Posted on 01/25/2008 4:33:37 AM PST by Libloather
Time for Obama to come clean
To dismiss Rezko as 'somebody who I knew' just isn't going to cut it
January 24, 2008
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
Barack Obama just keeps bobbling the Tony Rezko hot potato, and if he doesn't get a handle on it soon, his campaign for the presidency is going to be badly burned.
On Wednesday, the Illinois senator fumbled again as he continued to try to minimize his relationship with Rezko while making the rounds of the morning news shows.
"My relationship is he was somebody who I knew and had been a supporter for many years," Obama said on CBS in response to Hillary Clinton's "slumlord" attack from earlier this week. "He was somebody who had supported a wide range of candidates all throughout Illinois. Nobody had an inkling that he was involved in any problems."
Somebody who I knew?
Wow.
That's such an understatement that it borders on a falsehood.
Proving, though, that this was one of Obama's preprogrammed talking points, not just a slip of the tongue, he also told ABC: "This is somebody who was active in Illinois politics who I knew. Nobody had any indications that he was engaging in wrongdoing."
Obama certainly did know Rezko. He knew him quite well, although perhaps not as well as he should have.
This was not some guy he used to hang with in high school.
This is somebody who spotted Obama's raw talent and offered him a job while he was still in law school, somebody who gave him one of his very first campaign donations for his first political race. This is somebody for whom Obama and his law firm performed legal work, not a great deal of it by Obama personally perhaps, but enough to know how the man made his money and that he was one of the major developers of low-income housing in his state legislative district.
Somebody who was a big fund-raiser
This is somebody who was one of the key fund-raisers for Obama's U.S. Senate campaign, somebody who came through with big money at a crucial juncture in a difficult primary contest.
And let's not forget this is somebody who bought the piece of real estate adjoining Obama's home, then sold the senator part of it, in a strange transaction about which key details have never been disclosed -- owing in part to the curious refusal of the real estate agents and prior owners to discuss it.
Beyond that, Obama and Rezko had a personal friendship that was still going strong two years ago, the extent of which has been difficult to explore with Rezko under indictment and Obama trying to run from him as far and fast as he can.
It's way past time for Obama to come completely and entirely clean about his Rezko dealings (preferably, of course, in an interview with this newspaper.)
Remember, this is a relationship to which Rezko could soon be testifying in federal court if he chooses.
But one way or another, it's all going to come out before Obama can reach the finish line in November. He needs to prove he can deal with this forthrightly now before the Republicans make him explain it.
I write this as somebody who has always expected to be voting for Obama this year.
This isn't going to go away
And while the Rezko business has definitely taken the bloom off the rose, I still haven't seen anything so far that should disqualify Obama from being president, certainly not in a matchup with Hillary Clinton, who has her own fund-raising con man albatross in Norman Hsu to complement the earlier trail of tears from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky.
Most troubling to me is how Obama keeps handling this, a continuing lapse in judgment that leaves me wondering if there's more here than meets the eye instead of less.
Just last weekend, the Obama campaign donated to charity another $40,000 in past campaign donations linked to Rezko. Why hadn't they taken care of that months ago instead of waiting for the latest Sun-Times' story?
From the start, Obama's approach to the Rezko situation has been to minimize and avoid, as if it would eventually just go away. It won't.
As far as nobody having an inkling that Rezko could be a problem, that's just not true either.
Many people recognized Rezko as a guy on the make who was busily ingratiating himself to Chicago politicians with an eye toward a future payback. As I've written before, from the moment he showed up as John Stroger's biggest campaign donor, the questions were always: What does he want? What's his angle?
The details of his indictment show just how far Rezko would allegedly go to take advantage of his ties to an Illinois governor. Imagine what he had in mind if his other buddy became president.
Please! Let's not forget the "coffees"!
ML/NJ
Now that we have a photo of Clinton with Rezko - you can bet the Clinton machine is looking for a photo of Obama in a Wallmart.
The Obama campaign has, with one political photo op, equated Obama’s years and years of deal-making with Rezko with Hillary, and the Clinton’s have since said they have accepted no money from Rezko. Still . . .
This is why I suggest stories about Obama are carefully vetted - - whenever Obama and his campaign find one incorrect “fact” they discount everything else in the report, even though the other items may be factually correct.
They're good, so are the Clintons. I'd like to see Obama's house deal explained.
What are: Obama -> Rezko -> Clinton?
Answer: Democrat version of a “menage a trois”
Hillary needs for the Rezko thing to work because Obama is such an blank resume’, that there is less of the usual democrat slime.
How about that picture that has came out of Rezco standing between Bill and Hillary?
"Birds of a feather, flock together"?
Mark Brown typically limits his columns to Chicago and Illinois local topics. I wouldn’t expect him to write about Her Fraudness. He does get a dig on her in the article though...
Which one would I prefer? I can’t even think about it. I honestly can’t choose, they are both so bad.
She can remember where she was when she was 12 but doesn't recall a major RAT fund-raiser. The *Crintons are getting really bad at this game.
I also believe that Hillery, contrary to popular opinion, will be easier to beat.
ODINGA-MONEY-OIL-AL QAIDA-OBAMA
Industry sources say that one of the things that helped Raila make a quick buck in the oil business was a concessionary petroleum deal he struck with the Al Bakri Group where he was not only incorporated as a silent partner in the local arm of Al Bakri International but was also supplied with petroleum products from Saudi Arabia at subsidized prices which his firm would sell in the market at normal prices. That way,Raila was able to deftly beat the competition in oil business by occasional price undercutting.
While still Energy Minister,Raila re-established and nurtured his links with the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi where again he not only did good business in oil importation but also got substantial material support during the 2002 general elections.
Besides supporting Raila’s political causes, the Libyans also played a key role in stabilizing Raila in the oil business in a couple of ways. Industry sources say that between 2001 and 2002 when Raila served as Energy Minister,he received at least three consignments of petroleum products at very low prices which were later sold locally at market prices.
The overall turnover from the three Libyan consignments is reliably said to have been in the region of over half a billion shillings, a tidy sum of money in any language,enough to ensure that one crosses the Rubicon once and for all.
A. K. Al Bakri & Sons Holding is the Saudi group headed by President & CEO Abdulkader Al Bakri, which has more outlets, subsidiaries and other companies than one can easily count. One of the prime contracts they would get is for the supply of jet fuel to Nairobi Airport, which allowed for undercutting of the competition there. This is the very same Abdulkader Al Bakri listed as a defendant in the First Amendment Complaint suit brought by various insurance companies against al Qaeda and associated organizations and individuals. Within that suit is mentioned documents (known as the Golden Chain document) picked up by Bosnian police on a raid on a charitable front organization for al Qaeda in Sarajevo. One of the listed documents is the "Tareekh Osama" ("Osama's History") in which Abdulkader al Bakri aka Abdel Qader Bakri gets a prominent listing:
ABDEL QADER BAKRI (ABDULKADER [AL] BAKRI)
CEO, Bakri Group of Cos
CEO, Al Bakri International Power Co. Ltd (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
CEO, Al-Bakri Shipping Group (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
CEO, Alkhomasia Shipping and Maintenance Company Ltd (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
CEO, Red Sea Marine Services (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
CEO, Diners Club International (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
Bakri Group formed in April 2002 a JV with the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation (MISC) to operate in Middle-East countries, including Yemen. MISC leased super tanker MT Limburg when it was attacked on October 6, 2002, coming from Ra's Tannura (Saudi Arabia). And then particular to one of the bin Laden brothers:
WAIL (WAEL HAMZA JULAIDAN) Former Secretary General of the Muslim World League and Rabita Trust in Pakistan, designated by the United States Treasury as SGDT Receives donations from Suleiman Al Rashid, Abdulkader Bakri, Salahuddin Abduljawad, Abdul Tahi Taher
So, when a man like Raila Odinga is linked with Abdulkader al Bakri, you are not making a minor connection, but one directly into al Qaeda. Such are the vagaries of making political bedfellows in other Nations.
SO WOULD I! From the same link:
In May, Raila left for Germany, where he visited his former university, Magdeburg, on invitation. In June, Raila flew to the US, where he held talks with Senator Barack Obama, one of the candidates seeking the Democratic Party ticket to vie for the American presidency.
OBAMA-ODINGA.It's a long, very dangerous connection for the United States of America and the entire world IMO.
I agree about Hillary being easier to beat.
Anyone involved in Chicago and Cook County democrat politics has to be corrupt in some manner to survive in that climate. That goes for Obama, Dick Durbin, Dick Daley and the rest of that crooked democrat crowd.
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