Democratic eyes wide shut

Don't think there will be any immediate mortal wounds to Barack Obama from the Sun-Times two-part series on his longtime booster, Tony Rezko. But it should open some eyes among those who still believe that he is operating differently than other politicians.

Obama clearly wasn't looking too closely at Rezko while he was plundering poor people and taxpayers at large. He opened his eyes wide for Rezko's contributions and other gifts and sealed them shut when it came to how Rezko had the money to give in the first place.

In the MSM news blender, a conservative with such a defective antenna would be cast as insensitive and not interested in the plight of the downtrodden. Obama, however, will be cast as the innocent doe who, while trying to make the world a better place, bumped into some bad characters.

The most powerful part of the Sun-Times series was today's installment, which richly detailed how Rezko continued to get city, state and private financing for low-income housing projects even as they failed miserably. Rezko simply would skim off some up-front proceeds on each of the projects and walk away, leaving investors and taxpayers to eat the debt.

What is illustrates clearly is the corruption of the Democratic establishment of Illinois, that, in the pursuit of campaign donations, allows characters like Rezko, Tom Lakin and Myron Cherry to operate under different rules than the rest of us because they are big donors.

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, Barack Obama, Chicago media, corruption, Illinois, journalism, Tony Rezko