After he moved to Chicago in the mid-1980s to work as a community organizer, Barack Hussein Obama forged close ties with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- joining the pastor’s Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988 and using the topic of a Wright sermon, "the audacity of hope," as the title of his most recent best-selling book.
But more than a year ago -- long before some of Wright’s more incendiary sermon
s became hot-button videos on YouTube, forcing Obama to publicly renounce his pastor -- the Obama campaign had a sense that Wright's sharp tongue might spell trouble for the Illinois senator.Hussein Obama was a member of member of Wright's Church for over 20 years. yet he never heard him utter a controversial statement? He knew him well enough to have him perform the wedding between he and his wife Michelle. He know him well enough to allow him to baptize his two daughters. He knew him well enough to think of Wright as "an old uncle." But when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (pastor, mentor, friend, "old uncle") becomes politically inconvenient, Barack Hussein Obama says that this was a Jeremiah Wright he did not know. Not only did Hussein Obama, for political expediency, throw his pastor under the bus, he threw the his whole Church under the bus with him. This after stating on national TV that he "could no more disown Rev. Wright than he could disown his own grandmother." Granny, when you see a bus coming ... be afraid, be very afraid!
Political powerbroker Tony Rezko, whose links to presidential contender Barack Obama dropped him into the national spotlight this year, was convicted on 16 counts of money laundering, fraud and bribery charges by a federal jury a few days ago.
Rezko -- who has contributed thousands to the campaigns of the Illinois senator and other Democrats -- was accused of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking Illinois state business.He was convicted of 16 of 24 charges, including 12 counts of wire and mail fraud, two counts of aiding and abetting bribery and two counts of money laundering. He was acquitted of attempted extortion.
Testimony at Rezko's trial in federal court brought up ties between Obama and Rezko, with a witness putting Obama at Rezko's house for a party where the guest of honor was Iraqi-British businessman Nadhmi Auchi.
Obama has said he doesn't recall ever meeting Auchi, who was convicted of fraud in France.
Amid the controversy, Obama acknowledged he had accepted contributions from Rezko and bought a strip of land from Rezko, a Chicago real-estate developer.
Obama, who has not been accused of wrongdoing in the case, has vowed to give up the contributions, and called the purchase a mistake. He has already donated to charity at least $80,000 in campaign contributions linked to Rezko.
When asked to comment on his old pal's convictions (16 of them), Hussein Obama said that this was not the Tony Resko he knew.
The list grows longer: Father Michael Phlager, radical priest and guest in Obama's church and, most recently, James Johnson.Democratic Party stalwart James A. Johnson quit as an adviser to the Barack Obama campaign, where he
was helping to screen potential running mates, as new details emerged about loans Mr. Johnson received from mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. Mr. Johnson, who led mortgage buyer Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, received more than $5 million in loans from Countrywide that were arranged outside its normal underwriting process, according to loan records and people with knowledge of the transactions. The loans were first disclosed in The Wall Street Journal.Mr. Johnson received loans from Countrywide on at least six properties between 1998 and 2007, some at lower-than-average interest rates. His debts to Countrywide as of mid-2007 exceeded $5 million, people familiar with the matter said.
Hussein Obama stated that Mr. Johnson was not an employee but only tangentially connected to the Obama Campaign even though Johnson was one of three tasked to screen possible vice presidential picks for Obama.
There is a very disturbing pattern here. Obama knows people well enough to associate with them for twenty years, perform his wedding, baptize his daughters, enter business deals with, and help make one of the most important decisions a presidential candidate will have to make; but these are not the people he really knew?
Makes you wonder about his ability, or lack thereof, to judge people. Seems to me that would be an important requirement for the job he is seeking. Wouldn't it?
