The Three Blind Men and the Elephant: The New Yorker on Obama
By Steve Diamond on July 14, 2008 at 10:15 AM in Annenberg Chicago Challenge, Barack Obama, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Chicago politics, Joyce Foundation, Richard Daley, William Ayers, Woods Fund
The New Yorker magazine made a fundamental mistake when it decided to answer the question, Who Sent Obama?
They sent a 30-something New Yorker named Ryan Lizza to Chicago. And Chicago ate him for breakfast and never looked back.
Of course, as patient readers of Global Labor well know, we asked, and answered, the age old Chicago political question - Who Sent You? - back in April of this year and we updated it several times most recently on June 23. No mention of our work in the New Yorker - but that’s ok, they likely would have screwed it up anyway.
As we wrote then, the key to understanding Obama’s rise to power in Chicago politics is knowing which questions to ask, and of whom, and to understand why some will give you a straight answer while others will smile as broad as daylight at you and feed you a pile of horse manure. Lizza ate a lot of the latter. Now he wants you to eat it, too. Don’t be fooled.
Let’s just take apart one paragraph as an example, about the critical relationship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.
Lizza writes as follows:
Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, another activist Hyde Park couple, also held an event for Obama. Forty years ago, Ayers and Dohrn were leaders of the Weathermen, the militant antiwar group that bombed the Pentagon and the United States Capitol. By the time Obama met Ayers, the former radical and onetime fugitive had been accepted into polite Chicago society and had been reborn as an education expert, eventually working as an informal adviser to Mayor Daley. (Those ties remain intact in the jumbled culture of Chicago politics. When Obama’s association with Ayers first became a campaign issue, Daley, whose father, in 1968, sent his police force into the streets to combat Ayers’s fellow-radicals, issued a statement praising Ayers as “a valued member of the Chicago community.”)
Of course, Ayers and Dohrn are hardly “another activist couple.” Dohrn is a convicted criminal and both were terrorists who helped destroy the best of the student left and anti-war movement in the late 1960s. And is Bill Ayers a former radical? What is the evidence of that? In fact, Ayers loses no opportunity to make clear to all willing to listen that nothing has changed for him since his days in the Weather Underground - which ran until about 25 years ago, not 40 - except that he is longer tossing homemade bombs around.
Notice what Lizza does here though: “by the time Obama met Ayers” he writes, Ayers had been accepted into polite Chicago society. He never asks, or answers when, in fact, Ayers and Obama actually met. And, of course, experienced Chicagoans like Abner Mikva and Marilyn Katz, two key Obama allies, are never asked and do not tell.
But when did Obama meet Ayers? That is critical. It helps determine whether or not there is any shred of support for Obama’s own claim that Ayers, whose name is clearly toxic for the Obama camp, was “just a guy from the neighborhood.” And, frankly, all the rest of Obama’s political history in Chicago is pretty meaningless unless one tackles this issue.
The New York Times reported some weeks ago that according to unnamed Obama aides they first met at the fundraiser that Lizza mentions, which took place in the fall of 1995. Of course, that is wrong because by late 1995 Obama was already chairman of the board of directors of the $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge, recruited to that post by Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Challenge, who himself co-chaired the Chicago School Reform Collaborative which was the operative arm of the Challenge.
The natural follow-up to that question of when Ayers and Obama met is why did Ayers want Obama as chair of the Challenge Board? Of course the board chair would have to share the values and goals of the Challenge’s leading founder, Bill Ayers.
And how would Bill Ayers know that the young Mr. Obama, a fresh lawyer out of Harvard, shared his goals and values?
A job interview? Not likely.
The goal of the Annenberg Challenge was to enter intense political warfare - a battle royale over the future of Chicago’s giant, long-troubled public school system. For that kind of battle, as they also say in Chicago, if your enemy brings a knife, you bring a gun.
So Ayers would have been looking for some heavy weaponry as he waded back into the Chicago school wars in 1993 and 1994 through the generosity of Walter Annenberg.
Sure, Richie Daley would shake hands with Bill Ayers down the road - more than that, he would give him the key to the damn city, naming him “Chicagoan of the Year” in 1997. So what? Of course, Daley shook his hand - keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Again, we explained this some time ago here.
But in 1994, Ayers was at war with Daley. Daley was attempting to reverse the radical school reform law put in place in 1988 in the wake of an unpopular teachers’ strike. That reform effort had among its supporters, Bill Ayers, Bill’s power broker father Tom, his brother John and, oh yeah, Barack Obama. They had all been part of the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs, which lobbied heavily for the 1988 reform bill that put in place a new power center in Chicago schools, so-called Local School Councils, of LSCs, to watchdog teachers and principals.
But their impact on student achievement was mixed at best so Daley was angling to re-centralize power in his office. Ayers saw the Annenberg money as a way to pump up support for the LSCs. And he recruited, of all the possibilities, the young Barack Obama to head up the board of directors of the Challenge in that effort.
It was a huge step up for the young lawyer at a critical point in his political career. Sure, as Lizza notes, he had run a successful get out the vote campaign in 1991-2 which helped put Carole Mosley Braun into the Senate. But running the Annenberg Challenge put him into another layer of Chicago power and prestige altogether, allowing him to rub shoulders with the most powerful players in the city and yet to do so on behalf of a radical and troubled school reform effort. Picking Obama meant that there had to already have been a strong relationship between Obama and Ayers, perhaps one that dated as far back as the 1987-88 school reform movement.
But the Annenberg Challenge is never once even mentioned by Lizza. Funny.
Lizza does say in passing that Obama sat on the boards of two liberal foundations but presumably he means the Woods Fund, which was smaller and less controversial than the Annenberg Challenge, and the Joyce Foundation, another small liberal non profit, both of which have been written about extensively.
But that means one key post for Obama is missing - the Annenberg Challenge where he not only was on the board but chaired it and did so from day one. And was recruited to it by one of the most controversial figures in Chicago politics, Bill Ayers. They would work closely together on the Challenge for five years, not only handing out the original $49.2 million grant but soliciting another $60 million from Chicago foundations and corporations as well.
Now, for sure, Lizza says Ayers and Obama met after Ayers had been “reborn as an education expert” and accepted into polite society. God only knows when Lizza thinks that happened but if he meant to date the relationship between Obama and Ayers to 1988 or 1987 then he should say so.
Of course, as Chicagoans well know, Ayers was not accepted into polite society, he was born into it. His father, Tom, was the city’s leading business figure for several decades, responsible as far back as the mid-60s for brokering peace between Martin Luther King and Daley the First, and still active in education policy and other issues well into the 1990s. It was Tom who placed Ayers’ wife Dohrn into his one of his law firms, Sidley Austin, where Obama also worked just after Dohrn had left. Dohrn had also gone to law school with Judson Miner, the lawyer who first hired Obama out of Harvard in 1991.
Of course, if Lizza put the Obama-Ayers relationship back as far as the 1987-88 ABCs days, that would contradict the line being put out by the Obama campaign and would open up another wound in the credibility of the Obama machine. At some point those add up, a turning point is reached and the magic wears off. That, surely, is something Lizza clearly and no doubt desperately wants to avoid.
The willful blindness of the liberal left to the origins of Barack Obama’s rise to power, including his close and long standing political relationship to Bill Ayers, is something we have not seen in this country since the run-up to the Iraq war. That war had Judith Miller, this year’s Presidential campaign has Ryan Lizza.
Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama - The New Yorker
_____________
Stephen Diamond
Associate Professor of Law
Santa Clara University School of Law
http://www.scu.edu/law/faculty/profile/diamond-stephen.cfm
_____________
See also: LisaB’s “The Making of a Politician”
Stephen….it was, indeed, a gentle piece on Obama. However, the piece pierced one big myth that he’s a Change candidate. Obviously, he’s not.
One myth at a time…..
I read the piece, which was long enough, and saw the softer interpretation of his relationships. I personally have questioned the rabid reactions based on his relationships. It’s telling but not compelling, to me anyway.
Show me where he’s actually DONE any of these radical acts. I see benign neglect more than anything. I see political ambition is the only real consistency in Obama.
And I thought the piece captured that well.
No?
He has done nothing, just talk..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIxK9HWideQ&feature=user
LOL @ one myth at a time!
That’s a good one! I’m going to start using that one.
I see BHO as a recovering addict due to a lifetime of insecurities and bad judgment calls that are only NOW bearing bad fruit!
I will add that if I thought he had an ounce of remorse for any of his bad choices I’d consider him and what those getting on board are willing to assume………
I don’t see any repair there
he’s not even TRYING TO FAKE IT
GW redux
If I understand what you’re saying you think it is ok that Obama associates w these people like Wright and Ayers because he is not the one actually doing the acts?
Well, what I have concluded is that Obama used the liberal links in Chicago to further his career, and that included Rezko and Ayers. He needed money.
Notice that a lot of the Chicago “Independents,” which were the AA group, don’t get beyond City or State positions. Why? Money.
Obama is ambitious. He was bored with state politics. (I thought the article drew attention to that well. He’s bored with debates. He’s bored with policies. He really is all about adulation for him.)
So yeah….I think the fears about his connections here are overblown. I agree with the author that he’s really very right of left. He used the faux-progressives. They are tools.
Who he never really wins over are people like me. Moderates. We aren’t cynical enough to buy into BS.
In my opinion, we’re still the chipper Americans who believe that there are real solutions to real problems, and we don’t like BS artists who play on fear and guilt. We don’t get caught up in “Omigod, a lobbyist contributed! Shame! Shame!” We don’t really buy into “He divorced his wife! Shame! Shame!”
We see cheap shots as they are, and there are plenty coming from anti-Obama folks.
Moderate here. I don’t buy into that on either side.
I am firmly in step with PUMA. The primary was rigged. That’s wrong. That has won my undying support.
Ayers and Rezko? Nah* Wright? Yep.
I don’t care that Wright wasn’t really his mentor. I care that we have a candidate who sold a fairytale.
I hope that makes my own position clearer, because I sense I’ll be a bit on the edge for awhile here.
I am definitely anti-Obama, but probably for different reasons than some.
we’ll have to disagree on that. A person w values wouldn’t associate w people like that for any reason. “We’re judged by the company we keep”….
That’s OK. Your standard is good. I just think AA politicians do have a bit of a harder row to plow for donations.
They aren’t going to have the luxury of turning down fundraisers.
(Neither do mainstream politicians until they reach a certain point.)
AnninCA,
Yes.
One myth at a time. Great phrase, great plan.
Hopefully now other media outlets will start to get real. One myth, one publication, one news show at a time.
The cumulative effect could be powerful.
The trouble with the one myth at a time argument is that by the time one myth gets debunked, his campaign has already made 10 more to take it’s place.
I think it’s all on the table now. His change meme is dead.
I think the idea that he is different is already understood. Now, those who drank the kool-aid can’t admit it. It’s like talking someone into admitting they actually stayed on a call from a sex pervert!
But I think that myth is dead.
So is the notion he didn’t know Wright was a kook. He glad-handed at Trinity for connections. He’s not even really that Christian, which is fine with me, btw.
That makes his faith-based initiatives a bit of a joke. He’ll probably drop that.
His protests here over the cover aren’t really ringing true to me. Are they to you? It’s more fake outrage.
So we’re into the real season, I think.
And Bush has delivered a big blow. Troop pull-outs.
His Latinos support? So soft they cheered when Hillary was mentioned.
He’s dived to the right, hoping to pick up mad Republicans. It’s pissed off his base to no end.
He’s on the run.
I understand you point but the “change” train has been running for some time. It would be nice if his real political slimy self could get vetted. For example, if Greta coulc get Nancy Polosi on again and pull a Tim Russert, showing her the comment “he’s fresh” as his major, and apparently only qualification for POTUS. Then read her exerpts from the New Yorker piece and get a comment. Will that happen? Probably not.
One other issue the article touched on is his relationship to the current administration in Springfield of Governor Blagojevich. The article quotes Rahm Emanuel saying that he and Obama werer part of a small group that met weekly do map out and plan strategy for the 2002 election. The current Governor is “Public Official A” in the Tony Rezko/Operation Board Games trials and will be indicted sometime in the not too distant future.
The fact that Obama was a “key player” in the 2002 election is a new revelation and one that should not go unnoticed by the MSM. The Democrat Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan (who is also Chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party), has raised the issue of impeachment. What is Obama’s position on these issues? Do you support the impeachment of your Governor? Do you support the Chairman of your state party and the Speaker of the House or do you support your Governor and poltical ally, Rod Blagojevich? These are the questions the MSM should start asking and hopefully they will. If BHO gets bogged down in the morass that is Illinois state politics now, he will never recover.
I think so too. His relationship to Blagojevich may be more harmful to him than Rezco. Blaggie may be the canary that sings.
If he goes down, he is the kind of person who will not be content unless everyone goes down with him. I don’t even think it will take a conviction or indictment. Impeachment might get him to start squaking to take attention of himself. He’s already started doing it: at an event the other day, the Governor took a reporter aside and berated him for not coverning the scandals surrounding Speaker Madigan and Mayor Daley more coverage and scrutiny. That press conference, BTW, really rattled the Governor and he damn near had a meltdown while reporters got a rare chnace to question him about the scandal. It’s worth the listen:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=26342
**Note: It’s an unfiltered clip. Go to the 16 min mark and listen for a couple of minutes, and then go to the 21 minute mark and listen on.
The best quote: “Let me tell you something, I know the truth of things and I have nothing to fear but the truth, OK?”
It’s amazing this guy ever got elected to any office. What an imbecile!!!
AnninCa–benign neglect? There’s no such thing. The word neglect implies that a consequence of an act has been suffered by someone, which would mean that the intention wasn’t benign. I think you mean either plain old neglect, or oversight of some kind. That said, I think it’s neither. I think he’s COMPLICIT. And being complicit to wrongdoing is just as bad as “doing the wrongdoing.”
By act do you mean the act of supporting and implementing the education policies of Bill Ayers in the 1980s and 1990s while chairing the Annenberg Challenge?
Precisely the qualities we need in a president right now.
~”I see benign neglect more than anything.”~
With our economy collapsing around us; two going on three Middle Eastern wars devouring our military; Putin’s Russia flexing its muscles; Mother Nature showing us whose really the boss; and health care in such shambles that we watch security tape videos of patients’ death throes on the internet while patients and professionals stroll by. Oh, yes a leader who can project an air of benign neglect is exactly what We the People are hoping for!
Ask the poor sods living in the Obama assisted Rezko slums how benign the neglect feels to them.
Ann,
What he has actively been doing is handing out grants to educators interested in indoctrinating our children with the Ayers mind set.
Someone needs to start digging around in the CPS(Chicago Public Schools) and looking at the materials and ciriculum they were advocating. It certainly had nothing to do with 3r’s as the CPS system in Chicago is among the nation’s worst. The massaged #’s have them graduating 52% from high school, and ask any Chicago employer that 52% cannot read, write, do math or speak anymore coherently than Dubya. A matter of fact Dubya comes off as downright eloquent in comparison.
Look at the identities of those that were given grants and those that were not and a pattern will emerge. The radical left has infiltrated our educational system as their prime means of subversion. I think it was Voltaire who said,( I’m paraphrasing here, sorry but I cannot find my Bartlett’s)…for despots to assure themselves power, they first must commence their tyranny from the cradle”.
It is not a coincidence that the base of Obama’s support is academia and our 30 and under set. This is the culmination of decades of Ayers, Klonsky and like minds to build Alinskys grass-roots movement.
Barak admits that his mother’s thinking was the formative basis for his political philosophy.Take a look at her, her parents, the churches they attended and schools they sent her to on Mercer Island and casts an informative light on what she and they beleived in. The men she chose is indicative of these leanings also.
Another tack is to look at is whom Barry chose as his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Google him if you are not familiar. One has to wonder what Barry was mentored for, and it is not I think a coincidence that prior to FMD’s stint in Hawaii he hailed from Hyde Pk. where Obama would be virtually propelled up the politcal ladder.
The deeper one looks the more disturbing the under-pinning values of Obama’s philosophy turn out to be.
Prof. Diamond,
Nice use of the Chicago patois! They saw this kid coming from the bus stop~! A Big Apple Rube with check suit, strawboater and card board suitcase - Lizza got himself put to sleep by career hypnotists -
‘Here’s the Real Dope, Junior! It’s all on the level; see? Barry’s the goods! A Boy Scout! His Chinaman, Billy Ayers, thinks he’s Aces! Here, I’ll hang on to your wallet, until the bus comes back for you Ryan. Lizza, that’s Italian ain’t it kid? My Mom’s a Guinea and the Old Man’s a Mojee from Roseland - worked in the Steel Mills in Hegewisch with Barack. Barack can heave slag with the best of ‘em. Here. You might want a Jit for a bag a of candy later. I’ll take care of this wallet, Ryan. I’ll be back around five. Enjoy the River, kid!’
http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2008/07/mary-mitchells-race-baiting-is-played.html
Or Lizza was already in the tank for Obama and a willing partner in the regurgitation of the meme.
http://www.pr-inside.com/barack-obama-panics-andy-martin-s-book-r700482.htm
New book on Obama that might shatter a bit of his autobiography–BO admits the characters are “composites” It might also explain why his birth certificate is a secret.
It might be worth a read, but I’ve said this before here, and I’ll say it again: Andy Martin is an anti-semite and an all around bigot. He’s a conspiracy nut bar and has very little credibility left. Take it for what it’s worth.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Having said that , what I hate worse about the Mess we call Obama/DNC/RBC, is I now read/listen to authors/pundits I have always despised as right-wing nuts. Distorted reality since May 31st 2008.
I have a problem with an autobiography; defined as a written history of a person’s life; containing composites of those people supposedly a part of that person’s life. It not only misleads the reader but it denigrates the people in your life that you “composited”. And who were these composites? Did he combine his mother and his white grandmother with his favorite step-grandmother to make a character? Or perhaps his mysterious birth certificate is a composite of many birth certificates which is why he can’t produce an original copy.
Obama supporter Oprah Winfrey certainly made her feelings known about fake autobiographies, when she publicly denounced and chastised James Frey for his faked bio “A Million Little Pieces”. I’m sure a denouncement of fake Obama will be coming any day now…oh, I forgot for a moment, Obama is the standard for the double standard whether it’s autobiographies or delegates.
DENVER GROUP INTERVIEW TODAY Your World with Neil Cavuto on FOX, TODAY - at 4 or 4:30
glad the NY-er is getting airtime
*woohoo!
Fox is cracking me up. They just keep feeding this fire one stick at a time, eh?
Now, CNN is covering more. They can’t stand it when Fox one-ups them.
I’m just THRILLED with PUMA, NQ, and all the rest. I haven’t had this much darn fun in years!
KUDOS to you all!
As soon as Hillary’s debt is confirmed as paid off, I know where my own political donations are going.
what happened? do I need to turn on the tv too?
No, another interview of PUMA, that’s all.
Of course Fox is covering this. They want to elect Republicans.
Yippee! This is a true bi-partisanship unity pony basking in mutual goals.
I want a PURPLE PUMA bumper sticker!!!! ArghHHHHHHHH!
To paraphrase “You don’t bring a spork to a gun fight” you use what ever means to get your message out.
Pahahaha I HATE SPORKS!!! roflol!
Great post. Hugely informative. Well-written. And with a proper slap at Ryan Lizza, whose writings and cable appearances make clear is as in the tank for Obama as Olbermann ever was. Journalist? Hah! We don’t let the Faux News folks use that title without argument and so we shouldn’t let tools of the opposite persuasion either.
Gosh, I wish this post could get wider distribution immediately. I feel like the poster and all of us commenting are just shouting “open your eyes to this fraud, Obama” and most of the Democratic world is not only not listening, but willfully avoiding hearing.
Nice work Steve. But all of this effort to get at truth Obambi is useful if it points to his hideous character. That kind of summary is what will be effective in bringing him down.
Who sent Obama is simple. According to Obama, he tried for 1.5 yrs to find work as a community organizer and failed. Finally somethng broke in 1984 when he was hired by the Woods Fund to work for the DSP.
Needing to connect the dots in every case with Obama, what links all these together? Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s childhood mentor and first real Black person in his life. The links are here:
http://obamafact.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-communist-roots.html
Follow Obama’s path and it is a carbon copy of Davis’s path in many forms.
Scary part is Ayers and Dohrn are nutcases compared to obama’s mentor Davis!
Thank you, this indeed is the cause for worry regarding BHO. But if look at my comment above this, you’ll see that pattern extends even further back in Obama’s time line.
We must continue to shine a light on what Obama wants to from the public’s veiw.
How could the New Yorker write about Obama and Chicago and hardly mention Rezko? The Rezko indictment and trial gets virtually no critical attention.
Because there’s no link to anything much other than hospital deals and the energy stuff.
It’s pretty weak link stuff. Obama took the money but didn’t deliver a lot back.
He did deliver some things, don’t get me wrong. His hands are not as clean as some would think.
But it’s also not scandal stuff, either.
But then, I’m really skittish of tin-foil theories. I saw that enough during the Clinton years and really hate that kind of thinking.
Sometimes, smoke ISN’T indicative of a bonfire. Just the usual political small payoff stuff.
I also don’t think because a company donates that means the candidate endorses the companies policies, either.
If I never hear another word about Wall-Mart, I’d be happy.
(But then, I’ve got Wall-Mart stock. *haha)
Moderate aboard here. Don’t egg me!
The reall issue between those two is the house deal. I have been looking at that for a year now and it just smells rotten. And it’s way too complicated. You could write a book about how to game the system in Chicago based on this transaction. It had everything: real estate, finances, inside dealings on the zoning board and landmark commissions, and a politician profiting big-time from a shady business associate who knew (or thought)he would make his money back, and then some. If the sellers ever went on the record, Obama would be toast.
I wonder if the sellers of the home have ever been interviewed by the FBI or if they have been called to testify in front of the grand jury. My guess would be yes to at least one of those scenarios, and it also helps explains why the sellers would not want to directly talk to the media. Like I said, something smells really bad when you begin to look at that deal, and the more you look, the more pungent the odor.
Yeah, but that’s all it is….
A deal on one house. Obama has the weight of commonsense on this one. It’s just a house.
He calls it, “bone-headed.”
He allowed a lot to happen in his district. Rezko got a “look the other way.” He got his people on hospital boards. He got a pass on energy bills that benefitted snakes.
That’s clear. Obama is not clean.
The house? It’s small potatoes. But Obama clearly isn’t also like the governor. He was smart enough or didn’t have the power to get caught up in the worst of the Rezko deal.
Now? He doesn’t need Rezko or that type. He’s now officially “legitimate.” He can take the money and not offer a promise in return. He’s arrived.
Politicians play this game. We can all blog about “Ain’t it awful” till our fingers drop off.
The pundits have THIS one right. The solution was Campaign Finance Reform, which Obama threw under the bus. That’s the real deal, in my opinion.
Until we take the stinger out of obscene money winning elections, we will have these “scandals.”
Obama is just a self-promoting politician. He’s not for the people. He may grow into that if he wins. Stranger things have happened in politics.
I’m not an Obama-hater, obviously.
I am very, very opposed to the Democratic Party tactics of this year. Very opposed.
I won’t even take the risk on Obama because of the way he won.
But I’m personally hoping that if he pulls this rabbit out of the hat, it will be a rabbit and not a gorilla.
In Chicago, they don’t need no stinkin rabbits or gorillas. What he will be pulling out of that hat for him and his cronies is crisp, green money. The Outfit is loving this: one of their own Chicago pols as President. Time for them to open up shop again, since Pat Fitz has pretty much shut it down. And the Teamsters — they are part of the same game. Open up the Teamsters and the Outfit again. That’s change Obama believes in.
And there-in lies the lesson, “he took the money but dind’nt deliver alot back” this is story of BOBO’s life. He uses people to propel himself and pretends they never existed after. Just ask the netroots people if this treatment does’nt sound familiar.
That’s because the prosecutor found no link between the Rezko charges and Obama. Surely you don’t expect the NYer to make things up.
Not that we know of yet….never underestimate the power of Patrick Fitzgerald, my personal hero.
but he lost didn’t he?
I still like him. I just wish someone was IN JAIL!!
Rezco is in jail.
oo I apologize you are correct!
Fitzy NEVER loses. He has a 100% conviction rate on public corruption cases. He lost on 6 of 24 counts — the counts which were most directly tied to Governor Blagojevich — but Rezko will still get sentenced to at least 20 years on this case alone. He also has another trial on different charges scheduled for early 2009 and an outstanding charge in Nevada. So, unless he flips and spills the beans on Blagojevich, Daley, Obama, and every other pol he ever knew, he WILL BE in prison for a long time.
Unfortunately he is probably going to hold out till after the election with the hopes of a presidential pardon.
Rezko is and more to follow I hope.
If you read about Fitzgerald’s prosecution Scooter Libby you would know he keeps his cards close until he has completed his investigation.
Why do you think Rezko’s sentencing isn’t until September though he was convicted in June?
You must not be familiar with Fitzgeralds’ modus operendi, he follows the chain one link at a time. Notice that he has not packed his bags, closed his investigations and headed back to DC yet.
I`m sick of Obama`s campaign trying to have it soth ways on Troop withdrawl. Watch the video for comparison.
For starters, he hails the success of the surge without admitting that he made the wrong call when it was proposed:
In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.
In January 2007, when it counted, Obama demonstrated his incompetence on military matters. Later, his campaign tried lying about what Obama said to cover it up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4vlBgh7KLg
“We can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops: I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.”
Obama continues:
Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country.
This is poppycock. Iraq would not be in any position to reach any kind of political accommodation now if we hadn’t remained in Iraq the last two years. The reason Iraq has a shot at this now is because it has a viable army able to impose the will of the central government in areas previously held by militias — and that still relies on American logistical and tactical support, especially air power. Obama notes that General James Dubik says that the army and police will be ready to stand on their own by 2009, but he forgets to mention that the same assessment shows their air force and navy to be years away from viability.
Does Commander Obama know how critical air power has been to Iraqi efforts in Basra, Mosul, and Amarah? Or how badly the Iraqis will need air competence for its national security?
We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.
Only if we leave our equipment behind. Our combat divisions can’t function properly without their heavy equipment. Obama complains that the military is overstretched, but disarming them and confining them to American bases won’t make us more combat-ready; it will make us less so.
In today’s NY TImes, Obama submitted a guest commentary on his plan for Iraq. Read it, he is practically claiming he is responsible for the success of the surge and it is now time to declare victory and just pack up and leave. Then says that has always been his position. The pack up and leave part has at least, but he grossly mischaracterizes Maliki’s statements on the negotiations of the security agreement to place US troops under Iraqi sovereign command and control once the occupation formally ends this November on the leaving part to support his own pack it up now position.
Oblama’s hindsight is 20/20 you gotta give him that.
LOL*…..link?
That’s rich!
Bush was prepared, I’m convinced, to let Hillary take credit for pulling out. I’m also convinced he overbuilt the troops there for just this reason.
Now that Obama is the nominee, he’s reversing course. HE’LL start the troop pull-out and emasculate the Dem argument.
Bush isn’t nearly as stupid as the faux-progressives think.
And McCain will benefit, which is why he’s been careful to walk the line with Bush.
HEYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I just said that a few nights ago in here!
“wouldn’t it be just LIKE W to mess up BOTH McCain and Obama and bring them home now but I also asked if there was time for that before NOV”
YOU and I think very much alike
and btw
if that’s his plan
it’s the FIRST ONE I’m A-OK with!
Bring em HOME NOW!!! ANY WAY EXCEPT IN A BODY BAG!!!
Bingo, Dawn……
I’m very willing to have the surge work. I think both sides are exaggerating, but I’m not into pulling out prematurely.
However, I’m looking for some real movement here to get out.
We have too many domestic issues now to afford a protracted war. We either find a way to exit slowly and gracefully, or we’re the next Russia, drained of our resources and defeated economically.
sounds like HILLARY’s plan!!
RISE HILLARY RISE!!
AS long as Islamic radicals want to destroy us I don’t think we have much of a choice on the protracted war issue. War unkike the Tango, only takes one to start the dance.
Machiavellian….one must admit. I used to change channels when GWB was on; now I do the same when BO is on. Interesting to see how GWB has FINALLY grown into his role!
Outstanding.
The murderer terrorist bomber, Bill Ayers, who incidentally is NOT a communist but a highly placed intelligence asset of the elite who control this country is the flaming tire that we will hang around the neck of Candidate Barack Obama.
The truth will be revealed.
Burn baby, burn!
Excellent article by Steve Diamond.
I was a disappointed in the New Yorker piece indeed. I kept wondering when Lizza was going to start connecting the dots, but he never did. He had to swerve to avoid Rezko.
I have been trying to get to The New Yorker’s comments page to leave a message, but it is either overloaded or down for maintenance, they say.
I still like the cover art and although yes, it is sophisticated oh-so-witty satire (is that arugula on the mantelpiece?) I think that by publishing it the magazine is playing with fire!
Yeah Steve rocks!
I agree that Lizza was soft on Obama, but he did uncover some good information, such as Obama’s jettisoning of this poor, black constituents in favor of the latter sippers when the Dems got control of IL redistricting. And I do not see malevolence on Lizza’s part — just lack of research.
Lizza did us all a big favor a few years ago when he wrote an eye-opening piece on former Sen. Geo. Allen. It helped defeat him.
New point — on Obama’s economic inexperience. Obama chastised Clinton for being on the board of Wal-Mart. A piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, an ultra liberal paper which is also in the home base of Target, lauds Wal-Mart’s employee benefits and contributions to reducing prices for Americans. That’s the problem with knee jerk pols like Obama who no nothing of eocnomics — they do a lot of economic damage.
http://www.startribune.com/local/25130494.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:6
I’m afraid the New Yorker cover is another strategically dropped bomb by the Odrama campaign; get the smears to the public now in time for everyone to forget by November. It’s just too friggin’ coincidental for me. First the JJ comments dominating the news for a couple of days and now the NY cover, each designed to elicit sympathy for poor innocent Odrama and keep the spotlight off his FISA flip-flop and all his other ever-shifting positions.
How DARE the New Yorker slander him?
How DARE JJ criticize him?
Remember, the Fight the Smears site was launched just a couple of weeks ago.
This is just another in a series of highly effective diversionary tactics, IMHO.
basil……Obama doesn’t own the New Yorker.
This one bugs him badly, because he’s afraid that people will say, “Truth in that pic.”
Which a lot of posters here did just that.
There’s no way he staged this.
Anninca,
I hope you’re right. I just don’t trust anything about this campaign. If the New Yorker published the cover as a satirical comment on how out-of-touch the non-believers, aka heretics, are, and didn’t anticipate both the backlash and the fact it might be misinterpreted then they’re REALLY stupid!!!!!!!
It seems BM is continually shifting the focus off Waffles policies and back to him being a victim; of the right-wing, white Americans, HRC, his parents, etc.
Just like Rev Wright came out and made a show of himself so Obama could distance himself from Wright, then that priest mocked Hillary allowing Obama to drop the church.
PROOF:
1. Obama told Rendell that he had won the nomination before the Penn primary and that Rendell had better not do anything to hurt Obama. Obama knew he had the nomination and so wanted to get the voters used to and bored of the Wright issue.
2. The priest came out right before N Carolina–where Obama had a big win for sure with the large black pop. The priest is a friend of Obama’s–the priest himself boasted that he was a ‘go between’ Wright and Obama talking to both via cell phone after the fallout from the Wright press conferences.
3. Both the Priest and Wright knew that everything said in the church was being recorded for potential media use since April 08 and Wright knew that his acting like a buffoon was going to draw attention. Wright is not a buffoon but a powerful preacher in a huge popular church. Wright cannot be just a simple arrogant fool like Obama and the media made him out to be.
SO are you saying you think Wright will make another appearance?
(here’s hoping his ego won’t let him be quiet)
I see it differently. Obama again didn’t handle
Wright right.
Right busted him.
Letter today from Plouffe:
[Your Name Here] —
The McCain campaign is bragging that they are out-raising and out-spending us.
By collecting huge checks from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, they raised more money than ever before in June. Combined with the Republican National Committee, they now have more than $95 million in cash on hand.
I recorded a short video in my office about what we are up against. Now is the time to step up and make your first donation to help us close the gap.
Please watch the video and make a donation of $25 now:
https://donate.barackobama.com/stepup
Together, we have already accomplished so much in this campaign. But we cannot take it for granted.
This grassroots movement won’t just happen on its own. It’s up to you to make it happen.
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
Well, if it’s up to me, then it’s not going to happen. I vote NO! (And I’m keeping my money.) But I predict another flip-flop in the near future … public financing will be looking pretty good to the Obama campaign in a couple of weeks.
R