The MSM was shamelessly partial to Barack Obama during both the primaries and the general election campaign. It is easy enough to see that this was unfair both to Hillary Clinton and to John McCain. It is not so easy to see how much this mattered to the outcome. Ronald Reagan was despised by the media when he crushed Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. Of course, the MSM back then (when there was no non-MSM) didn't much like Carter either.
What was very hard to see during the election was that the media's favoritism did a disservice to Obama as well. Obama came of age as a politician in one of the most miasmal urban swamps in America. Chicago, unlike New York, has never had a reform movement. It has been said that it is an East European city ruled by Irishmen. That's not bad, and it tells the story. Chicago's government works by buying off each significant ethnic group or local union with favors from City Hall. The idea of responsible government independent of loyalty, alliances, and deals is altogether unknown there. Governor Blagojevich was only behaving as if Illinois was Chicago, and Chicago the world.
Could Obama have put down roots in that swamp without being tainted by it? Well, there is the image of the Lotus Flower: beloved by Eastern religions because it grows in mud but seems always spotless and bright. But then there is Robert Penn Warren's Willie Stark, who observed that, "from the stink of the diaper to the stench of the grave, there is always something." I quote from memory, but the point is that we all have secrets to conceal. Chicago is a good place to acquire such secrets.
The MSM is now asking serious questions about Obama's connections with Rod Blagojevich and the Chicago machine. Now that the election is over, that is. During the long campaign I recall only one significant story about Obama's Chicago past. The Boston Globe did a very strong expose on Grove Parc Plaza, a housing project built with public subsidies and private capital. Obama was a major sponsor of that project. It didn't turn out well.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.
Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.
Let's summarize this. Barack Obama sponsored "rehabilitation" housing units in Chicago, bringing government subsides into the hands of his political allies. The latter soaked up the subsides and then let the housing rot. There are a lot of interesting names in the above quotes. Valerie Jarrett, who was apparently considered for Obama's Senate seat, is there. Tony Rezko, Obama's guardian angel, now in the Federal pen and apparently singing, is also there.
The Grove Parc Plaza story is a scandal on its own. Obama may have meant well, but when his Chicago buddies cut the poor residents of that place adrift, so did he. This story should have been picked up by the national media and a lot of attention should have been focused on it. Then all the dark corners would have been cleared before the election. Instead, the national press ignored the story and no one with any resources did any digging on their own.
So now Obama has to deal with his first scandal as he prepares to take office. I am guessing that he was smart enough to avoid any real liabilities. But the media that so obviously favored him during the election might have favored him more by doing their job a little better.
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