Revetting Obama

John Fund:

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John McCain's dealings with lobbyists have properly come under a microscope; why not Mr. Obama's? Partly, says Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, because the national media establishment has decided that Chicago's grubby politics interferes with the story line of hope they've set out for Mr. Obama. Former Washington Post reporter Tom Edsall, who now teaches journalism at Columbia University, told Canada's Globe & Mail that "reporters have sometimes allowed themselves to get too much caught up in [Obama] excitement." Then there are Chicago Republicans, loath to encourage the national party to pounce because some of their own leaders are caught in the Rezko mess.

For its part, the Democratic Party may once again nominate a first-time candidate they haven't fully vetted politically. Democrats flocked to Michael Dukakis in 1988, ignoring Al Gore's warnings about Willie Horton; later they were blindsided by revelations about Bill Clinton after he was elected president.

This year, Hillary Clinton made a clumsy attack on Mr. Rezko as a "slum landlord" during one debate. But her campaign has otherwise steered clear -- at least until last Friday, when Howard Wolfson, a top Clinton aide, suggested to reporters on a conference call that "the number of questions that we don't know the answers to about the relationship between Mr. Rezko and Mr. Obama is staggering." Mr. Obama's campaign told me they have answered all questions about Mr. Rezko and have no plans to release any further records.

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In 2003, Mr. Auchi began investing in Chicago real estate with Mr. Rezko. In April 2007, after his indictment, Mr. Auchi loaned another $3.5 million to Mr. Rezko, a loan that Mr. Rezko hid from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office. When Mr. Fitzgerald learned that the money was being parceled out to Mr. Rezko's lawyers, family and friends, he got Mr. Rezko's bond revoked in January and had him put in jail as a potential flight risk.

In court papers, the prosecutor noted that Mr. Rezko had traveled 26 times to the Middle East between 2002 and 2006, mostly to his native Syria and other countries that lack extradition treaties with the U.S. Curiously, Mr. Auchi has also lent an unknown sum of money to Chris Kelly, who, like Mr. Rezko, was a significant fund-raiser for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (himself under investigation by a federal grand jury as an alleged beneficiary of the Rezko shakedowns). Mr. Kelly is himself under indictment for obstructing an IRS probe into his activities.

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There is much more. The exploration of the seamier side of Chicago politics is just beginning. It may be too late for Sen. Clinton's campaign, but just in time for the general election. It probably will make no difference to the Obama cult, but could have an impact on independents for whom corruption is a serious issue.

Howard Kurtz in an exploration of the soft Obama coverage says:

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The Illinois senator still hasn't faced the sort of negative onslaught that generally envelops presidential front-runners. But after a year of defying the laws of journalistic gravity, he is being brought back to earth.

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Still, after a year in which Obama was hailed as the second coming of JFK, will his Teflon coating now be scratched? Tapper says he asked Obama about his patriotism "because obviously Democratic voters think the nominee should be someone who is able to withstand Republican conservative attacks." He says he noticed such criticism spreading on talk radio, cable shows and blogs, and "to act as if we can ignore other parts of the media because we're snobby about it . . . then we're irrelevant, because we're missing part of the story.

"It's very difficult to argue that the level of scrutiny of Barack Obama has been the same as the level of scrutiny of other candidates."

But, Tapper says, holding Obama accountable is difficult because he speaks to reporters infrequently.

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Note Tapper's reason for asking the question is to prep him for the Republicans and not to really challenge him. This is pretty typical of the media mindset when it comes to Obama. They ahve their story line and they are reluctant to stray from it, but they will to toughen him up for a campaign against Republicans. This goes beyond media bias. Many in the media are in the tank for this guy.