Bad Timing for Barack Obama … Tony Rezko Trial Starts … Change? Looks Like Political Business As Usual

The Obama momentum may be coming to a quick end …

The timing of the start of the Tony Rezco felony trial, a once a top fund-raiser for Sen. Barack Obama, could not be any worse for the Democratic candidate of “Change and Hope”. After months and months of the media asking little no no tough questions of Barack Obama, no gloves may be ready to come off. Prompted by the Clinton campaign, Barack Obama is about to get a lesson in what it means to be vetted. Obama’s Rezko ties hardly seem like a political change … looks to be political business as usual.

In politics, perception is everything … Barack best answers the questions.

Sen. Obama hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. But in recent days, the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has leveraged the opening of the trial to spotlight Sen. Obama’s ties to Mr. Rezko.

Sen. Obama has acknowledged his ties to Mr. Rezko. During a news conference Monday, he rejected the idea that “we have been trying to hide the bone on this.”

Rezko In Debt $50 Million; How Did He Afford Obama Lot?

Accused Illinois fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko is in debt by $50 million and relies on “family” handouts of $7,500 a month to pay monthly costs, according to a previously sealed court transcript reviewed by ABC News.

Rezko’s bleak financial picture raises the question of how the Rezkos were able to buy a vacant lot adjoining the home of Sen. Barack Obama in 2005, at a time Rezko says he was already in deep debt.

Obama says he sought Rezko’s help because the house he wanted to buy in Chicago’s Hyde Park came with an adjoining lot the seller wanted to sell at the same time.

Unable to afford it himself, Obama says Mrs. Rezko bought it for $625,000, and then later sold a strip of the lot back to Obama so he would have a larger yard. Obama says he paid Mrs. Rezko a fair market price.

According to the court transcript, Mrs. Rezko makes $37,500 a year.

Obama has defended Rezko’s role as legal but says it was “a bone-headed mistake” to involve him in the deal.

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