Obama Slammed with Rezko

Is it desperation or the knockout blow on Hillary's part, playing the Rezko card at what passed for a Dem "debate" the other night. It's a bit rich, Hillary attacking Barack on character, but there you are--it's the Dems after all. Rezko goes national, sullying the Big O's holier than thou image. Sun Times front page story:

For the second day in a row, White House hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has prodded chief rival Sen. Barack Obama about his relationship with a former career political patron and friend, Tony Rezko, who is facing a Feb. 25 federal criminal trial in Chicago on public corruption and fraud charges involving state of Illinois teacher pension funds.

On Tuesday, the Clinton campaign, in a memo, said Obama "has thus far failed to return all contributions associated with Mr. Rezko, which included money that was given through straw donors or obtained from Illinois taxpayers."

Tribune story, front page, top left:

Hillary Clinton's charge this week that Barack Obama represented a Chicago "slum landlord" in the 1990s introduced to a national audience one of Obama's potential political vulnerabilities: his long ties to Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the once high-flying developer soon to go on trial in federal court.

Obama angrily rejected Clinton's accusation at Monday's Democratic debate. And a Tribune review of land and court documents, law firm files as well as correspondence and other records related to Obama's eight years as an Illinois state lawmaker supports his contention that he did not directly represent Rezko's development firm. Instead, the records show, he represented nonprofit community groups that partnered with Rezko's firm.

You be the judge.

P.S. A refresher video:

UPDATE: Obama's Wal-Mart hypocrisy. And more background from the Trib's John Kass:

Cellini has been described as The Pope and "Co-Schemer A" in the federal political corruption case against Tony Rezko, the bipartisan political fixer and personal real estate fairy to America's political reformer, Sen. Barack Obama.

UPDATE: WSJ,"Obama's Clinton Education":

Now he knows how the rest of us feel.

The Illinois Senator is still a young man, but not so young as to have missed the 1990s. He nonetheless seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they "gotta" say or do to win.

Obama is still pretty clueless. It's his signature--either naive or willfully blind to the realities of the world.

Previous posts: Rezko on the Radar, Madigan-Blago-Rezko, Clouded Aura for Obama, The Repulsive Hillary, nOpe, Those Insider Outsiders, Reaping the Whirlwind, Obama and Dems a Fraud on Photo IDs, SEIU-er Rats for Obama, FOB: Friends of Barack II, FOB: Friends of Barack, Dubious Pol Associates of IPA, Obama's Judgement, Rezko's Public Pies, Obama, Man of the People Magazine, Business as Usual Obama, Obama, Dancing with Tony