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Obama, The Teflon Candidate?

It's not your imagination, dirt just doesn't stick to Barack Obama, it slides right off. Are the American voting public, the Democrats in particular and the news media giving giving the first serious Black presidential candidate a pass, is he just lucky or is the dirt not really dirt at all?

First there were the unimpressive first debates with their lack of content and confidence. No one really seemed to care except the gleeful other candidates.

Next, there was the friend in high places, Tony Rezko, more specifically the indicted Tony Rezko. Obama has known Tony and his wife Rita for several years and Mr Rezko has been a major contributor to his campaigns. According to the Washington Post, Rezko and another fellow allegedly tried to coerce a business man in to donating a sizable sum to a political campaign a few years ago. "In one instance, Rezko and Stuart Levine, a member of two state boards, allegedly demanded that a firm seeking investment business pay a $2 million fee to a middleman or give $1.5 million to the campaign of "a certain public official," later identified as Blagojevich, stated the Post in December 2006. Then of course the land deal involving Rezko, his wife and the Obamas. A situation Obama later admitted to regretting. In short, Obama bought a parcel of land in a ritzy neighborhood for $300,000 below market value on the same day Rezko purchased the adjacent property which Obama then bought a piece of. It's all very complicated, Obama did nothing legally wrong apparently except give the impression of possible wrong doing - which if I've heard correctly, lawyers aren't supposed to do.

You can be sure that the Rezko folly would have stuck to any other candidate far longer than Obama has had to answer for it. If it had been said about a Clinton, we may have even seen a full blown investigation paid for by the taxpayers of our great country. But I digress, with apologies.

Speaking of our great country, presidential campaigns and spouses, Michelle Obama, not long ago, dropped the bomb shell that this is the first time in her adult life she has been proud of her country! Explanation point intended. OK so Mrs Obama isn't used to speaking on national television, maybe. Or perhaps we misunderstood her. Maybe, it's because she just didn't like any of the presidents that we have had in her lifetime. If Elizabeth Edwards or Cynthia McCain made that statement it would have been dissected for weeks ad-nauseum and their candidate husbands as well as their respective staff would have been held accountable, at least some of the criticism would have stuck around a bit.

I don't know about you but I know if I were to run for School Board president and was a member of a church who's pastor was my spiritual mentor and infamous for his rantings containing racial hatred, my candidacy would be abruptly halted. There would be more than a little explaining to do. A pretty speech just wouldn't have cut the mustard. Imagine then if this was the Clinton campaign. Need I really have to say how that would go?

For all his repudiating what Reverend White had to say, Obama still has not criticized nor denounced the man himself for his beliefs. Why should he, after-all, he is the Teflon Candidate.

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