Obama for Sale

Blockbuster expose by the Sun Times on Obama's relationship with indicted political fundraiser and "affordable" housing czar Tony Rezko. Even as buildings developed earlier by Rezko were falling apart, Obama as a member of his law firm did legal work for the last 15 out of 30 buildings Rezko redeveloped with taxpayer subsidies. And then this:

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.

It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

In response to the Sun Times, his old law firm says Obama worked on these deals for only 5 hours in 9 years. Obama's old boss later became a partner with Rezko. And Obama grew closer to Rezko as well:

Rezko was among the people Obama appointed to serve on his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, the Sun-Times reported in 2003. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, helping send Obama to Washington in 2004.

Then of course there's the small matter of the minor mansion Rezko helped Barack buy.

The Senator was for sale early on.

Meanwhile Rezko is confined to his home in Wilmette until his trial slated for Feb. 2008, presumably after the Illinois presidential primary.

Related posts: Slick Barack, Obama's Audacity, Follow the Money

UPDATE: Top recipients of Rezko's campaign cash.