Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies

“Let the vetting begin,” writes Taylor Marsh, who gives us this YouTube:

ABC News is all over the scandal involving Tony Rezko, who goes on trial February 25th for “extortion and fraud charges, which include shakedown allegations involving an Illinois pension fund.” (Much more below the fold.)

Besides Rezko, here are more of Barack Obama’s lobbying connections:

• Pharmaceutical Companies: Obama’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair, Jim Demers, is a lobbyist for pharmaceutical and pro-tobacco lobbyists.
• Credit Card Companies: Obama voted to protect credit card companies’ “predatory credit card interest rates.” (Sen. Hillary Clinton voted against the amendment.)
• Nuclear Energy Companies: Exelon Corporation, “the nation’s leading nuclear-power-plant operator” is Barack Obama’s “fourth largest patron.” U.S. Sen. Obama “Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators” — “called ‘one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation’ by Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste; the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default.” (Harper’s)

CAN ANY OF YOU decipher what Obama is mumbling to Diane Sawyer in the Good Morning America interview? Does that mumbling remind of you his weak, faint response in the top YouTube here?

The Left Coaster has more on Rezko in “Obama Can’t Shake Connections To Chicago Insider In Trouble With FBI“:

Rezko, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen who owned a real estate development business and a group of fast-food franchises, has spent his career showering Illinois officials with campaign money. He was a top fundraiser for Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

His connection to Obama began when the future senator got national attention as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Rezko was impressed by what he read and offered Obama a job to work in his real estate development company. Obama turned him down, but it was the beginning of a political friendship, with Rezko being one of the first to donate big bucks to Obama’s [state] senate campaign in 1996.

In October of 2006 it was revealed that Rezko helped Obama purchase a home for hundreds of thousands of dollars below the market value, while Rezko bought the lot next door. Illinois residents remember well Obama saying he didn’t recall the conversations with Rezko, then remembered after Chicago papers started examining the deal, then admitted it was a “bone-headed mistake” on ABC. [As the YouTube video shows, Obama has had a variety of "explanations" for his longtime association with Rezko.]

Rezko is charged with plotting to shake down money management firms hoping to do business with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, a $39 billion state pension fund, for kickbacks. He also is charged with swindling the General Electric Capitol Corp. out of $10 million in a deal involving the purchase of pizza restaurants.

While Obama turned down Rezko’s offer of a job back in 1991, he ended up in a group of real estate deals involving the developer anyway. He accepted a position at the law firm then known as Davis Miner & Barnhill. There he represented community groups that partnered with a developer in getting city and state housing rehabilitation loans. The developer was Rezko.

… The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Obama provided an internship for a buddy of Rezko’s. That same article mentions a shake down of a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign contributions to Gov. Blagojevich.

See also: Today’s Chicago Tribune article, “Obama knows his way around a ballot: Some say his ability to play political hardball goes back to his first campaign.”

On Wednesday, the A.P. reported that “Barack Obama talked of introducing some Chicago smackdown to his politics of hope Wednesday, seeking a rebound after Hillary Rodham Clinton grasped victory in the New Hampshire primary.” Bring it on, Sen. Obama. Bring it ON!

Is Obama getting worried? Is that why he issued a campaign memo Wednesday, after his New Hampshire loss, that Time’s Mark Halperin mocks and tells us to check out the “memo-oozing-confidence-and-bravado here.” Is that why he came out with that god-awful endorsement from John Kerry?

This January 9th feature story at Time’s The Page blog speaks for itself:

The look on Obama’s face on Tuesday night was a “tell.” Gone was the “bravado” and the audacious “arrogance,” as a CNN commentator called the look about Obama after his Iowa win.

Let’s just hope that he begins to get asked the HARD questions by the media. ABC News, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Time’s Mark Halperin are leading the way to sober assessment and investigative reporting. Will the rest of the Obama-gob-smacked media begin to follow?