Obama's description of Rezko ties send no thrill up the leg

John Kass:

Barack Obama looked me straight in the eye. I heard him speak. Yet unlike some other pundits, I felt no thrill going up my leg.

I did feel a twinge of Rezko, though, and figured Obama could feel it, too, like when the bottom of your foot cramps up inside your shoe and you can't dance.

That's "hardball" the Chicago way, as Barack visited the Tribune on Friday to discuss his old friend, fundraiser and real estate fairy, indicted political fixer Tony Rezko. Rezko himself was quite busy, in federal custody, preparing for this week's testimony in his corruption trial.

Obama spoke at length about wanting to emerge clean from the cesspool of Chicago politics. He also spoke about his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose racially charged and radically anti-American comments Obama denounced without denouncing the man. There will be more to say on Wright and liberal media guilt and tortured Democratic formulations of race and gender in future days.

But I was focused on Obama and Rezko. I wanted to believe Obama, and almost did.

Afterward, we joked about smoking cigarettes together after the election -- and promised not to tell our wives, since we've both quit.

...

Later, when the people from other floors weren't hanging in the halls like Bono groupies at a U2 concert, I was left alone with a problem: Obama asks us to believe he can swim in the sewers of Illinois politics without catching a cold. He tells us that Rezko helped him scope out his dream house, yet Obama never thought he'd get a call from Tony saying his back was itchy.

"No," Obama said. "Because I had known him for a long time, and so I would have assumed I would have seen a pattern [of Rezko asking for favors] over the course of 15 years."

I'm too old to believe in fairy tales.

At issue is the purchase of the Obama dream house on the South Side in 2005. The Rezkos bought the lot next door from the same owners on the same day, even as Tony was leprous with federal subpoenas. The Obamas paid $300,000 less than the asking price. The Rezkos paid the full list for the lot. Everybody was happy until Tony got indicted.

Was it a favor, with a bigger payout intended for later?

"No," Obama said again, reiterating that I was wrong for writing that he needed Rezko's help to buy his home.

Obama said he asked Rezko about the federal investigations, if Rezko had any problems, and Tony said no, and Barack believed it.

...

He did state, unequivocally, that if elected president, he would keep U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald as the federal hammer in Chicago, no small announcement given that Rezko is on trial and Obama ally Mayor Richard Daley is feeling federal heat.

...

Why did he believe Rezko? I think it was because he wanted to and he and Michelle wanted that house.

While he is committing to keeping Fitzgerald on the job in Chicago, why not commit to giving him a promotion to AG? But, would Democrats really want an aggressive prosecutor as AG?