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From a National Review Online editorial:

The New Republic has reported that Obama joined Trinity around this time because he “was taken with Wright’s worldview.” The reporting of NR’s Stanley Kurtz has revealed that in the late 1980s, Wright’s worldview entailed a burning hatred of Western capitalism and a belief that black assimilation into the middle class was a form of self-enslavement to an irredeemably racist system.

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… Obama’s unbelievably corrupt friend Tony Rezko was convicted on 16 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, soliciting bribes, and money laundering. Rezko’s primary business since 1990 was the buying and selling of political influence. It’s how he came to be first in line for government grants to convert run-down buildings into low-income housing, which he then let deteriorate into slums.

Obama entered into his own land deal with Rezko in the summer of 2005. Rezko bought the property adjacent to the Obama’s dream home and sold him a strip of land on which to build a fence. Obama paid a fair price, but by this point the Chicago papers had run more than 100 stories about the federal investigation into Rezko’s influence-peddling. Obama called his decision to deal with Rezko a “bone-headed move,” but claimed he didn’t know about the corrupt behavior. If so, he was the last person in Chicago.

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As a leader of the radical Weather Underground, Ayers participated in multiple bombings that he says he does not regret. He spent 11 years as a fugitive from justice. Obama and Ayers first met in 1995. In an interview for a book published that year, Ayers described his political views: “I am a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist.”

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The Obama campaign (and its fellow-travelers in the press) argues that these stories should be filed under “guilt by association.” But so many of Obama’s associates are guilty, it raises legitimate questions about his judgment. At different times in his life, Obama looked at Wright, Rezko, and Ayers, and each time he answered, “You know, that’s someone I can do business with.”

It raises another question to me, especially if you include in this list Alice Palmer, the Illinois State Senator who promoted Obama to take her seat (before she recanted, ran against him, and Obama knocked her off the ballot to win uncontested) and was an acolyte of Soviet communism.

That question is not, “Why did Obama, an ambitious young politician, align himself with people who could advance his career?” But, rather, “What did these radical and fringe communists, socialists, crooks, terrorists, and race-baiting demagogues see in Obama that inspired them to support and promote his political rise?” That to me is far more troubling.

Tags:   Alice Palmer · Ayers · Obama · Rezko · WrightNo Comments