So much for the Rezko angle:

The couple who sold Barack Obama his Chicago home said the Illinois senator’s $1.65 million bid “was the best offer” and they didn’t cut their asking price because a campaign donor bought their adjacent land, according to e- mails between Obama’s presidential campaign and the seller. The Illinois senator has said he made a “boneheaded” move in involving contributor Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a Chicago businessman, in the purchase of the property on June 15, 2005. Rezko’s wife, Rita, also an Obama donor, bought the adjoining plot in Hyde Park from the couple, Fredric Wondisford and Sally Radovick, for the $625,000 asking price, the same day that Obama bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price. Antoin Rezko was under federal investigation at the time. Rezko was indicted on unrelated fraud charges 16 months later, in October 2006. Obama has since returned about $85,000 in campaign contributions made or raised by Rezko. The sellers hadn’t previously made their side of the story public out of concern for their privacy, according to Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign. They approached Obama’s Senate office 15 months ago and agreed to break their silence now through the campaign out of concern that the story was being distorted in the media, Burton said.

As I was writing this post, I took a break and checked the comments to a previous post, and found this:

John Cole, the troll. Is there any other way to explain the hate you bring to the discussion? I have a question that is only being touched on. Serious questions are being raised about Obama’s relations with Rezbo (sp?), and implications of criminality. Deny these as you will, but they exist. What happens, assuming Obama’s winning the Democratic nomination for president, when bush’s department of justice indicts him two weeks before the presidential election?

And there you have it, in all the glory it deserves- the Clinton way. Throw shit out there, and even if it doesn’t stick and you can’t even SPELL the name, you have weakened your opponent. Glorious, no? I fully expect the next few weeks will be full of this sort of crap, including more false charges of sexism and whatever other garbage they can drag up (the first time I heard of the similarities between Obama’s speeched and those of Patrick’s was in the comments here from a… Clinton supporter– would it surprise anyone if team Hillary is behind the latest attack on Obama in the press?).

This election can not end soon enough.

*** Update ***

That didn’t take long- they aren’t even hiding behind anonymous sources for the plagiarism BS:

Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, today accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of committing “plagiarism” in a speech in Milwaukee on Saturday night. Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters. On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.”

If you are wondering how desparate this seems coming from the Clinton camp, and how lame the plagiarism charges are, let me point you to this- Captain Ed is not falling for them.

Some of the commenters are donating 5 bucks every time the Clinton camp does something sleazy. Here is where to donate.