Obama Haunted by Sleaze

Maybe this is the dirt Hillary was hinting at.

So Barack Obama works for a lawyer who turns into a developer. The developer asks for a donation of $1 million from a charitable group for "affordable" housing. Obama is on the board of the group, still practicing law with the same firm, who now represents his old boss reincarnated as a developer.

Oh, and Obama is a newly elected state senator, helped by a campaign contribution from--you guessed it--said developer. The developer also got a $5.7 million loan from the city for the same deal, on which the developer netted $700,000 in fees.

You see how it works?

And who else, besides the mayor, is a close, personal friend of both Obama and the developer? (More background on the developer here.) Sun Times:

As a developer, Davis' partners have included Tony Rezko, the now-indicted political fund-raiser who has been among Obama's biggest political supporters.

A few months after Davis left the law firm, Obama won his first political office -- a seat in the Illinois Senate. His campaign contributors included Rezko and Davis.

Two years later, Obama wrote to city and state officials, urging them to give money to New Kenwood LLC, a company that Davis and Rezko formed to build an apartment building for low-income seniors at 48th and Cottage Grove.

Obama's spokesman says "It's not a conflict of interest to do what's right for your community". Unlike Barack what's good for me is good for the community Obama, another board member who also had ties to the developer abstained on the vote for the $1 million.

He actually had some ethics.

One of Obama's biggest claims is that he offers a new kind of politics and his judgment is sound. Time, Obama Finds His Moment:

Obama has also begun to sharpen one of his strongest arguments — that experience is not the same thing as judgment — for which Clinton has not yet found a rejoinder.

Well, I have questioned his judgment before and I will again given this latest sleazy deal--Barack's claims ring hollow, and if he wins the Dem primary it will come back to haunt him.

P.S. Rezko's trial comes up after the Illinois primary.

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