, which sued Illinois for not following through on registering voters in accordance with the federal "Motor Voter" law. But in his three years at the firm full time, or his eight years working "in counsel," Obama never tried a case.

True, lots of lawyers never try a case, but we're talking about a "rock star" who is supposed to be able to transcend all of the rules. He's perfect, you know.

Obama later was elected to the Illinois State Senate, where he did see some bills enacted into law during his eight years in Springfield. But there are 5,000 Americans or so who have similar statehouse experience. Most state legislators are part-timers, and Obama was no exception, when he was not representing his Chicago district in the state capitol, he was teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

A couple spousal abuse cases saw two of his opponents implode in 2004 when he ran for the US Senate. (A 2000 challenge against Congressman Bobby Rush resulted in Obama's only political defeat.)

Obama easily won election to the Senate in the 2004 general election.

In his first two years in Washington, Obama saw just one of his bills signed into law by the president. For the last year, Obama has been running for president a lot more than working as a legislator, he's at best a part-timer once again. And for the last few months, Obama, despite his presence at Monday night's State of the Union Address, has been a full-time presidential candidate.

So in paragraph form, that is Obama's resume. There's not much there, there, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker. Yes, he wrote a second book, The Audacity of Hope, and he gave a great keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Zell Miller gave a great speech at the Republican convention, and his Senate experience, as a Democrat, is deeper than Obama's and Miller is a former two-term Georgia governor.

But the last time I checked, Miller is not running for president as either a Democrat or a Republican

But his supporters talk of Obama's message, his potential, his emphasis that the country has a "need for change," his character, his judgement.

Ah yes. The "J" word.

First of all, there is no indication that Obama has done anything illegal in his dealings with the now-jailed Democratic political insider and businessman. But Rezko was Obama's first political sponsor, and he offered Obama a job, which he turned down, in 1990. Over the years, Rezko was consistent source of campaign contributor for Obama, and he hosted at his home an important 2003 $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Obama's US Senate campaign when he was trailing badly in the polls.

By 2004, Rezko's name began appearing in the Chicago newspapers as someone who was under investigation by federal authorities over what US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called in 2006 a "pay to play scheme on steroids." The negative stories on Rezko continued into 2005, and carry on to this day. Obama had to have read some of the newspaper accounts, and heard or seen the broadcast media stories on his political sponsor.

In the midst of this foul "Sea of Rezko," Senator Obama sought out him out and picked his brain when the Obamas wanted to buy their mansion on Chicago's South Side. What came out of those consultations was the bizarre, and to this day not-fully-explained real estate deal that saw the Obamas buy the house and most of the land, and Rezko's wife Rita purchase a small strip of the property. The house and all of the land had been offered as one parcel. Several months later, the Obamas purchased, in a move Barack later called "boneheaded," a 10' wide strip of the "Rezko lot."

It remains my suspicion the Obamas couldn't afford the mansion, and the Rezko lot was something that made the purchase affordable, and that over the years, the Obamas would slowly repurchase the land, in a side yard version of Manifest Destiny.

In short, the deal was a loan from Rezko to a US Senator and his wife, in my opinion.

Why does this matter? Since Obama's resume is so thin, an incident like the Rezko deal looms large. Love them or hate them, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Mitt Romney and the like have records to run on. Obama doesn't.

And in my book, he fails the judgement test.

Occasionally an Obama supporter brings up Abraham Lincoln's slim qualifications for president when he ran for president in 1860. One issue back, the National Review, in writing about his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, dismissed Hillary Clinton's tears and proposed this interpratiation:

More likely, Granite Staters given the chance to propel Barack Obama to the White House paused to reflect that he is, politically, twelve years old. The comparisons with Abraham Lincoln, another politician with a slim resume, are grotesque. Lincoln's Senate loss in 1858 was far more meaningful than Obama's win in 2004: Lincoln clashed with Stephen Douglas, the nation's leading Democrat, in debates that are still studied. Obama rolled over Alan Keyes.

And not only did Lincoln try cases in court, plenty of them, he represented the Illinois Central Railroad several times. His brush with the railroad industry, unbeknown to even him at the time, prepared Lincoln for his wartime presidency--the Civil War was the world's first where railroads would play a role.

Obama has ACORN.

And Rezko.

Technorati tags: