Obama and Rezko

Senator Obama likes to speak about his time as a "community organizer" in some very poor areas of Chicago. The title gives him a lot of street cred-who can say anything bad about a community organizer? Community organizers do great things like clean up abandoned lots, make sure police patrol certain areas, try to improve the conditions of local schools and bring much needed services into impoverished areas. Community organizers are also known for battling the inner-city parasites like drug dealers, hookers, gang bangers and slumlords.

A lot has been written about the 20 year friendship between Senator Obama and Tony Rezko. Most reports and investigations have centered around the enormous amount of money the slumlord personally contributed to various campaigns for Senator Obama and the land deal the two of them were involved in.

Lynn Sweet over at the Chicago Sun-Times is one of a few reporters that kept poking at the story while most of the mainstream media has ignored the connection between the Senator and slumlord. During the SC debate we all heard Senator Hillary Clinton smack Senator Obama with the Rezko connection after he mention she sat on the Wal-Mart board. As a resident of Chicago I was happy to hear someone finally publicly shame him for his relationship with Tony Rezko. Unfortunately Senator Hillary Clinton and the media that finally raised an eyebrow have gone about this all wrong, until now.

Mrs Larkins, 51, lives just seven city blocks away, in a district where posters advertise "dirt cheap properties" and "foreclosure advice". She moved there almost a decade ago, taking a subsidised apartment with her 20-year-old daughter and one-year-old grandson in a building that had fallen into neglect when run by Mr Rezko.

The family boiled water on the stove and draped plastic sheeting across the windows in an effort to keep warm during the city's bitter winters, as the heating was not working. Rubbish piled up uncollected and repeated requests for basic repairs were ignored.

"It was a terrible place to live: there were a lot of drug dealers and people fighting and getting shot," Mrs Larkins, a widow who receives invalidity benefit, told The Sunday Telegraph.

Not to take anything away from Lynn Sweet and the journalist who have taken up this story but The Sunday Telegraph has done a slightly better job with this piece. I say that because they've taken a rather boring story of an influence peddler buying off a young politician and have injected humanity into it by interviewing Mrs Larkins. I don't know about Americans outside of Chicago, IL but as a resident of Chicago these stories about our politicians getting caught in these situations don't phase me anymore. What does phase me is the human interest stories of people who's lives are remarkably similar to mine.

The human interest is what someone needs to pick up and trumpet in the Obama Rezko fiasco. How in the world does a Civil Rights attorney/community organizer/State Senator maintain a 20 year friendship with someone and never realize they are a slumlord and cancer on the community he represents? It is unimaginable and really blows my mind- it is like learning that Batman and The Joker are friends from way back and never learn of their respective secret identities.

Some good reading besides the link above:
Obama on This Week, Jan 27th 2008.
Obama surfaces in Rezko's federal corruption case.
Obama and his slumlord patron.
Obama's letters for Rezko.
Rezko owns vacant lot next to Obama's home.