Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,the kingfish,nafta
Technorati Tags: rezko
This is serious stuff, Terence.
Thanks to Ed Morrissey, we have some details about Obama’s open admission to telling his supporters lies in order garner their support.
On Wednesday, CTV reported that a senior member of Obama’s campaign called the Canadian government within the last month – saying that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. [CTV.CA]
Morrissey’s blog details Obama’s campaign’s refusal to refute the charge. Obama’s chief economic advisor, one Austen Goolsbee, told the Canadian government that Obama’s promise to overturn NAFTA was a lie for the benefit of votes. Now, Goolsbee refuses to talk, referring all press questions to the campaign headquarters.
So far, Obama said he’d pull out of Iraq, then changed his mind in case al Qaeda establishes bases. Now, he’s lied about NAFTA to win favor with unions.
One more populist lie, and we call him the Kingfish.
UPDATE:
On June 13, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), while serving as an Illinois state senator in 1998, “did a political favor” for Chicago Democratic fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko by writing letters to state and local government officials in support of a Chicago housing project proposed by Rezko’s company, New Kenwood LLC. The Sun-Times asserted that the “letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the _Chicago Tribune_that, in all the years he’s known Rezko, ‘I’ve never done any favors for him.’ ''
Here’s the text of that interview, in pertinent part, from a written interrogatory submitted to and responded by Barack Obama:
Q: Did Rezko or his companies ever solicit your support on any matter involving state or federal government? Did Al Johnson, who was trying to get a casino license along with Tony Rezko, or Rezko himself ever discuss casino matters with you?
A: No, I have never been asked to do anything to advance his business interests.
Direct contradiction. Obama is a fraud with friends in high security prisons. Well, former friends. According to the New York Times, Obama has cut-off Rezko like an unsightly skin-tag.
Mr. Obama has portrayed Mr. Rezko as a one-time fund-raiser whom he had occasionally seen socially. But interviews with more than a dozen political and business associates suggest that the two men were closer than the senator has indicated.
Mr. Obama turned to Mr. Rezko for help at several important junctures. Records show that when Mr. Obama needed cash in the waning days of his losing 2000 Congressional campaign, Mr. Rezko rounded up thousands of dollars from business contacts. In 2003, Mr. Rezko helped Mr. Obama expand his fund-raising for the Senate primary by being host of a dinner at his Mediterranean-style home for 150 people, including some whose names have since come up in the influence scandal.
And when Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, bought a house in 2005, Mr. Rezko stepped in again. Even though his finances were deteriorating, Mr. Rezko arranged for his wife to buy an adjacent lot, and she later sold the Obamas a 10-foot-wide strip of land that expanded their yard.
With Clinton Inc. growing desperate, the Rezko story could get very interesting. The Clintons “have people” in the federal prison system, you know.
How long before some enterprising, young Chicago journalist uncovers the paper trail connecting Obama to Jay Grodner?