If you saw the Democratic debate this week you might recall when Hillary brought a chunk of mud out named Tony Rezko and flung it at Barack Obama on stage. Rezko is a Chicago slumlord being brought up on charges at the moment, and the bad news for Barack is that he fundraised for his campaigns. How Rezko might have or have not influenced Obama in seventeen years is anybody's guess. The real problem here is Hillary resorting to bringing connections up like this and playing dirty for the sake of horse race politics. Well now the mud is coming full circle.
From MSNBC:
NEW YORK - Democrat Hillary Clinton denied knowing Tony Rezko, an indicted Chicago businessman, on Friday after being told of a photograph that shows a smiling Clinton and her husband standing next to the man she called a "slum landlord" earlier this week."I don't know the man. I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door. I don't have a 17-year relationship with him," Clinton said, referring to her charge that Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has a longstanding relationship with Rezko.
"There's a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know and haven't seen since," Clinton told NBC's TODAY show, "and having a relationship that the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring."
Sure, it looks worse to have had money raised for you rather than one of thousands of White House photographs taken to be you standing next to Rezko. Nevertheless, the media loves to talk about mud and a simple photograph is good enough to pick up and run with it, no matter how ridiculous it is.
For the most part, the debate was about issues and policy differences and when it strayed from that discourse John Edwards helped put it back on track. After the two hours of prime-time TV is up the media is back at work trying to fill their voids with garbage like this. It doesn't matter if Obama's team fed the picture to Matt Lauer or not, the fact remains that the dirty campaigning is on and your opponent and the media will throw anything to see if it sticks.
It is a shame that Hillary's campaign resorted to this, but hey, she loves this part. She complained to Lauer that she was attacked first but that is just ridiculous. She has her husband out on full attack mode and is angering many longtime friends and party supporters.
Everyone needs to take a deep breath and get back to the issues, but that would just be my wishful thinking talking out loud.
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