Illinois blogger Archpundit has what seems to me to be a useful roundup of the links between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko. The essence of the matter is that there doesn't seem to have been any quid to go with the pro quo here. Rezko tried to curry favor with politicians in order to get stuff from them, and Obama was no exception. And, indeed, when one of Rezko's business partners had a son who wanted an internship in Obama's office, Rezko wrote a letter of recommendation and the kid got the job. It's possible that had Obama remained in the Senate and had Rezko not gotten indicted, that he would have found occasion to do some more serious favors but in the real world there's nothing there.



Basically, as with Obama's questionable record on coal I'm not particularly impressed. But it is true that, to an unusual degree, Obama's campaign has tried to portray their man as a living saint of some kind when, in reality, he's a normal pol who stands up for home-state industries and gives internships to buddies of sons of campaign contributors. On the other hand, what makes this sort of line of attack curious to me is that if there's one thing we absolutely know for sure about the Clintons it's that if you're inclined to make mountains out of molehills there are tons and tons of thin ethical charges you can make against them.

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