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Obama Spends 3 Hours with Chicago Press to Chat about Rezko
By Paul Kiel - March 17, 2008, 12:47PM


Late last week, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) sat down with The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times for 90 minutes each to answer questions about all things Tony Rezko.

As a result, the Tribune's editorial board pronounced themselves satisfied:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama waited 16 months to attempt the exorcism. But when he finally sat down with the Tribune editorial board Friday, Obama offered a lengthy and, to us, plausible explanation for the presence of now-indicted businessman Tony Rezko in his personal and political lives.

The most remarkable facet of Obama's 92-minute discussion was that, at the outset, he pledged to answer every question the three dozen Tribune journalists crammed into the room would put to him. And he did.

The outcome of the more combative Sun-Times interview seemed similar, so that near the end, there was this exchange:

Q: Comparing the benign-ness of the fact pattern and the trouble it's caused you, do you think you've mishandled this at all?

A: I think that running for president is a series of gauntlets you have to run. And I think that we could have - setting aside the initial mistake which I deserve some blame for, I have acknowledged publicly - I think that understanding that there would be heightened interest in me, that Rezko had been finally indicted and arrested, that there was gonna be a need for us to do this again, I think was, it probably would have been good for us to do earlier. There's no doubt about it.

The main revelation of the two interviews was that Rezko had raised about $100,000 more for Obama than the campaign had disclosed before, making it a total of approximately $250,000. The reason for the discrepancy, Obama explained, was that it was impossible to discover just what contributions Rezko had been responsible for in his state senate and run for the House in 2000. Obama estimated that Rezko helped raise between $50,000 to $60,000 in his run for the House and the remainder for his three state senate campaigns.

And about that house deal. Obama was much clearer about the timeline of how Rezko came to be involved in the deal. Remember that Rezko purchased the side yard of Obama house, raising suspicions that Rezko had helped out as a favor to Obama.

But Obama explained for the first time that there had been a bid on the yard before Obama had even bid on the home, a bid by a developer who had worked for Rezko in the past. Obama did not know how Rezko was able to take over that bid, but was clear that the purchase of the side yard had nothing to do with his purchase of the home:

"The house purchase was negotiated between ourselves and the seller. It was not contingent on the lot. The lot had nothing to do with the sale of the house, and the sellers confirm it."

(The Tribune has posted an email (pdf) from the seller, who has refused to speak to the media, confirming the main points of Obama's story.)

And then there's the question of what Obama knew about Rezko's legal troubles and when he knew it. As we pointed out in our timeline of Obama's ties to Rezko, Rezko's troubles had broken onto The Chicago Tribune's front page before the house deal closed, and well before Obama purchased a sliver of land from Rezko in January of 2006.

Obama explains that he had been reading the Tribune's stories (which by late 2005, had made it clear that Rezko was under federal investigation), but that he had been inclined to give Rezko the benefit of the doubt, because over their fifteen year relationship he "had never asked me for anything." That was why he was "not as focused as [he] should have been on the potential appearances involved." Still, Obama said that he should have been more aware about "the potential conflicts of interest" involved in owning property next to Rezko, and that "a larger problem is me having bought the strip of land," which he called a "bad idea,... a boneheaded move, and a mistake that I regret."

Obama only discussed Rezko's legal problems later, shortly before he was indicted:

"At that point, I do remember saying to him how's it going because I'm reading these problems. And his response was that his lawyers had been talking to the U.S. Attorney's office and it's all getting resolved. That was the sum total."

Obama also took questions on the Sun-Times' story about letters from Obama in 1998, some seven years before the house sale, urging Illinois and Chicago officials to provide funding for a Rezko company to build apartments for senior citizens. That story had been a challenge to Obama's assertions that he'd done nothing for Rezko. Obama responded that such letters had been a routine part of his state senate duties and so routine that it was sent out by his office without his knowledge.

Black, White & Gray

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 19, 2008

PHILADELPHIA

In many ways, Barack Obama’s speech on race was momentous and edifying.

You could tell it was personal, that he had worked hard on it, all weekend and into the wee hours Tuesday. Overriding aides who objected to putting race center stage, he addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics.

Certainly, Senator Obama was exercising sophisticated damage-control on his problem with Jeremiah Wright. But he did not pander as Mitt Romney did with his very challenging speech about Mormonism, or market-test his own convictions, as most politicians do.

Unlike what the Clintons did to Lani Guinier, responding to her radical racial ideas by throwing her under the bus, Obama went to great pains to honor the human dimension of his relationship with his politically threatening “old uncle,” as he calls him.

Displaying his multihued, crazy-quilted DNA, he talked about cringing when he heard the white grandmother who raised him use racial stereotypes and confess her fear of passing black men on the street.

He tried to shine a light on that clannish place where grudges and grievances flourish. After racing from race for a year, he plowed in and took a stab at showing blacks what white resentment felt like and whites what black resentment felt like.

(He was spot-on about my tribe of working-class Irish, the ones who have helped break his winning streak in New Hampshire and Ohio, and may do so in Pennsylvania.)

He rightly struck back at right-wing hysteria-mongers. “Talk-show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism,” he said, “while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.”

Obama’s warning about race in America was redolent of Eugene O’Neill’s observation about Ireland: “There is no present or future,” O’Neill said, “only the past happening over and over again.”

His speech was pitched to superdelegates queasy about his spiritual guide’s Malcolm X-ism, the virulent racial pride, the separatism, the deep suspicion of America and the white man — the very things that Obama’s “post-racial” identity was supposed to have transcended.

The candidate may have staunched the bleeding, but he did not heal the wounds. His naïve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the Rev. Wright’s anti-American, anti-white and pro-Farrakhan sentiments — echoing his naïve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the ramifications of his friendship with sleazy fund-raiser Tony Rezko — will not be forgotten because of one unforgettable speech.

But then, the most intriguing thing about the speech in the National Constitution Center here, near the statues of the founding fathers who signed the document declaring that “all men are created equal,” was not even the part about black and white. It was the new color that Obama unexpectedly wore: gray.

The black and white plaguing the Obama camp was not only about skin color. Facing up to his dubious behavior toward his explosive friends, he had his first rude introduction in his political career to ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity.

Obama did not surrender his pedestal willingly. But he was finally confronted by a problem that neither his charm nor his grandiosity would solve.

He now admits that he had heard the Rev. Wright make “controversial” remarks in church, and that he had a “lapse of judgment” when he let the much-investigated Rezko curry favor by buying the plot of land next to his and selling a slice back so Obama could have a bigger yard. Newly alert to the perils of not seeming patriotic enough, he ended a speech in Pennsylvania the other morning with “God bless America!”

A little disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a good thing. Too much idealism can blind a leader to reality as surely as too much ideology can.

Up until now, Obama and his worshipers have set it up so that he must be so admirable and ideal and perfect and everything we’ve ever wanted that any kind of blemish — even a parking ticket — was regarded as a major failing.

With the Clintons, we expect them to be cheesy on ethics, so no one is ever surprised when they are.

But Saint Obama played the politics of character to an absurd extent. For 14 months, his argument for leading the world has been himself — his exquisitely globalized self.

He should be congratulated on the disappearance of the pedestal. Leaders don’t need to be messiahs.

Gray is a welcome relief from black and white.

After the Chicago Tribune uncovered the land deal, Obama described Rezko as "a supporter of mine since my first race for state Senate" and a friend with whom he occasionally had lunch or dinner. Obama knew that Rezko was under grand jury investigation, but believed that "as long as I operated in an open, up-front fashion, and all the T's were crossed and I's were dotted, that it wouldn't be an issue."

James L. Merriner, an Illinois political expert who has conducted the only interview with Rezko since his indictment, says Obama has done "nothing illegal. It's just unsavory."

Obama knew about Rezko's legal problems, but Merriner believes he didn't think they would taint his Senator Galahad image.

"It goes back to when Obama's in the state Senate," Merriner says. "He had a real sense of personal mission. I think he thought he was just above it. He seemed to think he was on a plane above that."

If you've been to Chicago, you know it's a pretty flat place. And if you follow Chicago politics, you know that even the noblest politician can't remain chaste.

"The national media, they tend to overlook that Obama is a regular Cook County Democrat," Merriner says. "Maybe he's a cut above, but he's still an Illinois politician."

As long as Rezko was only under investigation, Obama was willing to do business with him. But then Rezko committed the fixer's biggest sin: He got indicted and got his name in the papers. After that, the friendship cooled. Obama has donated $157,835 in Rezko-linked contributions to charity and has called the real estate deal "boneheaded." But he still lives in the house. And he still has the power Rezko helped him attain.