First Sign of Obama Mud

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:40 AM

If critics have their way, when you hear the name Barack Obama, you'll start hearing the name Tony Rezko.

I mention this because my blog-reading, and sense of political dynamics, tells me that the senator's relationship with an indicted fundraiser is about to break out of the Chicago media and go national.

This may not be a big deal in the larger scheme of things. It's not clear that Obama did anything wrong. But it's a taste of what lies ahead if the Illinois lawmaker indeed decides to jump into the presidential sweepstakes.

If Monday was a day for media swooning over Obama's New Hampshire foray--and that was before he did his little Bear cap-wearing shtick at the start of "Monday Night Football"--yesterday featured the conservative counterattack. Not so fast, these critics on the right are saying. Who is this guy? What does he stand for? Isn't he a garden-variety liberal? This is the sort of debate that usually takes place in the run-up to the first primaries, but with everything on a speeded-up timetable, it's already under way.

That's what prompted me to check out some Chicago Tribune stories from last month on the Rezko matter. Bottom line: Obama says his dealings with the longtime donor were a "mistake" that he regrets, and he has given the latest contributions to charity.

It seems that Obama and his wife closed last year on a $1.65-million house on the city's South Side on the same day that Rezko closed on a $625,000 vacant lot next door. Then Obama paid Rezko $104,000 to buy part of the lot. Well, none of that seems terribly unusual to me, except maybe the part about Obama paying his landscaper to mow Rezko's yard and Rezko agreeing to pay for a $14,000 fence along their property line.

The problem is that during this period, Rezko came under grand jury investigation. He has since pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to obtain kickbacks from companies seeking state business, according to the Tribune. Rezko has also pleaded not guilty to separate allegations that he bilked a loan company through the fraudulent sale of his pizza businesses. (I hereby copyright "Pizzagate" if this story takes off.)

Suddenly, Obama had a PR problem, or as he put it to the Chicago Sun-Times, "I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko . . . It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor."

This seems like a minor-league issue. But as Bill Clinton learned about his money-losing Arkansas land deal, when you run for president, everything in your past gets magnified.

Here's what the right is saying about the Obama hype:

"Generally speaking, I don't write about obscure left wing politicians much anyway unless they do or say something hilariously stupid," says Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse. "But this recent boomlet for Senator Obama seems to have taken everyone by surprise. And still more than a year away from the first Presidential primaries and caucuses, it amazes me so little information has been disseminated about this likable, thoughtful man.

"First, it must be said that a Democratic corpse plucked from a Chicago graveyard could have won the race for Illinois senator in 2004. You might recall that the Republican nominee Jack Ryan was forced to withdraw 4 months before the election following revelations contained in child custody documents relating to Ryan's divorce from actress Jeri Ryan (the sexiest Borg in the Star Trek Universe) that he forced the comely actress to go to sex clubs with him . . .

"Obama is an empty vessel. Not a Clintonesque figure in that he tries to appeal to all voters in some way but rather a welcoming icon who invites the voter to take something away and make it their own as far as how they view the man. Is this dishonest? Or is it great politics? . . .

"We see this dance by the media every four years. Bored with writing and talking about the same old faces, the media seeks out a darkhorse candidate and elevates him for a short while to prominence -- only to then amuse themselves by tearing him apart piece by piece once they've decided he is not worthy of all the glowing coverage.

"In Obama's case, there is the added significance of race to be considered. Will the Senator's blackness protect him from the usual smear tactics practiced by politicians from both parties?"

An intriguing question, given that we've never had a serious black contender for the presidency--or a serious female contender, for that matter.

John Podhoretz is skeptical of Obama and alludes to the Rezko matter:

"If you love Barack Obama, as almost everybody interested in U.S. politics does right now, ask yourself this simple question: What do you know about his opinions on any subject? . . .

"He is now the semi-official Rorschach Candidate of 2008.

"The Rorschach Candidate is the one who provokes enthusiasm not because of the positions he takes but because of who he is. He doesn't seem like a politician; he seems to be better than a politician -- fresh, new, different . . .

"A sitting senator, albeit one with only two years under his belt in Washington, he's already cast hundreds of votes -- and his votes suggest only that he is a down-the-line liberal Democrat with nothing remotely unconventional about him.

"Indeed, his close relationship with a crooked Illinois fund-raiser -- a relationship that will surely become clearer and more public if he runs -- suggests he is a conventional politician in another, more distressing way."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff sees the senator as pretty left-wing:

"It is Obama's image as an eclectic (his self-description) candidate with substantial crossover appeal that makes him seem so attractive to many. The image has no basis in reality -- Obama is a pure left-liberal Democrat, and the next eclectic or moderate substantive position he takes is likely to be his first. But image can be nearly everything, and as long as he can cling to his present image, Obama has the potential to be formidable. Even with cheerleaders like Tim Russert, though, Obama can't maintain his current image while fighting to stay well left of Hillary Clinton, who undoubtedly will lurch leftward herself if it looks like she needs to.

"In sum, for Obama to get past Clinton he'll have to reveal himself as a less seasoned version of Dean or Feingold. As such, it's difficult to imagine him winning the general election in these times."

In the New Republic, Garance Franke-Ruta finds one other factor that could work against Obama, "the question of expectations. More than 160 members of the press registered to appear at the downtown Manchester event, trailing massive satellite trucks in their wake and turning more than 20 video cameras on the senator. Obama tried to downplay all the attention at a press conference before his formal remarks . . .

"Already, his staff has started thinking through the longer-term consequences of the unusually high level of public interest he has generated. 'This is a one-shot deal,' said Obama press secretary Tommy Vietor of the senator's rock-star reception on his first-ever visit to the Granite State. 'You get this once.' Should Obama run, 'pretty soon, it's 15 people in a living room.' The risk, of course, is that, by getting so much attention now, 15 people in a living room next year will look like an electorate that has cooled to him once it got a closer look.

"Indeed, the worry for Obama in New Hampshire is that, after Sunday's wildly enthusiastic rally, there is no place to go but down--both because the level of attention is unsustainable so early in the campaign cycle and because the nature of campaigning in the state requires a more grassroots-style approach. 'If he decides to come back, [he'll] have to do this in a much different way,' said his communications director Robert Gibbs--by holding 'more intimate gatherings with fewer press risers.' "

Are we seeing spontaneous combustion? Salon's Walter Shapiro quotes Obama adviser David Axelrod as saying: "I wasn't alive then, but this is the closest thing to a draft since Adlai Stevenson in 1952."

Shapiro's take: "There is a palpable uneasiness in New Hampshire and elsewhere with the notion of Hillary Clinton being prematurely anointed as the 2008 Democratic nominee. It is not accidental that Obama is the third candidate this year who has been ballyhooed as the challenger with enough heft to take on the Clinton dynasty. First came Warner, followed by Al Gore -- still a possible candidate, whose luster dims the longer he remains indecisive on the sidelines. Helping propel the Obama bandwagon is that the senator, like Gore, passionately opposed going to war in Iraq in 2002. Part of the rationale for the anti-Hillary star search is the feeling that the New York senator cannot win, barring a full-scale collapse of the Republican Party."

We are now being buried by an avalanche of polls showing that the war in Iraq is very, very unpopular.

LAT: "A majority of Americans favor setting a fixed timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq and just 12 percent would support a plan to increase troop strength, an option under serious consideration by the military, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found . . .

"A majority of 52 percent of the poll's respondents -- including nearly one in three Republicans -- said they preferred a 'fixed timetable' for withdrawal, while only 26 percent of those surveyed favored the president's option of keeping troops on the ground until the country is secure."

WashPost: "Most Americans now believe the United States is losing the war in Iraq and sizeable majorities support a bipartisan commission's recommendations to shift away from combat and focus more on diplomacy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll."

Bush's overall approval rating: 36 percent.

Are the Dems getting serious about ethics reform?

"House Democrats are seriously exploring the creation of an independent ethics arm to enforce new rules on travel, lobbying, gifts and other issues that Democrats intend to put in place on taking power next month," says the NYT. Now that would be a departure.

Can the Diana eavesdropping be blamed on . . . Bill Clinton? National Review's Byron York examines the evidence:

"If the Clinton administration did engage in surveillance of Diana/Forstmann, it is not clear if it was done with or without a warrant. 'To get a FISA warrant, they would have had to believe that either [American investor Ted] Forstmann or Diana was an agent of a foreign power,' says one former Justice Department official. That, the official adds, would be an unlikely scenario. 'To get a criminal warrant, they would have had to had a proceeding going on in which they got a judge to give them a warrant' -- another unlikely scenario . . . The National Security Agency released a statement saying, 'NSA did not target Princess Diana's communications.' A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency told the Washington Post that any suggestion the CIA wiretapped Diana was 'rubbish.' Neither statement seems to be a definitive denial.

"If the Clinton administration did engage in surveillance of Princess Diana and Theodore Forstmann, without a warrant, it would appear to run contrary to statements made by former administration officials during the Bush warrantless-wiretap controversy. After the existence of the Bush program was made public last December, some high-ranking veterans of the Clinton administration said they had not engaged in similar efforts to by-pass FISA. 'Both before and after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was amended in 1995, the Clinton-Gore administration complied fully and completely with the terms of the law,' former Vice President Al Gore said."

Greg Sargent:

"Could this sham be any more transparent? Yesterday President Bush made a very big show of meeting 'privately' with some handpicked experts who gave him some advice on what to do about Iraq. You'll no doubt be very surprised to hear this, but in the meeting Bush learned that the experts summoned to the White House just happen to share his opinion that the Iraq Study Group's call for withdrawal of the troops is a bad idea. How do we know this? Someone was very careful to leak the proceedings of the meeting to the Washington Post:

" 'President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said.' "

Wizbang's Lorie Byrd spies a way for right-wingers to get good press:

"As we saw this week with Kofi Annan, you can say anything about President Bush, no matter how incredibly lacking your credibility is on a subject, as long as you sufficiently bash George Bush. Also, if you are a conservative, you can not only bash Bush while escaping scrutiny yourself, but you can also expect positive media attention (even fawning) that is ordinarily next to impossible for conservatives to receive."

Tom DeLay's blog got off to a rocky start when it had to disable the comment function after a flood of not-so-nice postings. Dick Polman observes:

"As a blogger . . . he doesn't seem very comfortable with the notion that he will attract comments from people who don't like him. For instance, on his very first day, this message was posted for his perusal: 'You corrupt hypocrite, crawl back to the hole you came out of.'

"Well, DeLay's blog team reportedly got rid of that message - maybe 100 in all. It appears that the indicted ex-congressmen who once threatened federal judges ('judges need to be intimidated') just can't take the heat when it comes his way."

But could John Edwards have a secret weapon? Elizabeth Edwards has been posting her thoughts at various blogs. Here's one from Archpundit:

"But listen, wives have a tough time in this. Do I want the best for John? You bet, but not one smidgen more than Christie Vilsack or Cindy McCain do for their husbands. And these women will -- when and if the time comes -- spend a lot of themselves in the campaign that bears their husband's -- and their -- name. They will know although it is not their campaign, it is their life that will be affected. It was unfair in 1992 to suggest that Hillary not speak up in Bill Clinton's campaign; it is unfair to suggest that if one of us expresses our opinions, pro or con, on anything that we are being petty and certainly unfair to suggest that we are being vindictive.

"You can have at me. You don't have to like all you see. None of us ever expects to bat 1000%. But -- and this is not just for me but for all the spouses -- be fair."