John McCain Calls Tullycast a Commie
Barack Obama, Broadcatching Blog, Election 2008, John McCain, John Tully, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, New York Herald Sun, Politics, Tina Fey, Tullycast
Karl Rove
Mr. Rove's Wild Ride
Ari Fleisher, Atta, Bababooey, Baghdad, Balackwater USA, Barack Obama, Bechtel, Bill Kristol, Broadcatching, Bush Doctrine, Carlyle Group, Charles Krauthammer, Contractors, Dan Senor, Dick Cheney, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, George W. Bush, George Will, GOP, Haditha, Halliburton, Iran, Iraq, Irving Kristol, Joe Biden, John McCain, John Tully, Joseph Wilson, Karl Rove, Kellog Brown and Root, Patraeus, Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, PNAC, Ramadi, Republican, Richard Perle, Rove+Poerpoint, Sarah Palin, Scott McCllelan, Security Council, Sen. Robert Byrd, Shinseki, Tom Daschle, Valerie Plame, War On TerrorismBY John Tully
October 8 2002
The Los Angeles Sun—
Politics is not a pretty thing.
Look no further than this week in Washington D. C. Former Vice-president Albert Gore Jr. finally brought up the huge marsupial in the room. Criminy! folks, that’s gonna’ wake the whole herd up mate!
Senate Leader Tom Daschle, who seemed to have stashed his opinions in a lock box this summer finally blew his top on the Senate floor denouncing President Bush’s comment at a recent fundraiser that the “Senate” is more interested in “special interests” than in the Security Of Americans. That very same fundraiser pushed the President past Bill Clinton’s record of $126 million raised in one year and it’s only the last week of September.
Stepping right up to the plate this week was a small group of Senators who have been all too quiet this summer with any dissent of this administration’s dual War On Terrorism and Iraq. In fact the debate on war had bipassed “if” and went straight through to “when” and “who’s with us” by the time Mr. Gore finally cleared his throat Monday in San Francisco. Actual questions were raised about our effectiveness in toppling Saddam and how to proceed post-war in Iraq among others.
Sen. Robert Byrd paced and shook with disdain as he read Bush’s remarks from the newspaper on the senate floor. Sen. Daschle’s voice broke as he defended his colleagues, spoke of members who have served in the military and demanded an apology from the President. He also spoke of not politicizing the nation’s debate. It was a classic case of “too little,too late”
Back in June an internal G.O.P. playbook, authored by White House political strategist Karl Rove got into the hands of the opposition. The Powerpoint presentation suggested Republican candidates play up the “War” to keep the political dialogue on their side of the fence.The relative silence of the Democrats this summer only strengthened the resolve of the true hawks in the administration and a bipartisan resolution for war will almost definitely be passed by both houses. For GOP candidates however, the strategy might not pay off.
A new poll released this week shows that while the majority of Americans are for action against Iraq, three out of five want our allies to sign on. Colin Powell would like to go back to the Security Council soon with a joint resolution from the United States Congress and it looks as if he will have it. Unfortunately for the Republicans, this momentary truce focuses the debate back onto the domestic front where, as usual, it is the Economy…stupid.
Crikey! The bugger just ate his own heed!
Politics is not a pretty creature.
Online Poker, Fantasy Football, TMZ or a Reasonable Discussion of What Exactly Happened on 9/11?
9/11, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Bill Kristol, Bin Laden, Blackwater USA, Broadcatching, Carlyle Group, Charles Krauthammer, Civil Liberties, Consensus Journalism, Department of Homeland Security, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Douchebaggery, Douglas Feith, Election 2008, Elliot Abrams, FBI, FISA, George Bush, GOP, Halliburton, Howard Stern, Irving Kristol, Joe Biden, Joseph Wilson, Journalism, Judith Miller, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Kellogg Brown and Root, Matt Cooper, McCain, Michael Mukasey, Ohio, Oil, Patrick Fitzgerald, Patriot Act, PNAC, Politics of Fear, Richard Mellon Scaife, Robert Luskin, Robert Novak, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Saddam Hussein, Scooter Libby, Shock Doctrine, The New York Times, Tim Russert, Tullycast, Valerie Plame, Viveca Novak
I was alluding to the fact that people can spend hours investigating a succotash recipe or watch hours of mindless television or play video poker until the cows come home, eat and then go back
out but immediately scoff and mock a discussion of the worst attack on the U.S. in it’s history.
It’s disturbing.
Liberal architects investigating the World Trade Center Towers?
Please.
Karl Rove’s Media Birds Chirp About Obama’s ‘Arrogance’
Dana Milbank, David Ignatitus, Eric Alterman, Karl Rove, McCain, Obama, The New York TimesThursday, July 31, 2008 by Salon.com
Glenn Greenwald
Displaying the startling prescience and unconventional insights that have long been the hallmark of his magazine, The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait wrote on June 30:
The best aspect of a McCain presidency is that, while it would probably follow the policies of George W. Bush, it would put an end to the politics of Karl Rove . . . . In Bush’s Washington, critics are enemies to be dismissed rather than engaged. A McCain presidency would promise to dismantle the whole Rovian method that has torn open such a deep wound in the national psyche.
From The New York Times Editorial Page, yesterday:
On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.
From The New York Times today:
After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. . . .
Mr. McCain’s campaign is now under the leadership of members of President Bush’s re-election campaign, including Steve Schmidt, the czar of the Bush war room that relentlessly painted his opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as effete, elite, and equivocal through a daily blitz of sound bites and Web videos that were carefully coordinated with Mr. Bush’s television advertisements.The run of attacks against Mr. Obama over the last couple of weeks have been strikingly reminiscent of that drive, including the Bush team’s tactics of seeking to make campaigns referendums on its opponents — not a choice between two candidates — and attacking the opponent’s perceived strengths head-on.
There’s obviously nothing surprising about the McCain campaign’s reliance on the standard, personality-based attacks that the GOP uses every election year. It’s long been obvious to everyone outside of The TNR Circle that McCain’s only prospect for winning would be to move the election away from debates over issues (where his positions are widely rejected by the public) and instead demonize Barack Obama as an effete, elitist, effeminate, far Leftist, terrorist-loving radical, and it was equally obvious that McCain — “drooling for power like a fruit bat with rabies,” as Matt Taibbi put it in November, 2006 — would eagerly employ those Rovian tactics. That may be a surprise to long-time Beltway McCain worshipers such as Chait and The Washington Post’s David Ignatitus (who today longed for McCain’s “healing gift,” “this fiercely independent man,” and “not the heroism but the humility”), but not to anyone else.
What is far more notable than McCain’s now almost-complete reliance on Rovian demonization themes is how obediently the establishment media has been spouting and disseminating them. Five weeks ago, on June 23, Karl Rove appeared at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club, mocked Obamacooly arrogant.” Ever since, that Obama is “arrogant” — and the related sin: “presumptuous” — has become standard, mandated media script. as “the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by,” and labeled him “
It’s now literally difficult to find a discussion of Obama in the establishment press that isn’t based on this personality-based theme — with media stars either expressing the opinion themselves or repeating it as a McCain talking point. Last night, CNN’s Campbell Brown, hosting Anderson Cooper’s show, framed the show this way:
But is Obama vulnerable? Is he arrogant? . . . David, the McCain campaign, Republicans, they are consistently playing up this notion that Obama is presumptuous, arrogant. Can they stick him with this label?
Here’s the front page of Politico today:
This is exactly what happens every single election cycle. The Right spews some petty, personality-based attack, and the chirping media birds then mindlessly repeat it until it’s lodged into our discourse as accepted fact. That’s the media strategy on which the Right is relying to win the election this year again — dictating the songs sung by the vapid, chirping press birds — even as they petulantly and incessantly complain that the same media stars who serve this strategy are stacked against them. Yesterday’s, National Review’s Rich Lowry posted what he called “musings from a shrewd friend” about a Dana Milbank column in yesterday’s Washington Post that repeated every last “Obama-is-arrogant” cliché (”there are signs that the Obama campaign’s arrogance has begun to anger reporters”). Lowry’s “shrewd” friend:
[Obama’s] showing hubris and contempt for the rest of us in how he considers America fundamentally broken and he’s the solution. Messianism is usually a quality you don’t want in a president. This was always the soft underbelly of his candidacy. They’ve gotten too caught up in their own story. What always does in a celebrity? Overexposure. The question now is whether Dana Milbank is the bird leaving the wire and every other bird in the press follows him or not. If this narrative sets in, Obama might have to move up his VP announcement to change the story.
Judge Rules White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed
Afghanistan, AIPAC, Alberto Gonzales, Ari Fleisher, Bay Buchanan, Bill Kristol, Brit Hume, Brooke Hogan, Charles Krauthammer, David Addigton, David Iglesias, Dick Cheney, Elliot Abrams, Exxon, Frodo, George Bush, Harriet Miers, Hulk Hogan, Iraq, Irving Kristol, Jesse Ventura, Joseph Wilson, Judith Miller, Justice Department, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Luther Campbell, Matt Cooper, Michael Mukasey, Mobil, Monica Goodling, Pam Anderson, PNAC, Robert Luskin, Robert Novak, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Scooter Libby, Tim Russert, Tom Friedman, Valerie Plame, Viveca Novak
WASHINGTON — President Bush’s top advisers must honor subpoenas issued by Congress, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a case that involves the firings of several United States attorneys but has much wider constitutional implications for all three branches of government.
“The executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law,” Judge John D. Bates ruled in United States District Court here.
Unless overturned on appeal, a former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, and the current White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, would be required to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee, which has been investigating the controversial dismissal of the federal prosecutors in 2006.
While the ruling is the first in which a court has agreed to enforce a Congressional subpoena against the White House, Judge Bates called his 93-page decision “very limited” and emphasized that he could see the possibility of the dispute being resolved through political negotiations. The White House is almost certain to appeal the ruling.
It was the latest setback for the Bush administration, which maintains that current and former White House aides are immune from congressional subpoena. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to recommend that Karl Rove, a former top political adviser to President Bush, be cited for contempt for ignoring a subpoena and not appearing at a hearing on political interference by the White House at the Justice Department.
Although Judge Bates did not specifically say so, his ruling, if sustained on appeal, might apply as well to Mr. Rove and his refusal to testify.
The House has already voted to hold Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten in contempt for refusing to testify or to provide documents about the dismissals of the United States attorneys, which critics of the administration have suggested were driven by an improper mix of politics and decisions about who should, or should not, be prosecuted.
Judge Bates, who was appointed to the bench by President Bush in 2001, said Ms. Miers cannot simply ignore a subpoena to appear but must state her refusal in person. Moreover, he ruled, both she and Mr. Bolten must provide all non-privileged documents related to the dismissals.
Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten, citing legal advice from the White House, have refused for months to comply with Congressional subpoenas. The White House has repeatedly invoked executive privilege, the doctrine that allows the advice that a president gets from his close advisers to remain confidential.
In essence, Judges Bates held that whatever immunity from Congressional subpoenas that executive branch officials might enjoy, it is not “absolute.” And in any event, he said, it is up to the courts, not the executive branch, to determine the scope of its immunity in particular cases.
“We are reviewing the decision,” Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said. Before the decision was handed down, several lawyers said it would almost surely be appealed, no matter which way it turned, because of its importance.
Democrats in Congress issued statements in which they were quick to claim victory in the struggle with the administration over the dismissals of the federal prosecutors and other occurences in the Justice Department, and that they looked forward to hearing from the appropriate White House officials.
“I have long pointed out that this administration’s claims of executive privilege and immunity, which White House officials have used to justify refusing to even show up when served with congressional subpoenas, are wrong,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Leahy’s House counterpart in the House had a similar reaction.
“Today’s landmark ruling is a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law,” said Representative John D. Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
YouTube – April 28, 2008 Bill Maher O V E R T I M E
401k, ABC, ABC News, Abrams, Addington, AEI, Al Qaeda, Ari Fleisher, Ashcroft, bailout, Baker Botts, Banks, Bechtel, Beltway Groupthink, Beltway Journalism, Bin Laden, Blackwater, Bozell, Bremer, Britain, Broadcatching, Brown and Root, Buffett, Bush, Bush Apologists, Byron York, California, Campbell Brown, Carlyle Group, Charlie Gibson, Chevy Chase Club, Children, CIA, Coalition Provisional Authority, Cokie Roberts, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Consensus Journalism, Conservatism, Constitution, Corn, Credit, Credit Default Swaps, Dan Rather, Dan Senor, Dana Perino, David Brooks, David Iglesias, Debates, Democrats, Dick Cheney, District Of Corruption, Dow Jones, Duke Zeiberts, Equity Market, Evolution, FBI, Feith, Finance, FISA, Fournier, Framing, Freepers, George Stephanopoulos, George Tenet, George W. Bush, George Will, Global Warming, Gonzales, Gonzalez, Gootube, Grey, Grover Nordquist, Guantanamo, Guns, Habeas Corpus, Halliburton, Hannity, Healthcare, Hedge Funds, Hillary, Hume, Immigration, Iran, Iraq, Jeff Gannon, Jeff Guckert, Joe Biden, Joe Klein, John Yoo, Joseph Wilson, Judith Miller, Justice Department, K Street, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Katrina, Kellog, Kerry, Kristol, Lee Atwater, Lehman. AIG, Libby, Limbaugh, Lobbyists, Luntz, Malkin, Maria Bartiromo, Mary Mapes, Matalin, Matt Cooper, Matt Drudge, Media Landscape, Medved, Meet The Press, Money Market, Moonbats, New York, New York Herald Sun, New York Times, NSA, O'Reilly, Obama, Olbermann, Patriot Act, Perle, PNAC, Politico, Politics, Politics Rundown, Poverty, Prager, Republic_Party, Retail Investors, Rich Lowry, Rick Sanchez, Right-Wing Conspiracy, Robert Luskin, Robert Novak, Roger Ailes, Rosie, Rumsfeld, Rupert Murdoch, Saddam, Sarah Palin, Scott McClellan, Shiite, Smerconish, Soldiers, Stock Market, Sunni, Surge, Taxes, terrorism, The Palm, The Plank, Tim Russert, Tony snow, Torture, Tullycast, Valerie Plame, Vandenheuvel, veterans, Viveca Novak, Wall Street, War Criminals, Washington D.C., Watergate, web 2.0, William Kristol, Wingnuttia, Wolfowitz, Youtube
Tullycast
Andrew Tully, Baker Botts, Barack Obama, Bechtel, Bill Clinton, Carlyle Group, CIA, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Duke Ziebert, Election 2008, Elliot Abrams, Halliburton, Hillary Clinton, Iran/Contra, Joe Wilson, John McCain, Judith Miller, Karl Rove, KBR, Kellogg Brown and Root, Lee Atwater, Osama Bin Laden, PNAC, Politics, Richard Mellon Scaife, Saddam Hussein, Scooter Libby, Tullycast, Tullycasts, Valerie Plame, Viveca Novak, Watergate, YoutubeAmbassador Joseph Wilson Endorses Hillary Clinton; Calls Her "Battle Tested"
Barack Obama, David Corn, Dick Cheney, Douglas Feith, Election 2008, Elliot Abrams, Hillary Clinton, Jane Hamsher, Joe Wilson, John McCain, Judge Thomas F. Hogan, Judith Millaer, Karl Rove, Marcy Wheeler, Matt Cooper, Patrick Fitzgerald, Richard Mellon Scaife, Robert Luskin, Robert Novak, Scooter Libby, The District, Tim Russert, Viveca Novak
Battle-tested
Hillary Clinton fought the Republican attack machine, and emerged stronger
By Joseph C. Wilson IV
February 12, 2008
With the emergence of Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, the choice for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election now shifts to who is best positioned to beat him, in what promises to be a more hard-fought campaign – and perhaps a nastier one – than Democrats anticipated.
Sen. Barack Obama’s promise of transformation and an end of partisan politics has its seductive appeal. The Bush-Cheney era, after all, has been punctuated by smear campaigns, character assassinations and ideological fervor.
Nobody dislikes such poisonous partisanship, especially in foreign policy, more than I do. I am one of very few Foreign Service officers to have served as ambassador in the administrations of both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, yet I have spent the past four years fighting a concerted character assassination campaign orchestrated by the George W. Bush White House.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife – outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson – and me to remind us that as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. Mrs. Clinton knew from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter.
But will Mr. Obama fight? His brief time on the national scene gives little comfort. Consider a February 2006 exchange of letters with Mr. McCain on the subject of ethics reform. The wrathful Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being “disingenuous,” to which Mr. Obama meekly replied, “The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you.”
Mr. McCain was insultingly dismissive but successful in intimidating his inexperienced colleague. Thus, in his one known face-to-face encounter with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama failed to stand his ground.
What gives us confidence that Mr. Obama will be stronger the next time he faces Mr. McCain, a seasoned political fighter with extensive national security credentials? Even more important, what special disadvantages does Mr. Obama carry into this contest on questions of national security?
How will Mr. Obama answer Mr. McCain about his careless remark about unilaterally bombing Pakistan – perhaps blowing up an already difficult relationship with a nuclear state threatened by Islamic extremists? How will Mr. Obama respond to charges made by the Kenyan government that his campaigning activities in Kenya in support of his distant cousin running for president there made him “a stooge” and constituted interference in the politics of an important and besieged ally in the war on terror?
How will he answer charges that his desire for unstructured personal summits without preconditions with a host of America’s adversaries, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kim Jong Il, would be little more than premature capitulation?
Contrary to the myth of the Obama campaign, 2008 is not the year for transcendental transformation. The task for the next administration will be to repair the damage done by eight years of radical rule. And the choice for Americans is clear: four more years of corrupt Republican rule, senseless wars, evisceration of the Constitution, emptying of the national treasury – or rebuilding our government and our national reputation, piece by piece.
In order to effect practical change against a determined adversary, we do not need a would-be philosopher-king but a seasoned gladiator who understands the fight Democrats will face in the fall campaign and in governing.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again … who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”
If he were around today, Roosevelt might be speaking of the woman in the arena. Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation. She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today’s Republican Party and to have emerged stronger. She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate; she is respected by our military; and she never flinches. She has never been intimidated, not by any Republican – not even John McCain.
Barack Obama claims to represent the future, but it should be increasingly evident that he is not the man for this moment, especially with Mr. McCain’s arrival. We’ve seen a preview of that contest already. It was a TKO.
Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was in the Foreign Service for 23 years, and served in Iraq in the years leading up to the Persian Gulf war. He is the author of “The Politics of Truth.” His e-mail is jcwivwdc@yahoo.com.
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun
Bill Maher | February 8 2008 | HQ
Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, Politics, ScaifePart One
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Shady Businessman Gives Barack Obama More Cash Than He Admits
Barack Obama, Broadcatching, Chicago, Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, Journalism, Karl Rove, Obama, Politics, TullycastRezko cash triple what Obama says
DONATIONS | $168,000 traced to indicted businessman, associates over the years
June 18, 2007
During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman Tony Rezko and his associates than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found.
Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
But seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000” during Obama’s political career.
Tony Rezko has long been a key backer of Sen. Barack Obama. Obama estimates donations from Rezko and his circle at $50,000 to $60,000.
(AP/Sun-Times illustration)
(AP/Sun-Times illustration)
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But seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000” during Obama’s political career.
Obama, who wants to be the nation’s next president, has been purging some of those donations — giving charities more than $30,000 he got from Rezko and three of his business partners referenced in Rezko’s federal indictments. All three attended a lavish fund-raiser Rezko hosted for Obama four years ago.
Obama, however, has kept $6,850 from others who also are referenced in Rezko’s indictments. Obama also has hung on to contributions from doctors whom Rezko helped appoint to a state-government panel involved in some of Rezko’s alleged fraud schemes.
“We’ve made our best effort to run the most ethical campaign possible in all ways and release donations when appropriate,” Obama’s press secretary, Bill Burton, said Friday.
Sticks by estimate
Burton said Obama can only estimate how much money Rezko has raised for him. Obama’s staff, he said, only knows of one fund-raiser Rezko hosted for Obama — a June 27, 2003, cocktail party at Rezko’s mansion.Sources close to both Rezko and Obama, however, said Rezko raised money often for Obama.
Burton said Friday the campaign was sticking by its original estimate that Rezko raised no more than $60,000.
The cocktail party Rezko hosted in 2003 came at a critical time for Obama. He and Rezko timed it to help Obama show he had enough money to compete in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate against millionaire Blair Hull and state Comptroller Dan Hynes.
“This was discussed a lot. They wanted to have a good showing,” said a source familiar with the fund-raiser, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Tony was one of the biggest fund-raisers.”
At the time of the party, the state was in the process of foreclosing on a low-income apartment building Rezko’s company rehabbed in Obama’s state Senate district — a rehab project on which Obama’s law firm worked. Rezko had also abandoned many other low-income apartments, leaving numerous vacant units in need of major repairs.
Rezko was indicted in October 2006 in unrelated fraud schemes.
Between 75 and 80 people attended Rezko’s cocktail party, according to Burton, but he said the campaign has no list of the guests.
More than half a dozen people who were there said between 100 and 150 guests were treated to an open bar and food served by Jewell Events Catering, run by renowned Chicago caterer George Jewell. Valets parked cars for the guests, who each were asked to donate at least $1,000.
Rezko picked up the tab. The exact cost of the party has never been disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, which allows hosts to pay up to $2,000 for fund-raisers held in their homes and not report the expense. If a party costs more than $2,000, the candidate must tell the FEC about it.
Burton said, based on a conversation a former Obama staff member had with Rezko, that the party didn’t cost more than $2,000.
Three days after the cocktail party, Obama got donations from several Rezko associates, Obama’s campaign records show.
Donations dumped
The donor list includes six people involved in the two federal indictments of Rezko. Obama earlier this month said he is donating to charity contributions totaling $22,000 from three of those people. Last year, he donated $11,500 in contributions from Rezko.Among those whose money Obama is now purging is Ali D. Ata, a former top official in Gov. Blagojevich’s administration. Ata was indicted last month for allegedly writing a letter — on a state letterhead — that contained false information. That letter allegedly helped Rezko fraudulently secure millions of dollars in loans.
Obama also is dumping donations by Rezko business partners Joseph Aramanda and Dr. Paul Ray, neither of whom has been charged in the Rezko cases.
Aramanda, sources said, is identified as “Individual D” in one of the Rezko indictments. He allegedly got a $250,000 fee “in substantial part for the benefit of Rezko” in a scheme involving the state’s teacher pension fund, the indictment states. Aramanda’s son once had an internship in Obama’s U.S. Senate office.
Ray is listed as “Investor 1” in another indictment, a title that stems from his ownership role in a Rezko fast-food business. Ray is not accused of wrongdoing.
While Obama has dumped the cash from Aramanda and Ray, he has kept a $3,000 donation from Michael Winter, whom sources have identified as “Individual G” in a Rezko indictment. Winter allegedly agreed to funnel a fee from an investment firm to Rezko and others as part of the teacher-pension scheme. He has not been charged.
Obama also has kept $2,850 from Anthony Abboud and $1,000 from Jack Carriglio, both attorneys. They haven’t been accused of any crime and aren’t named in the indictments against Rezko. But one indictment alleges that Rezko in May 2004 helped engineer the appointments of “two new members” to the teacher pension board who voted “on matters of interest to Rezko” and a co-defendant, Stuart Levine. Those members are Abboud and Carriglio, according to sources and records.
The donors either declined to comment or could not be reached.
Obama has been dogged by questions about Rezko since November, after it became known that Rezko played a role in the purchase of Obama’s house in Kenwood. Rezko’s wife, Rita, and Obama purchased adjoining lots on the same day in June 2005, and Rita Rezko later sold a strip of the land to Obama so he could expand his yard.
“We’ve made our best effort to run the most ethical campaign possible in all ways and release donations when appropriate.
The New York Herald Sun 