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Perhaps, N2, but Michelle O! is out there campaigning so what she says is fair game just as BIll's comments were fair game when he was shilling for Hillary. The $600 ear ring is not a big deal in and of itself though it does show how a bit out of touch she is. $600 for a family can buy a lot of food at say Costco or Sam's Club. It - or $1200 or $1800 depending on your status - could make the difference between a good month and a bad month for a lot of folks. For someone who has been part of a campaign run on hope, change and judgement, of not being 'business as usual' and of more common background, Michelle really needs to watch her remarks. Or, you know...

"Let them eat organic arugula!!"

I'm happy to keep the focus on Barry Obama's lack of accomplishments though. Particularly, let's revisit his Chicago career.

Let's set the old Wayback Machine to June of 1985: From June 1985 to May 1988, Obama was a community organizer with the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, working primarily to organize a housing project called Altgeld Gardens. Obama likes to claim credit for what he accomplished there - particularly in terms of asbestos removal. However, Hazel Johnson (a community organizer who has lived in Altgeld Gardens since 1962) recalls it rather differently:

Hazel Johnson, who has lived at Altgeld Gardens since 1962, said Obama appears to be referring to a woman who is no longer living. But Johnson, who said she worked on the asbestos issue at the same time as Obama, said she doesn't know of any other work that Obama did at Altgeld Gardens aside from helping on asbestos.

"I like him, he is a nice, young intelligent man, but some of the things he said are not true," said Johnson. "I was organizing, doing that work before Obama even came to the Gardens."

Obama portrays his time as an organizer as the genesis of his political aspirations. "My work took me to some of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods [where] I received the best education I ever had," Obama said in launching his campaign last year.

Indeed, Altgeld Gardens really doesn't sound much like the "success story" that politicians prefer to claim:

For all its impact on Obama, Altgeld Gardens today seems far from the kind of success story politicians like to tout.

Dozens of buildings are boarded up, with fences surrounding much of the property. The roads are a potholed mess. Blinking lights illuminate a series of towers where police have mounted cameras.

Other than that, and not being able to really explain what a community organizer actually did/does, Obama has little to show for his role there.

Skipping over his finishing a book while in Bali - wtf? - Obama returns to Chicgao where he directed Illinois Project Vote! from April-October 1992. This was a project for ACORN - an ostensibly non-partisan (but actually partisan) voter registration group often charged with voter registration fraud. That's not the only fraud doing a decent albatross impression around ACRON's neck. No one mentioned has paid attention to the New York Times account of on misappropriated funds at two prominent national nonprofit groups - ACORN and the Points of Light Institute, noting a difference in how the groups dealt with their scandals:

Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. After Points of Light noticed financial irregularities in early June, it took less than a month for management to alert federal prosecutors, although group officials say they have no clear idea yet what the financial impact may be.

In this case, the NYT glosses over Obama's connection to ACORN even though it had previously reported that Obama helped fund ACORN while he was on the boards of the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. The paper further missed disturbing allegations regarding the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) made by the Consumers Rights League:

Despite raking in a troubling 40 percent of its revenue from taxpayers over the last three years, ACORN Housing Corporation's actions range from controversial to borderline illegal:

• AHC has worked to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens
• AHC relies on undocumented income, "under the table" money that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service
• ACORN's "financial justice" operations attack lenders for "exotic" loans, but AHC has recommended ten-year interest-only loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and reverse mortgages (which can be detrimental to senior citizens)
• AHC may have violated federal law by failing to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and the aggressive political activities of ACORN

Indeed, they are a real savory bunch....

Even as ACORN attacks other lenders for engaging in "predatory" tactics, the organization's housing affiliate offers consumers the very same types of exotic loans, including 10/40 interest only mortgages (which prevent buyers from building equity during the first 10 years of a loan) and reverse mortgages (which can be detrimental to senior citizens). ACORN's pay-to-play attack model has become so pervasive that in one internal email, a staffer writes that lenders view the forced deals with ACORN "as a cost of doing business."

The CRL-issued report also raises concerns about ACORN's role in the industry-wide relaxation of credit and the decline in mortgage lending standards that are at the heart of the current housing downturn. One email obtained from CRL's whistleblower source reveals AHC's use of suspect lending practices to help potential homebuyers obtain mortgages. In particular, one internal document outlines an AHC policy that advises its housing counselors to use "under-the-table" income - earnings that are typically not reported to the IRS - to process mortgage applications for low-income and minority homebuyers.

"The fact that AHC is counseling low-income consumers to take the very same loans it labels as 'predatory' is more than troubling," said Terry. "It is important for homebuyers seeking AHC's advice to understand ACORN's true motives, and for American citizens to know how their money is being spent. This report raises some serious questions that deserve a great deal of scrutiny by consumers and taxpayers alike."

The Americorps Inspector General has similarly claimed that AHC misused Americorps grant funds to benefit ACORN either directly or indirectly.

But one year later, the Americorps Inspector General would testify that "AHC used Americorps grant funds to benefit ACORN either directly or indirectly." She found several instances of cost-shifting from ACORN's lobbying group to the housing entity, and also found several instances of the steering of recipients of housing counseling into ACORN memberships.

That's also important to recall when thinking about Obama's mandatory 'voluntary' national service plan. Very important.

He launched his first state senate race in 1996. To borrow a phrase, he did it "the Chicago way" when he employed Chicago rules to invalidate the voting petition signatures of three of his challengers, thus running unopposed on the Democratic ticket in a heavily Democrat district.

"That was Chicago politics," said John Kass, a veteran Chicago Tribune columnist. "Knock out your opposition, challenge their petitions, destroy your enemy, right? It is how Barack Obama destroyed his enemies back in 1996 that conflicts with his message today. He may have gotten his start registering thousands of voters. But in that first race, he made sure voters had just one choice."

Not especially full of HOPE(TM) or CHANGE(TM) is it? Once he "won" his "election," Obama would go on to serve 7 years in the Illinois Senate but his record was built in a single year when Majority Leader Emil Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills. During this period, he lost the 2000 Democratic primary run for the US House of Representatives to incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.

Obama then ran for an open US Senate seat in 2004, winning after Democrat Blair Hull and Republican Jack Ryan turned out to have scandal lurking in newly-unsealed divorce records. As an aside, I don't seem to see where Obama has actually won a contested election as both of those opponents dropped out of the race, IIRC.

So, perhaps in fairness, Obama may have done quite a bit in Chicago but it's hardly anything to inspire HOPE(TM) or CHANGE(TM) or to give a lot of faith in his JUDGEMENT TO LEAD(TM) now is it?

Cue moral relativism arguments and 'So what's wrong with what he did?' in 5...4...3...2...1...

PT