Barack Obama's Skeleton Closet

Barack Obama is a genuine trend (or is he a fad?) without Americans knowing much of anything about him. He started his public career with an unusual move--- writing a book where he talks about using cocaine. It's unconventional, but damned if it doesn't look like it just might work.

Quotes

"It was a mistake to have been engaged with him [Antoin Rezko] 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" -- Barack Obama

"There's no doubt that this was a mistake on my part. 'Boneheaded' would be accurate. There's no doubt I should have seen some red flags in terms of me purchasing a piece of property from him." - Barack Obama

"I think very highly of Hillary. The more I get to know her, the more I admire her. I think she's one of the most disciplined people I know. She's one of the toughest. She's got an extraordinary intelligence, and she's somebody who's in this stuff for the right reasons. She's passionate about moving the country forward on issues like health care and children." -- Barack Obama

---

Cocaine

Long before he ever ran for political office, Obama wrote a book about, well, himself, and his amazing his journey from messed up kid to, um, himself. It was quite an epic, considering he was 34 at the time.

In that book, called "Dreams From My Father", he writes that he used marijuana and cocaine ("maybe a little blow".) Oddly enough, he writes that he didn't try heroin because -- wait for it -- he didn't like the pusher who was selling it. (Weren't there any other reasons?) In a later interview, he added "Teenage boys are frequently confused."

But cocaine aside, the press has ignored the one truly outrageous drug scandal that Obama has successfully hid -- he's a SMOKER. That's right, tobacco cigarettes. Obama theoretically gave it up, and claims he never smoked more than 7 or 8 cigarettes a day, but if you dig deeper, he admits he has been bumming cigarettes during the campaign.

Tony Rezko & the Shady Land Deal

Barack Obama has been friends with Antoin ("Tony") Rezko since at least 1990. Barack interviewed with Rezko for a job in the early 1990s (offered, but declined), and has raised at least $150,000 for Obama's campaigns. Prosecutors charge that at least $10,000 of the money Rezko gave Obama was extorted in return for political favors by a different politician. In return, Barack arranged an internship in 2005 for John Aramanda, the son of a Rezko business associate (Joseph Aramanda, who himself gave Barack $11,500.)

There's more. In June, 2005, Obama bought a house in Chicago for $1.65 million ($300,000 below the asking price). The same day, Rezko bought (in his wife's name) the vacant lot next door for $625,000, the full price asked. Seven months later, Rezko sold Barack a slice (1/6th) of his lot so the Obamas could have a bigger yard. There's no evidence that Rezko bought the vacant land for any other reason than to do Obama a favor. The seller would only sell the house if he could sell the lot on the same day. And the lot is only accessible through Obama's yard. Rezko and his wife sold the lot last year to someone they owed money to, and let that person keep the small profit he made.

Here's the real problem: among other problems, Rezko was convicted in a federal government corruption case for demanding kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with Illinois Governor Blagojevich, another politician that Rezko has befriended and donated to. (Rezko is also under indictment for shaking down a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign contributions for Blagojevich. The guy takes care of his political friends.) In fact, Joseph Aramanda is an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the kickback cases.

Obama has admitted that the land deal was a mistake, and donated money donated directly by Rezko to charity. His story has changed, though. When the land deal was first reported, Obama said his only contact with Rezko was asking him if it was a good deal. In February 2008, though, one of Obama's staffers admitted that the candidate walked around the house and lot with Rezko. Rezko has said he bought the lot to help the Obamas expand their backyard.

Hanging Out with Radical 60s Bomber

Bill Ayers, the son of a rich utility executive, calls himself a "small-C communist." In 1969, he and his wife Bernadette Dohrn helped found the Weathermen (aka the Weather Underground), a radical group that bombed several buildings, killing a police officer and three of their own members. In 1981, an armed robbery of a Brinks truck by Weather Underground members killed two police and a security guard.

By then Ayers and Dohrn has morphed into reasonably respectable professors in Chicago, and weren't involved. But Ayers has no regrets; in 2001 he even wrote "I don't regret settings bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Ayers and Dohrn were never convicted because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct that got their charges thrown out.

Great scandal, huh? Only problem is that Ayers' links to Obama are not that clear. They live 3 blocks apart in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and their kids go to the same school. In 1995, they were both on the board of a charity founded by Walter Annenberg, the billionaire founder of Reader's Digest (not exactly a liberal - he was Nixon's ambassador to Britain). From 2000 to 2002 they were on another board together (the Woods Foundation). Obama praised one of Ayers' many books, in a 1997 newspaper interview. Ayers donated $200 to Obama's 2001 campaign. The biggest link was in 1995, when Ayers and Dohrn hosted a coffee fundraiser, at which State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Obama as her chosen successor as state senator. Obama certainly had no problem with that hosting, though since then he has criticized Ayers' crimes many times as "detestable".

The big question is, does this indicate that Obama is a secret radical? I haven't seen any solid evidence beyond this. But I'm all ears -- email me.



Muslim? Educated in Madrassa? Won 't Salute the Flag? Fox News ran a story claiming that Obama had been educated in a madrassa school in Indonesia. If you're not familiar with that term, it's a type of fundamentalist Muslim school, often funded by the extremist Wahabi sect of Islam (with Saudi money) and often very anti-American.

There was only one problem with the story: it was completely false. Yes, Obama had gone to school in Indonesia as a kid; two schools in fact. One was Catholic, the other was a public school, with teachers and kids of various faiths.

The only scandal here is that Fox News ran the story with no facts or reporting backing it up. They simply repeated a story from a highly partisan website, with no effort to check out the school. It's there, still open, and easily visited. Reporters who did so found out that the story was false in minutes.

There have been several other stories about Obama floating around in emails -- that he's secretly Muslin, refuses to put his hand over his heart when saying the pledge of allegiance, that he is secretly Muslim, etc. We print REAL scandals, not fake ones.