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Bugs · 31-08-2008, 05:40 PM

An acquaintance and I were talking about politicians and their background issues just last night. How some pretty small/petty things in a generally good persons past can work against them in major ways if they are a politician. And how many of the big time politicians in Americas past have had skeletons in their closet so big that there is no way they would have been able to reach such highs in the world of today (FDR, JFK, maybe even Regan).

This article kind of covers how hard the Obama team seems to be working to keep the Obama image in line with what they want folks to think of as the Obama image. Much of the muck the reporter covers on Obama does not seem to be that big of a deal, I am only mildly concerned over Obama’s past relations with Ayers, the Rezko connection more so, the Auchi connection could be an issue (but what have been revealed so far is not big deal – but the FOIA requests that have not been responded to for months is a bit concerning).

Really you can’t fault a guy for wanting to maintain a solid image and thus limiting/controlling what about their past is revealed.

Obama Should Come Clean On Ayers, Rezko And the Iraqi Billionaire - WSJ.com

Quote:

Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist.

....WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is "unprecedented." He also notes that it is curious -- because "we wanted the Obama campaign's take" on Mr. Kurtz's findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air....

Maybe not surprising if Mr. Kurtz's allegations are really over the top - neither campaign can be expected to address allegations made by the real nut jobs on the other side of the asle.

Quote:

Separately, Mr. Obama's lawyers have also demanded that the Justice Department prosecute an organization called the American Issues Project for running an ad about ties between their candidate and Mr. Ayers.

The interesting bit about this (to me) is that it seems the Obama team are contesting the ad based upon the American Issues Project being a nonprofit group that's not suppose to engage in politics as it's main activity:
Fight for Virginians' votes spills over onto the airwaves | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

Quote:

Obama's lawyers also have launched a legal challenge, alleging that the Ayers ad violates federal law. The American Issues Project is organized as a nonprofit "social welfare" group that is not allowed to engage in political activity as its primary purpose.

Quote:

..."They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life," one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. "The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true." The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn't have won.

Not sure the Rev. Wright deal would have sunk him or not, had it broken prior to Iowa.

Quote:

Aides claim Mr. Obama "has taken voluntary transparency steps" that allow "his constituents, the media and his political opponents to fully examine him." In reality, anyone questioning the approved story line is liable to be ignored, misled or even bullied. This isn't what reporters expected when Mr. Obama began campaigning for a "new politics" that would bring honesty and openness to government.

Candidate for change indeed.

Quote:

Walking the rows of media outlets at the Denver convention, I had no trouble finding reporters who complained the campaign was secretive and evasive. Ben Smith of Politico.com has written about Team Obama's "pattern of rarely volunteering information or documents, even when relatively innocuous." Politico asked months ago if Mr. Obama had ever written anything for the Harvard Law Review as a student. The Obama campaign responded narrowly, with a Clintonesque statement that "as the president of the Law Review, Obama didn't write articles, he edited and reviewed them." This month it turned out Mr. Obama had written an article -- but it was published a month before he became president.

I wonder how much volunteering of information or documents team McCain have been? I doubt anyone wants to volunteer anything except what is pertinent to their message. Not volunteering information seems only the wise thing to do. But not volunteering is a whole different thing as opposed withhold or refusing to provide information.

Quote:

Chasing the rest of Mr. Obama's paper trail is often an exercise in frustration. Mr. Obama says his state senate records "could have been thrown out" and he didn't keep a schedule in office. No one appears to have kept a copy of his application for the Illinois Bar. He has released only a single page of medical records, versus 1,000 pages for John McCain.

State senate records - I thought the earlier claims were banging on Obama for his history or voting present in the state senate?

I don't know much about applying for the bar, but why would folks keep the application form?

The medical records seems a bit interesting considering the issue everyone wanted to make about McCain early on not releasing his. Granted the situations for the two are quite different, and I don't know that everyone really needs to know the detailed medical records for every candidate. But it wold be nice to know if the person running for the top job has any serious medical condition or something that could develop into a serious issue over the next four years.

Quote:

In May 2004, the Pentagon's inspector general's office cited "significant and credible evidence" of involvement by Mr. Auchi's companies in the Oil for Food scandal, and in illicit smuggling of weapons to Saddam Hussein's regime. Because of the criminal probe, Mr. Auchi's travel visa to the U.S. was revoked in August 2004, even as Mr. Auchi denied all the allegations. According to prosecutors, in November 2005 Rezko was able to get two government officials from Illinois to appeal to the State Department to get the visa restored. Asked if anyone in his office was involved in such an appeal, Mr. Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times last March, "not that I know of." FOIA requests to the State Department for any documents haven't been responded to for months.

The Obama - Auchi connection is weak at best (at this stage) and even if eventually it is proven that Obama was one of the sentors that asked the State Department to get his visa restored it would lead me to believe Obama had done it as a favor to Rezko more so than because of ties Obama has directly to Auchi.

Quote:

After long delays, Mr. Obama sat with the editorial boards of the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune in March to answer their questions about his connection to Rezko. He had no recollection of ever meeting Mr. Auchi. He also said he didn't understand a lot about house buying, and gave vague answers to other questions. Since then, he has avoided any further discussion of the Rezko matter.

McCain doesn't know how many houses he ownes and it seems Obama does not know how to buy a house. Should either of these guys be allowed to reside in the White House?

Quote:

Some inquiries could be cleared up if the Obama campaign were forthcoming with key documents. Mr. Obama claims that in buying his house in 2005 he got a low mortgage rate from Northern Trust bank because another bank made a competitive bid for his business, but his campaign won't reveal from which bank. While he has released 94 pages of documents relating to the Rezko sale, they don't include the single most important one -- the settlement statement that shows the complete flow of funds that were part of the house sale. When asked why that last key document isn't being released, the Obama campaign issued a boilerplate statement saying, "we have released documents that reflect every one of the final terms of the senator's purchase of the home." But key data are still being withheld.

I am fairly sure something not quite above board happened in the house deal and with the Rezko's/Obama's. But it's hard to tell if it is a big deal or not without knowing the whole story. What appears to be a concerted effort by Obama to not directly and clearly respond to the issue has to leave one to wonder. Especially when some of the hanging questions seem so simple?
Which other bank offered a competitive mortgage offer?
Why not supply a copy of the settlement statement?

All that being said this bit is also certainly true:

Quote:

All presidential candidates resist full examination of their records.