Rezko-Obama1-24-08 "COME CLEAN"

Time for Obama to come clean
To dismiss Rezko as 'somebody who I knew' just isn't going to cut it
January 24, 2008
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
Barack Obama just keeps bobbling the Tony Rezko hot potato, and if he doesn't get a handle on it soon, his campaign for the presidency is going to be badly burned.
On Wednesday, the Illinois senator fumbled again as he continued to try to minimize his relationship with Rezko while making the rounds of the morning news shows.
"My relationship is he was somebody who I knew and had been a supporter for many years," Obama said on CBS in response to Hillary Clinton's "slumlord" attack from earlier this week. "He was somebody who had supported a wide range of candidates all throughout Illinois. Nobody had an inkling that he was involved in any problems."
Somebody who I knew?
Wow.
That's such an understatement that it borders on a falsehood.
Proving, though, that this was one of Obama's preprogrammed talking points, not just a slip of the tongue, he also told ABC: "This is somebody who was active in Illinois politics who I knew. Nobody had any indications that he was engaging in wrongdoing."
Obama certainly did know Rezko. He knew him quite well, although perhaps not as well as he should have.
This was not some guy he used to hang with in high school.
This is somebody who spotted Obama's raw talent and offered him a job while he was still in law school, somebody who gave him one of his very first campaign donations for his first political race. This is somebody for whom Obama and his law firm performed legal work, not a great deal of it by Obama personally perhaps, but enough to know how the man made his money and that he was one of the major developers of low-income housing in his state legislative district.
Somebody who was a big fund-raiser
This is somebody who was one of the key fund-raisers for Obama's U.S. Senate campaign, somebody who came through with big money at a crucial juncture in a difficult primary contest.
And let's not forget this is somebody who bought the piece of real estate adjoining Obama's home, then sold the senator part of it, in a strange transaction about which key details have never been disclosed -- owing in part to the curious refusal of the real estate agents and prior owners to discuss it.
Beyond that, Obama and Rezko had a personal friendship that was still going strong two years ago, the extent of which has been difficult to explore with Rezko under indictment and Obama trying to run from him as far and fast as he can.
It's way past time for Obama to come completely and entirely clean about his Rezko dealings (preferably, of course, in an interview with this newspaper.)
Remember, this is a relationship to which Rezko could soon be testifying in federal court if he chooses.
But one way or another, it's all going to come out before Obama can reach the finish line in November. He needs to prove he can deal with this forthrightly now before the Republicans make him explain it.
I write this as somebody who has always expected to be voting for Obama this year.
This isn't going to go away
And while the Rezko business has definitely taken the bloom off the rose, I still haven't seen anything so far that should disqualify Obama from being president, certainly not in a matchup with Hillary Clinton, who has her own fund-raising con man albatross in Norman Hsu to complement the earlier trail of tears from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky.
Most troubling to me is how Obama keeps handling this, a continuing lapse in judgment that leaves me wondering if there's more here than meets the eye instead of less.
Just last weekend, the Obama campaign donated to charity another $40,000 in past campaign donations linked to Rezko. Why hadn't they taken care of that months ago instead of waiting for the latest Sun-Times' story?
From the start, Obama's approach to the Rezko situation has been to minimize and avoid, as if it would eventually just go away. It won't.
As far as nobody having an inkling that Rezko could be a problem, that's just not true either.
Many people recognized Rezko as a guy on the make who was busily ingratiating himself to Chicago politicians with an eye toward a future payback. As I've written before, from the moment he showed up as John Stroger's biggest campaign donor, the questions were always: What does he want? What's his angle?
The details of his indictment show just how far Rezko would allegedly go to take advantage of his ties to an Illinois governor. Imagine what he had in mind if his other buddy became president.