Posted by Christi Parsons, Bruce Japsen and Bob Secter at 8:55 am CDT
Barack Obama forgot to put away the butter.
And that was the first thing his wife, Michelle Obama, told the audience she was addressing.
"He's a gifted man,'' she said, "but, in the end, he's just a man.''
Read about the woman who is that man's rock:
Barack's rock
Sen. Obama's blunt,
tough partner, Michelle
Helps shape her husband's politics and life
and is integral to his White House run
By Christi Parsons, Bruce Japsen and Bob Secter
Tribune staff reporters
April 22, 2007
The featured speaker at a luncheon, Michelle Obama is about to ask a crowd of influential Chicago women to commit their hearts and wallets to her husband's presidential campaign.
But first she's going to make sure they know that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama forgot to put the butter away this morning.
"I'm like, 'You're just asking for it,'" she says, sending an exasperated look toward the candidate." 'You know I'm giving a speech about you today.'"
Ultimately, she praises her husband as a gifted leader who deeply understands the struggles of American women, and she asks far more directly than he does for the crowd's financial and political support.
But Michelle Obama, 43, has a reputation for telling it like she thinks it is -- whether about the butter, her husband's ongoing effort to quit smoking or his political priorities. And though she's lighthearted in her critiques, she never plays the role of the deferential political wife.
"He's a gifted man," she tells the audience, "but, in the end, he's just a man."
The fact that the crowd responds with laughter and a long, warm ovation is a good sign for the Obama team.
One of its most formidable tasks, after all, is to win over Democratic-leaning women tempted to help make Sen. Hillary Clinton the first woman president, and Michelle Obama figures prominently in the promotion strategy. She's a charismatic public speaker, an accomplished professional whose life as a working parent looks familiar to all kinds of women.
More than just a spokeswoman, she's a crucial part of the Obama package itself, complementing and shaping her husband in ways that are politically and personally significant.
The daughter of a tight-knit nuclear family, she's an anchor for a spouse who grew up all over the world and barely knew his father. Her background, deeply rooted in a working-class South Side neighborhood, lends credibility to her husband, who has consistently battled questions from some African-Americans about whether the son of an African father and a white American mother is authentically black.
Michelle Obama has listened to that talk many times before, even directed at her.
"I heard that growing up, 'You talk like a white girl,'" Obama told the Tribune on Friday in her first solo interview since her husband announced his candidacy for president in February. "There isn't one black person who doesn't understand that dynamic. That debate is about the pain that we still struggle with in this country, and Barack knows that more than anyone.
"One of the things I hope happens through our involvement in this campaign is that this country and this world sees yet another image of what it means to be black."
Her ability to speak with authority on such tough issues is one reason the campaign thinks she will be a potent weapon in its arsenal.
In modern politics, the marriage partnership is integral to the quest for the presidency, as voters evaluate a candidate in light of the relationship with his or her spouse. Bill Clinton offered himself and his wife as a two-for-one deal, something that came back to haunt them when he put his wife in charge of a health-care initiative that failed. Then there's the George and Laura Bush approach, with her more traditional role.
There's little doubt which of those models the Obamas would follow. "She's tough," Obama, 45, said of his wife after she spoke at the luncheon Monday that launched a new group, Women for Obama. "There's something about her that projects such honesty and strength. It's what makes her such an unbelievable professional, and partner, and mother, and wife."
Her career, though, can cause him political discomfort.
Critics have pointed out that her income has risen along with her husband's political ascent. She sits on the board of a food company that supplies Wal-Mart, which Sen. Obama has denounced for its labor practices.
And Michelle Obama is a vice president of The University of Chicago Medical Center, where one of her signature responsibilities is guiding low-income patients away from the emergency room and into primary care elsewhere. While South Side activists praise her program, Barack Obama's union supporters have been critical of the management of many large hospitals for how they deal with charity care for the poor.
Nonetheless, Barack Obama and his campaign are certain she will prove a key asset in his drive for the White House. She has been gearing up for her new campaign role, with a new chief of staff, assistant and spokeswoman who have come on board since early March.
Americans are about to see much more of her and the independent style she says her husband admires.
"He's one of the few men I've met who is not intimidated by strong women," she said. "He relishes the fact that I'm not impressed by him."
'As strong ... as he is'
Michelle Obama had a storybook home as a child. Despite the fact that her father had multiple sclerosis, he went to work every day as an employee of the Chicago water department and still managed to attend all of his children's extracurricular activities. Her mother was a patient tutor always available for her son and daughter.
"We learned from the best how a happy home should operate," Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson, said. "Michelle has very high expectations based on that."
Barack Obama saw his father just once after he left the family when Barack was a toddler. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, raised partly by his grandparents while his mother was overseas.
He met Michelle Robinson when he was a summer associate and she was his mentor at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. The two began to date. And when he met her family, he later wrote, he recognized the stability he'd never had, and he wanted it for himself.
After the Obamas married in 1992, Barack Obama would come to realize that living up to those standards wasn't easy.
During a period when he was in the Illinois Senate, his wife made no secret of the fact that, too often, he didn't seem to be thinking of his family as much as he thought of himself. In his book "The Audacity of Hope," he wrote that she would tell him: "I never thought I'd have to raise a family alone."
Nor was Michelle Obama's message reserved for her husband. She unflinchingly pushed back against political aides she felt were intruding too much on family time, especially where it concerned daughters Malia and Sasha.
"She is as strong and stubborn as he is," said Dan Shomon, an aide to Obama during his unsuccessful challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) eight years ago. "Barack was stuck in Springfield quite a bit in 1999, because of overtime special sessions, and we had to call Michelle and ask her to go to events.
"She would help if she could," but her family came first.
If Michelle Obama's expectations are hard to live up to, friends think they're also very influential in her husband's understanding of the role of the family in society.
He made news on Father's Day 2005 when, speaking to a mostly black audience, he said that men need to take more responsibility for the care of their children.
"There's a big part of his message that is about personal responsibility," said Shomon. "It's that you can't teach kids to learn if the TV's on. You've got to turn the TV off and take personal responsibility, not just at home but in the community and in the world. That comes from Michelle."
Perhaps in no other matter is she more insistent than on the topic of his cigarette smoking. She's passionate about it, partly because her parents smoked. As children, she and her brother pulled the tobacco out of their parents' cigarettes and doused them with hot sauce.
With her husband, she has been unrelenting in getting him to stop, for his own health and as a good example for Malia, who has asthma. (Michelle said he has never smoked in the presence of her or their girls.)
Her support for his presidential bid came with a contingency clause: no cigarettes. And he announced he had quit days before declaring his candidacy.
"To me it's a role model thing," she said. "You can smoke or you can be president."
City Hall connections
Barack Obama's political career has been in overdrive since he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. But some of his deepest political roots trace to his wife's connections in Chicago's Democratic circles.
In the summer of 1991, Valerie Jarrett, then Mayor Richard Daley's deputy chief of staff, interviewed a young Sidley Austin attorney named Michelle Robinson. After the 90-minute conversation, Jarrett offered her a job, but Robinson called back a day later, not to say "yes" but "maybe." First, she said, her fiance wanted to meet Jarrett.
By that time, Obama the independent-minded community activist had privately expressed his political ambitions. This job would put his wife-to-be squarely in the offices of the man whose father had perfected the Democratic machine.
"My fiance wants to know who is going to be looking out for me and making sure that I thrive," Jarrett recalled Robinson telling her.
So the three of them -- the prospective boss, the job applicant and the man she would marry a year later -- piled into a booth at a seafood restaurant in the Loop and got to know each other over a long dinner.
At the end of the evening, Jarrett turned to Barack and asked, "Well, did I pass the test?" Obama smiled, put his head down, closed his eyes and said, "Yeah, you passed the test."
That was the start of a long relationship that has paid off politically for Barack Obama, connecting him to Daley's inner circle.
At City Hall, Michelle Obama forged close and lasting friendships with Jarrett and many other top Daley aides, including former Corporation Counsel Susan Sher and David Mosena, who was the mayor's chief of staff when Michelle Obama first joined his administration. She left in 1993.
All have long since left the city payroll as well, but are loyal to the mayor and now the Obamas. Their careers also have frequently overlapped, and together they make up a network that reaches into virtually every aspect of Chicago politics.
After leaving City Hall, Jarrett went on to lead the Chicago Transit Authority. She recruited Michelle Obama to the transit agency's citizen advisory committee. Mosena, who now is president of the Museum of Science and Industry, served with Obama on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
Currently, she works as the $273,618-a-year vice president for community and external affairs at The University of Chicago Medical Center. Her boss there is Sher.
City Hall records show Michelle Obama, then still named Robinson, began work as a $60,000-a-year mayoral assistant in September of 1991. She didn't stay long in the mayor's office. Within weeks, Daley promoted Jarrett to run the new Department of Planning and Development. Obama followed.
She had no background in economic development, but Obama served as a troubleshooter for Jarrett.
"She had this incredible ability to be a problem solver," said Beth White, an assistant to the planning commissioner at the time. "She was just totally unflappable."
Obama also picked up a reputation for being blunt. Once a junior staffer wanted a promotion and came to White and Obama to talk about it. Obama walked the woman step-by-step through her shortcomings, White recalled.
"It wasn't a put-down," White said. "It was simply, 'You're not ready for this and here's why.' She did it kind, but firm. A lot of people are uncomfortable doing that."
After only 18 months at the city, she left to launch the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, a group that sought to build future community leaders by arranging apprenticeships for young adults with non-profit organizations. Barack Obama was on the founding board of Public Allies, and it was he who recommended his new wife for the job as the Chicago chapter's first executive director, recalled Paul Schmitz, the current president of the group, which is now headquartered in Milwaukee and has chapters in many cities.
Those who worked for her at Public Allies recall how she challenged them to step outside their zones of comfort, especially those of class and race.
"The most powerful thing she ever taught me was to be constantly aware of my privilege," said Beth Hester, a former staffer. Hester, who is white, said Obama helped her overcome her tendency to avoid difficult situations with people of different races or cultures. "Michelle reminded me that it's too easy to go and sit with your own," Hester said. "She can invite you, in kind of an aggressive way, to be all you can be."
After three years at Public Allies, Obama was recruited away by the University of Chicago to launch a similar volunteer program based at the Hyde Park school.
A Harvard-trained lawyer, she had steered away from a potentially more lucrative career in private practice. Friends thought her salary was paltry compared to what she could command at a top law firm.
Her wages later became public when her husband began his political career. And as his career began to take off, so did scrutiny of their household income. It rose right along with his political career.
Not long after Barack Obama entered the U.S. Senate, for instance, his wife was offered a position on the board of TreeHouse Foods, a Westchester-based maker of specialty foods.
In 2006, the company paid her $51,200 for her board activities, according to the Obamas' just-filed federal income tax return. Factoring in stock options and other payments, the value of her compensation package for serving on the TreeHouse board last year was $101,083, a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows.
TreeHouse packages pickles and other private-label foods for retailers. By far its largest customer is Wal-Mart. Barack Obama has been sharply critical of Wal-Mart's business and labor practices -- criticizing the giant retailer last fall for paying low wages and poor benefits while making big profits.
And at the hospital, Obama was promoted to vice president for community and external affairs in March 2005, two months after her husband took office in the U.S. Senate. (Jarrett said Michelle Obama was repeatedly offered the promotion before that election but turned it down.) The promotion more than doubled her salary from the hospital.
The salary questions strike Michelle Obama as sexist and unfair.
"I'm a vice president at an academic medical center," she said. "Barack and I have built a joint life together that consists of having two strong individual people who have built careers.
"Barack hasn't relied deeply on me for his career path, and I haven't relied on him at all for mine. ... I understand why people want to make sure that somehow I'm not using my husband's influence to build my career. And I haven't."
TreeHouse Chairman Sam Reed declined to answer questions about her selection to his board. But the hospital executives who promoted Obama say their decision was based on outstanding performance in the past and, they hoped, in the future.
Hospital officials say the salary was in line with compensation received by the medical center's 16 other vice presidents, more than a dozen of whom earned in excess of $300,000. She also earned about 25 percent less than her counterpart at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"My concern was that somebody was going to recruit her," said former U. of C. hospitals President Michael Riordan.
Losing Michelle Obama, he said, would have been a damaging blow.
A thorny assignment
For all its national prestige, the University of Chicago Medical Center had a local public-relations problem.
The academic center was spending millions of dollars on care that would have been more effectively dispensed by a primary care provider. It was a dicey issue because it put the prestigious hospital in the position of telling its low-income, underinsured and mostly African-American neighbors to go somewhere else.
Michelle Obama was charged with tackling the problem -- a delicate matter not just for her but potentially for her husband. A close ally and supporter of Barack Obama, the Service Employees International Union has been one of the hospital industry's fiercest critics of how it handles care for the uninsured.
But the U. of C. program has won praise from community health providers because Michelle Obama was addressing the larger public concern at hand. Her goal was to help patients develop relationships with primary care physicians and thus avoid the more serious problems that had sent them to the ER in the first place.
Obama was particularly qualified to finesse the issue.
"Because she is of color, that gives her some credibility," said Wendy Cox, chief executive of Chicago Family Health Center.
In early 2005, Obama assembled a meeting of health-care providers and members of the community to ask for their help. She talked about the black community's distrust of the health-care system and about how the lack of health insurance prevents people from seeking less expensive, preventive care.
Berneice Mills-Thomas, executive director of clinic operator Near North Health Service Corp., said the meeting differed markedly from many she had with University of Chicago Hospital executives over the years.
"Her meetings stood out from others because our goals were also her goals," said Mills-Thomas.
The team got to work. Obama started a screening system in the ER waiting room, where people routinely showed up with a lunch and camped out to wait for a doctor, to search for people who didn't belong there.
After treating those individuals, hospital employees would sit down and talk with them. Obama's staff referred them to specific clinic doctors and scheduled appointments.
Coming from someone else, the message might have inflamed relations with the community.
But Obama spoke as the parent of an asthmatic child, one who knew firsthand the importance of actively managing care. When she was a child growing up not far from the hospital, she recalled, family members would simply wait until they got really sick and then go to the best ER they could find.
"It's the most ineffective way to provide care," she said. "And it's the most expensive."
After just a year, the effects of the outreach program don't show up in the hospital's bottom line. Still, officials think they're starting to chip away at one of the worst recurring problems of the health system.
In the portrait activists often paint to illustrate the problem, the uninsured patients are the victims of the system. While Obama agrees with that, she also says individuals have an obligation to take care of themselves.
"It's mutual responsibility," she explained in the interview. "Whatever health-care solution we bring to the table, people have to use it. People have to put good food in their bodies. People have to take their medication as directed. People can't sit and completely blame outside forces."
It's a perspective reflected in her husband's viewpoint on health care and other issues.
"This is how he thinks about the problems that we face," she said. "You can't just talk about improving education without talking about improving pay for teachers or making sure that parents are doing their part. ... People have to change their behavior in addition to systems and institutions changing."
When the Obamas agreed he'd run, they hoped there was a real possibility to effect fundamental change in the country as a whole.
"We made a promise to each other that this campaign would be about telling the truth and being authentic and connecting with people," she said, "getting people excited not just about Barack but about politics."
• 
Comments
The Swamp has already exceeded its daily Obama-worship quotient, and it's not even 9 a.m.
It's all getting to be a bit boring.
Posted by: bruce | April 22, 2007 9:22 AM
bruce,
Either you don't know or you don't care about the nature of American presidential politics.
Like it or not, Barack Obama's #s make him a major player.
Posted by: Doug Zook | April 22, 2007 1:11 PM
GOBAMA IN 08 !!!
Posted by: Sieg Heil George W Bush | April 22, 2007 3:27 PM
Hey Swamp, since it's SO important to do a post about how much Obama's wife likes him, why not one about the latest LIE he's been caught in? You know, the one the Tribune reported last week (two months after The Hill reported it) about how Obama claims to not accept lobbyist money but simply has it laundered through lobbyists law partners? C'mon guys, some posts with substance, please.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/la-na-obama22apr22,1,6925079.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Posted by: Jeff | April 22, 2007 3:49 PM
The Obama's are a couple made for the White House.
As a team they can change the course of History for the better. Leave a legacy that will say much about race relationship in America and root out some of the ills of our society as they relate to the less fortunate and the middle class.
I can't wait for Obama to become President.
Posted by: Bj Jordan | April 22, 2007 5:58 PM
Michelle Obama; 'He's just a man'
....That,admitted he took illegal drugs to discover himself?.
....That,decided to pay his 18 year old parking tickets just before he decided to run for President of the United States.
....Shady profitable land deals.
....Shady profits from stocks by-way-of companies he stumped for in The U.S.Senate.
....A Real hypocrite,someone the dems can be proud of...like Mr.($400.00 haircut,Two America's)
John Edwards.
These are the new leaders of the once great Democratic Party...FDR...Truman....JFK...?????
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | April 22, 2007 10:45 PM
Paulo,
Please.
I'm not a big fan of Barack Obama, but don't go there on land deals and hypocrisy. Take the beam out of your own party's eye - Bush, Cheney, Fat Boy from IL - before you start going down this road with Obama.
Posted by: Bud McFarlin | April 23, 2007 6:01 AM
Paulo, just for comparison, let's look at GWB's record:
- he was arrested for DUI in Maine in 1976 (when he was 30)
- he's an alcoholic & cocaine user during his formative years, which apparently lasted until he was 40
- he was AWOL during his cushy National Guard duty
- he was a 'C' student (at best) at Yale & Harvard (where he only got accepted because of family legacy)
- he is a failed businessman (Arbusto, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp, Harken Energy) but somehow he makes millions while the businesses go belly up. Hmmmm...
- he violated federal securities law at least 4 times in the late 1980s and early 1990s in selling Harken stock while serving as a director of Harken.
- his first 2 years of the Bush administration coincided with the biggest corporate scandals and bankruptcies since Teapot Dome in the 1920s (MCI/Worldcom, Enron, Harken Energy, Halliburton)
- as we are finding out daily, he has the most corrupt administration -- even beyond that of Harding & Nixon (oh, what a surprise -- both were Republicans!)
Posted by: Joe | April 23, 2007 7:54 AM
Doug -
You must not visit the Swamp very often. There are days they should just call it "Obama-land" becaus the Swamp posts so much about Obama. Sure he's a major player, but the Swamp doesn't post anything negative about this guy as they do about the other candidates. We can only take so much.
Posted by: no name | April 23, 2007 7:55 AM
He's just a man who lawyers for slumlords, then takes big-bucks campaign cash from those slumlords. An excerpt from today's Sun times:
"For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.
It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.
Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.
But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.
Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years. Rezko has been a political patron to Obama and many others, helping to raise millions of dollars for them through his own contributions and by hosting fund-raisers in his home.
Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.
The building in Englewood was one of 30 Rezmar rehabbed in a series of troubled deals largely financed by taxpayers. Every project ran into financial difficulty. More than half went into foreclosure, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.
"Their buildings were falling apart,'' said a former city official. "They just didn't pay attention to the condition of these buildings.''
Eleven of Rezko's buildings were in Obama's state Senate district.
Obama, now a U.S. senator running for president, has come under fire over his friendship with Rezko, who was charged last fall with demanding kickbacks on state business deals under Gov. Blagojevich. ..."
Posted by: bruce | April 23, 2007 8:09 AM
bruce,
All of your anti-Obama and anti-Democratic politicians in general rants are getting to be a bit boring.
BTW, how's the Iraq surge coming? Any sign of victory yet?
Posted by: BC | April 23, 2007 9:15 AM
Joe & Bud McFarlin:
Don't waste your time on Paulo. He'll post whatever smears that he can think of (or get out of his email Inbox), yet he refuses to do just a little research to back up his posts. For instance:
He's NEVER posted proof that the Hillary Clinton campaign staff was behind the Obama "madrassa school" smear that has been proven to be FALSE. It's been over two months since he made that post, he's been challenged MULTIPLE TIMES to post ANYTHING to back up his allegation - yet he's posted NOTHING to support his own posts.
He claimed that Bill Clinton pardoned 12 terrorists before leaving office. I've requested MULTIPLE TIMES for him to post their names, or at least a link PROVING that these people were terrorists. It's been a few weeks since he posted that, yet to date he's provided NOTHING to back up his allegation.
Since he has so much time to post, which means that he has enough time to do the research to support his claims, why hasn't he?
Could it be because he has been posting LIES and has no desire to post factual information?
Posted by: BC | April 23, 2007 9:23 AM
Smearing Obama by association, eh bruce?
-- Rezko's a slumlord
-- Obama is a friend of Rezko
-- Rezko contributes to Obama's campaigns
Therefore, Obama must be a slumlord too!
Right bruce?
Posted by: BC | April 23, 2007 9:26 AM
Could it be because he has been posting LIES and has no desire to post factual information?
Posted by: BC | Apr 23, 2007 9:23:50 AM
Thanks for the heads-up, BC. You may be right about Paulo. Either that, or his mother cuts off his internet access before he has a chance to do his homework.
Posted by: Joe | April 23, 2007 9:39 AM
I believe Bruce's implication is clear, that Obama accepts money from slumlords. Can't find anything in the facts that contradicts that very good, factual report from the Sun-Times (while the Tribune was running flowery features about Obama's wife).
My favorite lie from Obama is that he doesn't accept lobbyist money. That's a whopper that would make Bill C. proud.
Posted by: Jeff | April 23, 2007 9:50 AM
"Jeff', don't bother "BC" with facts. "BC" regards facts the way a dog regards a fire hydrant.
Posted by: bruce | April 23, 2007 10:24 AM
My favorite lie from Obama is that he doesn't accept lobbyist money. That's a whopper that would make Bill C. proud.
Posted by: Jeff | Apr 23, 2007 9:50:02 AM
Jeff, well he doesn't accept it FROM the lobbyists per se -- he accepts it from the Laundry, so it's always sparkling clean and SpringTime Fresh™!
Posted by: Kilgore Trout | April 23, 2007 10:44 AM
Why don't you guys salvage some pride and do a Swamp posting about the great investigative piece your cross-town rival did about Obama and his slumlord patron while you were all too busy writing love letters to Michelle Obama:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353829,CST-NWS-rez23.article
Posted by: Jeff | April 23, 2007 10:57 AM
My parents used to play those old 45s and ever so often the needle would hit a certain groove and that part of the song would play over and over...Mercilessly; until you bumped the needle arm (stylus?). Which reminds me of a certain poster.
If there's any such phenomenom as reincarnation, this man will resurface as a parrot. If he was born a native American, his parents would have named him "Broken Record". On his deathbed he'll still be singing the Obama-Got-a-Sweet-Land-Deal-From-Rezco-Blues...Go ahead, keep singing that played-out tune. As apparently you just don't get it: Reasonable people find cracked 45's annoying.
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 23, 2007 12:11 PM
Really? Reasonable people like the investigative reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times who are still waiting for Obama's campaign to explain what kind of work he did for Rezko. Face it, Russ, you're trapped. Your hero's nothing more than the Illinois machine politician some of us have always said he was.
Posted by: Jeff | April 23, 2007 2:25 PM
That post has very little to do with the land deal, too. It concentrates on the legal work Obama did for Rezmar in the late '80s and early '90s when Rezmar habitually mismanaged CHA buildings and found the money to give $1,000 to Obama's campaign for state senate even while most of its residents had had their heat shut off. Regular hero, that Barack.
Posted by: Jeff | April 23, 2007 2:50 PM
I was wondering why the Trib had no article on Obama and Rezko, then saw the Michelle story and realized that it's way more important to know that he didn't put away the butter - and that she is now firing up a staff to help him get elected. But then I started wondering again - Obama is everywhere but in the Senate conducting business - and still getting a paycheck for doing nothing but campaigning - will his wife still be raking in her $248,000 paycheck for campaigning with him and not doing her job?
Posted by: Linda | April 23, 2007 3:20 PM
If this story wasn't a dusty, worned-down-to-the-grooves "broken record", the national media would be all it. Sun-Times is the local step-sista rag, hanging on by a thread--desperately hurting for eyeballs. And it's a sure bet they'll draw-in raving Obamaphobes, who salivate like a starving wolf whenever they read something remotely negative about Barack.
Trapped? Pleeeze. Better breakout your little smear shovel and dig a lot deeper. Since this Rezko issue was so scandalous, why did Obama set a record for fundraising in the primary? Oh, I forgot...All the people who ponied up their cash have simply fallen--like myself--under the Obama spell, right? Look, compared to the misdeeds of the current WH resident, Obama's faux pas doesn't even register a bleep on the Corruption Scale. Further, he's admitted on numerous occasions it was a bonehead blunder. How many other politicians are that self-critical about their errs. He's also stated that he's a "flawed vessel"...Should make a CD album with reptitive apologies?
What about the outrageously ridiculous claims (lie) your boy McCain made about the "safe" conditions in Iraq. Instead of acting like a deaf-mute, why don't you sing that song in the ground. Again, zero balance...
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 23, 2007 4:26 PM
Newsflash: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070423/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_dc_1
"Obama pulls even with Clinton in White House race"
Hey, Broken Record:
What happened? I thought HRC was trouncing Obama in the polls? Huh? What? Could you please speak up, I didn't hear you...
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 23, 2007 4:35 PM
Hey Dbag, what does fundraising have to do with serving the people of Illinois as he was elected to?
There's nothing old about this Obama story. It's the first major investigation of his ties to Rezko. Part two comes out tomorrow.
But since you're so in love with music today, youngster, I'm going to grace you with the lyrics to some classic rock just for little Russ Styles and the object of his affection.
Obama (with apologies to The Who)
Obama, I had no idea how much I'd need him
In peaceful times I hold him close and I feed him
My heart starts palpitating when I think my guess was wrong
But I think I'll get along
He's just BO - he's da bomb
Obama, all I ever want to do is please him
My life has been so settled and he's the reason
Just one word from him and my troubles are long gone
But I think I'll get along
He's just BO- he's da bomb
Just BO just BO
Just BO just BO
Just BO just BO
He's just BO
Obama, my heart felt like a shattered glass in an acid bath
I felt like one of those flattened ants you find on a crazy path
I'd of topped myself to give him time he didn't need to ask
Was I a suicidal psychopath?
He's just BO - he's da bomb
Consumed, there was a beautiful white horse I saw on a dream stage
He had a snake the size of a sewer pipe living in his rib cage
I felt like a pickled priest who was being flambed
You were requisitioned blondie
He's just BO - he's da bomb
I'm happy, I'm ecstatic
Just BO just BO
Just BO just BO
Just BO just BO
He's just BO
Look into the face of a child
Measure how long you smiled
Before the memory claimed
How long would children remain
How long would children remain
Obam, you picked me up by my lapels and screamed "leave him"
It felt like waking up in heaven on an empty meter
And now you're stuck with a castrated leader
And I hate the creep, I didn't mean that
He's a bomb
I just said it
She's a bomb
I didn't mean it, please
He's da bomb
Obama, I had no idea how much I need him
My life has been so settled and he's the reason
Just one word from him and my troubles are long gone
But I get along
He's just BO, just BO
He's just BO, he's just BO
Guess what, Rus? The national media's all over the Sun-Times' Rezko series.
http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2007/04/obama_and_his_chicago_slumlord.html
You and your fellow Obama-ites best gird yourselves up for a long and difficult PR war. It'll take more than raising money from Hollywood and smiling for the cameras to win this one. Your long honeymoon with the press looks like it's finally over.
Posted by: Jeff | April 23, 2007 5:14 PM
Rus Styles, you should read the Sun Times piece before you brush it aside. The sleazy land deal is not the point.
The piece is about Mr Breathofreshair's legal work, and his refusal to answer questions about it.
But since you're spinning your wheels about the sleazy land deal...
I really don't understand why you admire Obama for admiting that the deal "was a bonehead blunder."
Now if he were to admit that it was SLEAZY, I'd admire his candor.
But "boneheaded blunder" sure sounds like he's sorry he got caught -- or at the very least it sounds like he's not seeing it as the ethical mistep that it is.
Maybe you can explain what it is we're missing here.
Oh, and "Golly gee, Barack sure is POPULAR!" doesn't answer anything. Never did. Sorry.
Posted by: Kilgore Trout | April 23, 2007 5:16 PM
Therefore, Obama must be a slumlord too!
Right bruce?
Posted by: BC | Apr 23, 2007 9:26:07 AM
BC: What it means is, he exercised bad judgement with that fellow, just like the potential Dems' pandering to the racist and anti-semite Sharpton. It just makes you look bad in the eyes of a lot of people, of all political stripes. You lay down with dogs, you pick up fleas.
Posted by: Don B | April 23, 2007 7:47 PM
Kilgore: People don't become popular amongst a wide demographic, and draw 20K+ crowds by being sleazy. If you're against him, your ethical lens is going to be biased accordingly. I perused the article and Obama--VIA MY BIASED LENS--is not the villain. I concur, his decision-making was clearly reproachable, but again, how many times do you sledgehammer this dead horse? Let him RIP..
Now, speaking of sleaze, Jeff showed his below-the-belt sleaziness as well as a lack of creativity by calling me a "D-Bag"...I've never used any type of vulgar sobriquets to describe Jeff. Can't we agree to disagree, while maintaining basic blogger decorum. Further, that rhyme slime was...Well, my 5 year old brother could construct something more intelligible and creative. Henceforth, I'll refrain from responding to Jeff's posts and/or referencing his name or quotes. I'd greatly appreciate the same consideration...
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 23, 2007 10:16 PM
Kilgore: People don't become popular amongst a wide demographic, and draw 20K+ crowds by being sleazy. If you're against him, your ethical lens is going to be biased accordingly. I perused the article and Obama--VIA MY BIASED LENS--is not the villain. I concur, his decision-making was clearly reproachable, but again, how many times do you sledgehammer this dead horse? Let him RIP..
Now, speaking of sleaze, Jeff showed his below-the-belt sleaziness as well as a lack of creativity by calling me a "D-Bag"...I've never used any type of vulgar sobriquets to describe Jeff. Can't we agree to disagree, while maintaining basic blogger decorum. Further, that rhyme slime was...Well, my 5 year old brother could construct something more intelligible and creative. Henceforth, I'll refrain from responding to Jeff's posts and/or referencing his name or quotes. I'd greatly appreciate the same consideration...
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 23, 2007 10:17 PM
"Kilgore: People don't become popular amongst a wide demographic, and draw 20K+ crowds by being sleazy."
Posted by: Rus Styles | Apr 23, 2007 10:17:10 PM
Oh yeah? I have two words for you -- Lyndon Johnson.
"Dbag" was uncalled for Jeff. Rus, so was "Broken Record" since Jeff is only raising facts -- relevant ones -- which some people foolishly or cynically choose to simply ignore.
Why can't you kids just get along?
Posted by: Kilgore Trout | April 24, 2007 6:41 AM
Sorry about calling you a dbag, Russ. I apologize. I felt it was in the spirit of The Who's song. But you'll get no such deference from me, because this is clearly a guy who has become popular by being sleazy. I take it a little personally when someone denigrates hardworking journalists who are doing their jobs like the investigative team from the Sun-Times did, as I am a journalist myself. Just curious, but how is calling the Sun-Times a "step-sista rag" any better?
It's clear you still haven't read the Sun-Times investigation, which the Tribune has a follow-up on today.
Here's the Tribune's story about the Rezko connections and Obama's incomplete answers. So, I ask is the Tribune a "step-sista rag," too?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704230648apr24,1,671186.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 6:48 AM
WOW!!!! Those Sun -Times articles are going to be very damaging to the anointed one, I'd feel real gloomy if I was Hussein Obama backer.
RUDY 2008............................................................
Posted by: Don B | April 24, 2007 9:02 AM
This little spat and Rus' reactionary attack on the Sun-Times reminded me of the great 1994 film "The Paper," starring Michael Keaton and Robert Duvall. In the film, Keaton's character, a city editor at a New York tabloid format paper not unlike the New York Daily News or The New York Post, has been offered a position at the New York Times-esque New York Sentinel.
At his interview the editor offering him the job tells him "at the Sentinel we cover the World."
Keaton's character steals a story lead off the Sentinel editor's desk and goes back to his paper, The New York Sun, and spends the rest of the day getting a great scoop of both The Sentinel and every other daily on a double-murder story.
When the editor confronts Keaton's character about stealing the lead he says, "do you realize, you've given up your chance to cover the World!"
Keaton's character replies: "Well, I don't live in the (expletive deleted) World, I live in New York (expletive deleted) City!"
The similarities to our two dailies here in Chicago shouldn't be ignored or blown off as Russ would like them to be.
Here's part two, detailing City Hall's shameful cover-up and support of Rezmar over the years. Another great investigative piece by Tim Novak, who doesn't cover "the World," but rather covers the Great City of Chicago.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/355099,cst-nws-rez24a.article
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 9:21 AM
Kilgore & Jeff (I accept your apology.):
You want to start naming politicians--save perhaps Jimmy Carter--who have not done something that could be charcterized as sleazy to make their way, or slept with a dog or two in the name of getting things done? Even one of the so-called best American presidents not only bought and sold other human beings like cattle, he committed adultery, and had children via a sexual relationship with one of his human bondage. Now that's sleazy! Yet, we still have monuments honoring this national hero.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a Pope that--if you dug hard and deep enough--you couldn't scrounge-up a dollop or two of manure. At least Obama admits that he's flawed. Again, what should he do at this point? Get on his knees a la Jimmy Swaggert: "Forgive me my fellow Americans...For I have sinned!"
When making an important voting decision, many logical people look at the whole person--The Good, Bad & Ugly. Then, like ol' Abe, list the positives juxtaposed to the negatives, and determine which side wins. Clearly, alot of--smart and successful--people have concluded that Obama's positives overshadow his negs. Look, this guy has more support amongst Repubs and Indies than any other Demo candidate; even more than some of the current repub wannabees. Why are there a slew of Repubs for Obama websites cropping up like weeds? Please don't serve-up the ol' Conspiracy Theory...
BTW, I totally disagree (with you) that the jocular, non-vulgar term "Broken Record", which tied-in to the valid point I was making regarding the repetitiveness of recounting the Rezko Affair, is on par with the mean-spirited, vulgar term D-bag. And if you're as smart as I think you are, YOU KNOW THAT.
Also, calling a corporate entity a step-sista publication, which--in my opinion--it's not on par quality-wise with C-Trib, is 180 degrees different than calling a specific individual(s) a derogatory term, e.g., Imus calling the individual Rutgers players ....Hos. Very offensive. If he had said Rutgers is the step-sista university to Princeton, I dare say he'd still be on the air. I'm dismayed that you'd make this uncomparable comparison.
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 24, 2007 10:11 AM
I'm not "blowing" anything off. This is a clear lack of oversight, leadership and perhaps integrity in CITY HALL. And, the people of Chicago are culpable as well. For example, when I lived in Prov, RI, there were some abandoned homes on my block that had become a defacto dumping ground for people from the burbs. I took pics and wrote a letter to the mayor and demanded that he demolish said eyesores, as they were not only fire and health hazards, but magnets for rats, roaches, etc. And these bluecollar taxpayers deserved the same respect as Brown U. eastsiders. I gave him 10 days to fix it or I'd be singing to the Prov Journal. In two days the buildings were gone. I was in the 10th grade at the time. So, it's totally inexcuseable that adults, whatever part of town they're from, sit back on their idle hands and do nothing but criticize how bad certain parts of the city look.
It sounds like you're laying all this Rezko business in Obama's lap. And, that's not what I infer from the article. There's plenty fault to go around. No one politician can cure all the ills in a city or society. Where were all these investigative reporters--including yourself--at the time of these transgressions? I don't live in Chicago, so I don't know the geo layout, but I'm sure someone, besides the residents, saw these building deteriorating...If you saw it, you knew about. If you knew about and did nothing, you're part of the problem...Period.
Ok, he had some ties, took a lil' campaign dough and exploited Rezko's connections to further enhance his chances to rise into the position to effect positive change. I don't like it. Nor does he. But, being a an unconnected, young neophyte, what were his options. Persue a Naderesque path and disassociate himself with any and all power players? (I respect Ralph, but he'll never become a major influencer.) Now that he has some gravitas and political maturity, if he were to hook-up with another Rezko-type character, I'd have to seek another candidate...
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 24, 2007 10:59 AM
If it's not meant to be derogatory, then why use the hip-hop slang spelling of "sista" anyway? And at least I cleaned it up for you a little bit.
To me, the context that makes it comparable. You're trying to say the Sun-Times is a low/lousy paper in order to prop up your candidate while adamently refusing to acknowledge it's award-winning investigative reporting. Do the words "Hired Truck" mean anything to you? You know who broke that story? Will you at least concede that the Sun-Times report is a fine piece of investigative reporting? No, you won't, because that would mean the emperor has no clothes, right?
Whether you're willing to overlook Obama's faults or not isn't the issue. It's that Obama has crafted this image of himself that he's going to "change Washington," when in reality he couldn't even change Chicago! He slept with all the same dogs as every other Chicago machine politician. And what Thomas Jefferson did back in 1790s has nothing to do with what Obama STILL doesn't admit to today.
Why won't he answer the Sun-Times' questions if he admits it's such a mistake? Why won't he denounce Rezko and endorse his prosecution? And refuse to accept any more money from him?
For the last time, Russ, there's nothing old about the reportage of these new Rezko ties that have to do with legal work he did as a lawyer before his political patron helped him get elected to the state senate. And saying he has great support among republicans or dems is completely beyond the point. You know this was never about Obama's support. Poll numbers at this early juncture are meaningless for anything other than fundraising, anyway.
This is relevant precisely BECAUSE Obama says he's different than other politicians, when the reality is he's as dirty as any and probably dirtier than most.
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 11:08 AM
Also, give me your reasoned discourse on why the Tribune is better, qualitywise. I can point to a lot of Sun-Times investigations (and I've already mentioned one) that have won major awards.
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 11:24 AM
Rats, we've been pushed off the front page. I'll keep checking back here for a response. I'm still here, fear not.
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 11:46 AM
You've read too much into the step sista metaphor...
RULERS ARE BETTER POSITIONED TO CHANGE RULES
Now, you still haven't provided a comaparitve list of flea-less, pristine politicians. Let's remain rooted in political reality: Firstly, Obama didn't create the present political precepts. So let's--for debate's sake--give him the benefit of doubt that his true ambition/desire is to become a change-agent. You really think he'd have any chance to win the POTUS race by ignoring or eschewing all of the well-established routes to power? That would be a naive, still-born strategy.
You reconstruct the ladder once you reach the top--not at the begining or mid-point of the climb. I have faith that he will make every effort to change PAU; but as you well know, POTUS is not a solo act, except in the mind of Bush. Hopefully, Obama will have a chance to flex his consensus muscles, then it'll be up to The People to hold their reps feet to the fire.
HOW DID HE DO IT?
Again, you and other obamaphobes only target, like a heat-seeking missile, his mistakes. You still haven't answered why a junior senator, who only a few years ago was a political nobody, has become a Dem frontrunner and has excited a wide swath of Americans like no other politician since Bobby K. I know, we're blinded by his smile and svelte swimwear-ready physique. huh?
TWO-WAY POSITION (It doesn't work)
When he was lagging in the polls, you consistently chided he was getting trounced. Now that he's tied the more experienced and better connected frontrunner, and is on a trajectory to surpass her, you say the polls are meaningless--you want your cake, icing, icecream, cappaccino...Have it both ways if you will, but your credibility, especially as an "objective" jounalist, is taking serious blows.
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 24, 2007 12:37 PM
You've read too much into the step sista metaphor...
RULERS CHANGE RULES
Now, you still haven't provided a list of flea-less, pristine politicians. Let's be rooted in political reality: Firstly, Obama didn't create the present political precepts. Let's give him the BOD (benefit of doubt) that his true ambition/desire is to become a change-agent. You really think he'd have any chance to win the POTUS race by ignoring or eschewing all of the well-established routes to power? That would be a naive, still-born strategy.
You reconstruct the ladder once you reach the top--not at the begining or mid-point of the climb. I have faith that he will make every effort to change PAU; but as you well know, POTUS is not a solo act, except in the mind of Bush. Hopefully, Obama will have a chance to flex his consensus muscles, then it'll be up to The People to hold their reps feet to the fire.
HOW DID HE DO IT?
Again, you and other obamaphobes only target, like a heat-seeking missile, his mistakes. You still haven't answered why a junior senator, who only a few years ago was a political nobody, has become a Dem frontrunner and has excited many Americans like no other politician since Bobby K. We're blinded by his smile and svelte swimwear-ready physique. huh?
TWO-WAY POSITION (It doesn't work)
When he was lagging in the polls, you consistently chided he was getting trounced. Now that he's tied the more experienced and better connected frontrunner, and is on a trajectory to surpass her, you say the polls are meaningless--you want your cake, icing, icecream, cappaccino...Have it both ways if you will, but your credibility, especially as an "objective" jounalist, is taking serious blows.
I'm not questioning Sun-Times jounalistic quality. I'm talking about circulation, name-recognition, revenue generation, etc. If Sun-Times is on par in these areas, I stand corrected.
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 24, 2007 12:41 PM
Oh, Russ, I don't question why he's become a frontrunner. The same way he became a frontrunner against Blair Hull, a complicit media. Obama's been the recipient of help because of his race, pure and simple. It's the only way he was able to beat two candidates who consistently outpolled him for U.S. Senate before the Tribune went to work on them, why should it be any different now?
You should pick a better example than Kennedy, too, because there's every reason to believe he wouldn't've been reelected had he not become a martyr, anyway. Getting us stuck in Vietnam was the least of his faults.
He's not tied with Hillary, anyway. The only poll that cites this supposed dead-heat is the often inaccurate Rasmussen Reports poll. I'll stick with the numbers from Gallup and Quinnipiac, thanks. But, no, I don't believe in polls at least until primary season. I didn't believe them when they said McCain was ahead and I don't now. Otherwise we'd be saluting President Dean.
You, Russ, might give him the BoD because you're a true believer and that's fine. But I and most voters, won't. It certainly begs the question of exactly what it will take for you to acknowledge the obvious about Obama. We now know he was accepting campaign checks from Rezko while Rezko's tenants were freezing because he wouldn't pay to turn the heat back on. Pretty damning, to me. To us it matters if you say you're a breath of fresh air and you're really much of the same. Ladder metaphors have nothing to do with it. And no one cares how you and other Americans are "excited" by Obama. We've been sold that bill of goods before, thanks.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17065119/page/4/
The Sun-Times lags slightly behind the Tribune in revenue generation and circulation but not by much. They have a higher circulation in the city than the broadsheet does and the Trib. has more suburban readers. Neither measure is an objective reading of the quality of their products.
You obviously have never been in a newsroom before if you don't think calling another writer's publication a "rag" is anything but the most serious attack. I wouldn't advise doing it lightly. But that's just me.
Just curious, but why did you use the hip-hop slang "sista" instead of sister, then?
"...then it'll be up to The People to hold their reps feet to the fire."
This is exactly what we're doing right now. Does the representative deserve a reprieve simply because his name is Obama? I've documented here where he's lied to us before.
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 2:00 PM
Your cred is quickly crumbling under the weight of your palpable bias. So, he's only made this meteoric ascent because of his melanin content. His smarts; personality; people, consensus-building, oratory skills; the fact he took a low-paying job working with indigent folks, etc, are all irrelevant you say. His only crowning achievement is being part black. He was accepted and excelled at Harvard because he was black. Elected to president of Harvard Law Review because he was black. I wonder why he didn't win his first Senate run. Oh, of course, he was running against another black. And, people-from the entire ethnic spectrum--bought his books and turned them into best sellers because he was black.
WOW! Thanks for that valuable insight!! I guess all us blacks need to do is show up and we'll win any election we enter because "we's" black. Brilliant analyis! You should write a self-help achievement book for blacks: "Be Anything You Want To Be--Just By Being Black!" That was more offensive than D-bag. I have to believe you just don't know any better and leave it at that.
No, I haven't been in a newsroom, so I wasn't aware that "rag" was such a demeaning term. But, I still didn't attack any individual. It's clearly not the same, and you need to stop stretching it to make it fit. And, for the last time, there's no insiduous message in the use of the colloquial form of sister. Why are you fixated on that picayune point?
Meanwhile, keep playing that cracked Rezko 45; obviously you're convinced that it's doing some good, and it makes your day. However, if that's all the mud you Righties can muster, we'll be ok.
Posted by: Rus Styles | April 24, 2007 3:12 PM
Russ, so it's a coincidence that the media dug into both Jack Ryan and Blair Hull's divorce files with such gusto? Just a coincidence, right? Or that he got elected with less than 50% of the people of Illinois voting due to apathy since the Republicans couldn't field a real candidate so close to the election? All a coincidence, right?
Or that both candidates were ahead of Obama in the polls when the hatchet jobs came out? Just a coincidence, right? Or that the Tribune's own former public editor, Don Wycliff, lambasted his own reporters for overplaying the Ryan scandal? All just a coincidence, right?
Face it, Obama is a media hype creation and if you want to believe he's the next messiah just because he's half-black that's your prerogative, but I'm not the first and I won't be the last to point it out to you. We shouldn't elect someone BECAUSE of their race for the exact same reason we should NOT elect someone because of their race. Yours is the racist statement, here. If you don't think whole political campaigns have been waged based on nothing more than race in this state then look at the campaigns of Harold Washington or Jesse Jackson, Jr.
How, exactly, does this qualify you for higher office? "the fact he took a low-paying job working with indigent folks." So? He's a do-gooder? How about all the money Rezko paid him to do legal work? Your "reasons" to say Obama is qualified are ten times worse than my assertions that he's not. I mean, you do realize that those two books you tout so much were written when he should have been representing the people of Illinois, don't you? And he didn't share the million dollar advances with any of us.
If there's nothing insidious about "sista" why won't you explain why you used it? Consensus-building oratory skills. Wow, I about fell off my chair laughing when I read that one. It's a-okay to let people freeze to death for your slumlord patron so long as you have consensus building oratory skills.
I guess I'm glad the view from Providence is so rosy for Obama because anyone from Illinois has already seen enough of this guy. We've been lied to enough and we've simply had enough. So, yes, we're against Obama. And he'd better hope he wins the presidency because if he doesn't he's got a LOT of explaining to do to the people he HASN'T been representing for the last three years.
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 4:26 PM
Russ, here's some links of others who are skeptical of the Obamessiah story that the media has been hyping for the last year or so, it includes such righty rags as Slate.com, which is particularly good for media fawning evidence:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2007/01/31/is_barack_obama_the_messiah
http://www.slate.com/id/2159132/
http://www.slate.com/id/2158578/?nav/navoa/
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/02/could_obama_be_.html
As you can see, I'm FAR from alone in my skepticism of this do nothing senator.
Remember, the left said Bush was unqualified. What reason do I possibly have, then, to believe a one-term senator who's spent his entire term doing photo ops and campaigning is more qualified than a two-term governor?
Posted by: Jeff | April 24, 2007 4:46 PM
If you plan on working for the President Elect in his cabinet or staff, then he wants to know everything about you. Trust me, when he says everything, he means it. The application and screening is so intrusive, he might as well throw in credit repair while he’s at it. The 7 page, 63 question packet, inquires about anything and everything they can think of. Applicants must readily discuss everything they and their spouses have done in the last 10 years. They must list every iota of published work, such as books, articles submitted to journals, even things they have written on the internet, along with any and all aliases that were used in the creation and submission of said work. Also, any and all e-mails or text messages that have been sent that could be damaging. And finally, any website URL of any website you use in a personal or professional capacity, such as MySpace or FaceBook. Oh, and this is only 3 of the questions. Free credit repair should come free with any litany of personal information that in depth. Click to read more on Credit Repair.
Posted by: Lisa P | November 21, 2008 12:17 AM