A career change in the stars for Barack Obama?

As of this writing the (London) Times Online has not published comments I submitted in response to their Q&A: Barack Obama and Tony Rezko

I am irritated by the snub firstly because it's very rare for me to trouble with writing for an online publication other than my own. Secondly, I thought the Times would appreciate my pointing out that their account skipped crucial history. So this post presents the full text of my response, which I had to abbreviate for entry to the Times because of the space limit they impose on comments.

Here are the passages, posted under the heading How does [Rezko] know Barack Obama? that prompted my response:

Mr Rezko approached Mr Obama in 1990 after reading that he had become the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Mr Rezko and two real estate partners offered Mr Obama a job building inner-city homes in Chicago. Mr Obama declined, but remained friendly with Mr Rezko, who became one of his earliest and biggest fundraisers.

Mr Obama says that he met Mr Rezko “once or twice a year” for lunch and the Rezkos and Obamas have dined together as couples perhaps “two to four times” since they have known each other. As a lawyer, Mr Obama did six hours’ work for partners of Mr Rezko's company in state-subsidised apartment rehabilitation projects.

Here is my response:

Your article neglects to mention that after declining Mr Rezko's offer to build inner-city homes Mr Obama accepted employment at a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, which represented a series of Mr Rezko's partners in a series of transactions to build and rehabilitate low-income housing. The firm handled all the legal paperwork for the transactions, which involved government contracts and grants. The transactions are now the subject of federal criminal indictment in Chicago.

The law firm helped a Rezko company (Rezmar) obtain more than $43 million in government funding to rehabilitate 15 of their 30 apartment buildings for the poor. The "rehabilitation" left the squalid buildings without water and heat (Chicago is bitterly cold in winter).

Several of those buildings are located in Mr Obama's State Senate district.

[This ends my entry to the Times comment section. The data I provide above is taken almost verbatim from Nobody's hands are perfectly clean in politics.]

Mr Obama denies everything -- meaning that whatever question he allows the press to put to him about his involvement in the Rezko affair he answers in such way to excuse himself of wrongdoing.

However, investigative reporters at Chicago newspapers have lists of questions they have long tried to put directly to Mr Obama about his part in Mr Rezko's complex web of business dealings and Mr Rezko's complex involvement in Mr Obama's affairs.

Mr Obama has shown great skill at avoiding troubling questions from pesky 'hometown' reporters. Yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times finally went so far as to publish their phone number with the plea that Obama phone home.

I believe that higher math is required to fully grasp the many connections in the Rezko-Obama affair and how they intersect. However, even a rough understanding of the way things work in Mr Obama's Senate district makes it strikingly evident that his run for the US presidency represents a masterful Deception & Denial campaign. When you combine this particular genius with a gift for gab and finely tuned ear for nuance it's obvious Mr Obama missed his calling.

Clearly, Barack Obama was born to be US Ambassador to China.