John Dickerson: Barackwater
From Slate yesterday,
Of course, if Rezko tells a different story to investigators or Obama's statements turn out to be unture, that's it for him—you can't run for president on your keen judgment and then show a lack of it by lying and covering up.A lot of us waiting for that Rezko story. I have a feeling Illinois is going to reach out to the National Democrats these next two years. And it's all the work of Peter Fitzgerald. Talk about one guy making a difference.
Update: Ken Silverstein's Barack Obama Inc. from the November Harpers is online now here. Here's a paragraph with new found meaning for me,
The senator was running a bit late; but when he finally glided into the auditorium, escorted by an assortment of aides, he was greeted by a tremendous swell of applause as he took to the stage. Dressed in a brown jacket and red tie, Obama approached the podium, flanked by two giant screens enlarging his image, and began a softly spoken but compelling speech that recalled his own days, after his graduation in 1983 from Columbia University, as a community organizer in poor neighborhoods of Chicago. “You’ll have boundless opportunities when you graduate,” he told the students, “and it’s very easy to just take that diploma, forget about all this progressive-politics stuff, and go chasing after the big house and the large salary and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. But I hope you don’t get off that easy. There’s nothing wrong with making money, but focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition.”
8 comments:
Also from Slate yesterday: "There's no evidence that the senator is fibbing or that the indicted fund-raiser asked anything in return for his neighborly behavior (though that might have been just a matter of time). Obama hasn't tried to change his story, even though Rezko is now talking to investigators."
Details, details...
Rezko may be dotting the "i's" and crossing the "t's" as we read.
Here's Peggy Noonan's conclusion on our Senator today,
It seems to me that our political history has been marked the past 10 years by lurches, reactions and swerves, and I wonder if historians will see the era that started in the mid-'90s as The Long Freakout. First the Clinton era left more than half the country appalled--deeply appalled, and ashamed--by its series of political, financial and personal scandals. I doubt the Democratic Party will ever fully understand the damage done in those days. In reaction the Republican Party lurched in its presidential decision toward a relatively untested (five years in the governor's office, before that very little) man whom party professionals chose, essentially, because "He can win" and the base endorsed because he seemed the opposite of Bill Clinton. The 2000 election was a national trauma, and I'm not sure Republicans fully understand what it did to half the Democrats in the country to think the election was stolen, or finagled, or arranged by unseen powers. Then 9/11. Now we have had six years of high drama and deep division, and again a new savior seems to beckon, one who is so clearly Not Bush.
We'll see what Sen. Obama has, what he is, what he becomes. But right now he seems part of a pattern of lurches and swerves--the man from nowhere, of whom little is known, who will bring us out of the mess. His sudden rise and wild popularity seem more symptom than solution. And I wonder if historians will call this chapter in their future histories of the modern era not "A Decision Is Made" but "The Freakout Continues."
When Obama told the Sun Times he's had dinner with Rezko a couple of times a year since 1990, I suddenly knew where Noonan's no where man had been. 'nuff said... no surprizes now for me. Let Rezko sing.
"and it’s very easy to just take that diploma, forget about all this progressive-politics stuff, and go chasing after the big house and the large salary and the nice suits"
Is it all that easy to buy a "big house"? Seems like a lot of work to me. Maybe it is easier if Tony Rezko buys your yard, and if your publisher gives you a million $ for kind of looking like Johnny Bravo, but actually working for a living seems like working for a living to me, rather that jetsetting with ADM lobbyists all over the World.
JBP
3:42 PM
JB,
Politics is like any other business. You have to pay the talent. Don't begrudge Barack just because you don't have any.
I wish Obama would have taken a pass on the big house and lived a more humble life. I wish Obama would help his black brother and sister Bill "Dock" Walls and Dorothy Brown. Obama can not have the big pimp livin' and be an example to the poor black folk hustling to make ends meet. Help your own Obama.
Bill,
Obama can have his big house with its tonyard, but why does he begrudge others who want the same? (albeit without the rezkolawn)
JBP
Another negative post by Baar.
Didn't you people learn from the last election?
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