Barack's Political Mentor in Illinois at Center of Ethics Spat and Blocking Corruption Reform

[bigtree]

Barack Obama: Toxic mentors start to corrode

The Democrat was surging ahead but now revelations about the men who helped shape him are putting voters off

Long before Barack Obama launched his campaign for the White House, when he was considering a run for the US Senate in 2003, he paid an intriguing visit to a former Chicago sewers inspector who had risen to become one of the most influential African-American politicians in Illinois.

“You have the power to elect a US senator,” Obama told Emil Jones, Democratic leader of the Illinois state senate. Jones looked at the ambitious young man smiling before him and asked, teasingly: “Do you know anybody I could make a US senator?”

According to Jones, Obama replied: “Me.” It was his first, audacious step in a spectacular rise from the murky political backwaters of Springfield, the Illinois capital.

The exchange also sealed an intimate personal and political relationship that is likely to attract intense scrutiny amid the furore over Obama’s links to some of Chicago’s most controversial political and religious power brokers.

Obama has often described Jones as a key political mentor whose patronage was crucial to his early success in a state long dominated by near-feudal party political machines. Jones, 71, describes himself as Obama’s “godfather” and once said: “He feels like a son to me.”

For almost a year Jones has used his position as leader of the state senate to block anticorruption legislation passed unanimously by the state’s lower house. He has also become embroiled in ethical controversies concerning his wife’s job and his stepson’s business.


At one point during Obama’s 2003 Senate campaign, Jones set out to woo two African-American politicians miffed by Obama’s presumption and ambition. One of them, Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon, a state senator, had scoffed that Obama was so ambitious he would run for “king of the world” if the position were vacant.

When Jones secured the two men’s support, Obama asked his mentor how he had pulled it off. “I made them an offer,” Jones said in mock-mafioso style. “And you don’t want to know.”

Jones is now at the centre of a long row over his attempt to block proposed laws cracking down on his state’s “pay-to-play” tradition – whereby companies hoping to win government contracts have to contribute to the campaign funds of officials . . .

more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3602710.ece

[anonymous171]

1. They don't like Obama over there I guess.

[bigtree]

3. He's got his political enemies in Illinois as well

like this woman . . .

Cynthia Canary, an activist against corruption who is fighting to have the (anti-corruption) laws passed, says Obama had little choice as an Illinois politician but to deal with an ethically dubious regime. “You hold your nose and work through the system,” she said.

Yet she also thinks America is being done a disservice by those who portray Obama as somehow above the uglier wheeler-dealing of politics. “He’s a pragmatic politician, and in the end if you think that he’s superman, your heart is going to get broken.”

[Radical Activist]

7. How does that make her an enemy?

A big stretch there. Her quote sounds realistic but not antagonistic.

[bigtree]

10. Sounds like Obama's political ally, who he tolerated as he advantaged himself of his support,

was actively blocking reform.

[DemBones DemBones]

39. The best cure for Obamania would be Obama in the White House.

He would indeed break their hearts.

But it would not be good for the country to carry out this exercise just to show people not to vote for vague promises of unity and change, which is the same talk we got from Bush in 2000. That should have been enough of a lesson. Maybe a lot of the Obama supporters here now were under 18, maybe only 10 in 2000 and don't realize this.

Obama supporters should be required to read Bush's old speeches and imagine BO giving them. It won't be difficult.

[DemBones DemBones]

15. Papers outside the U.S. are better news sources because ours are all

controlled by media conglomerates headed by Republicans. They've always reported more on what's really going on in D.C. and in Iraq.

[anonymous171]

18. The Times is owned by Murdoch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times

[DemBones DemBones]

22. Does a better job than the papers he owns here, though. nt

[mopinko]

27. yeah, at spreading bullshit. nt

[DemBones DemBones]

43. Such a brilliant riposte!

:rofl:

[Mags]

56. It doesn't matter to the BO folks, they will only believe the good stuff

about him, makes no difference if it is true or not. Heads in the sand kinda folks.

[Radical Activist]

2. Obama sponsored and passed the most significant ethics laws in Illinois in 20 years.

Why don't you quote that part? Its very deceptive of you to play a guilt by association game by naming Jones' opposition to certain laws but failing to mention Obama's actual record. Very deceptive and shameless.

[bigtree]

6. read the frickin article I POSTED. Quote the parts you please.

Point of the article is, Obama has been willing to associate himself with dubious characters to advance himself politically.

[Radical Activist]

13. You don't like real facts that weren't included in the article?

I know how troubling it is when little things like facts get in the way of a good misleading hit job.

Advancing in the political system in Illinois means knowing people who have done things you don't like. All you're saying is that Obama is guilty of getting elected to statewide elective office in Illinois. These guilt by association games are just as lame as the Rev Wright game.

[bigtree]

17. Oh, how histronic

Folks can make their own judgments, as you have, about how they feel about 'advancing in the political system in Illinois' and 'knowing people who have done things you don't like.'

[Radical Activist]

23. How about giving people all the facts

like Obama's record passing ethics reform in Illinois and then letting people make their own judgments. No histrionics. Constant guilt by association games are tired and stale. In fact, I got tired of it when Edwards supporters were playing those games to show us how conservative Obama is. That was a crock of shit too.

[bigtree]

29. Look at the article and make your own judgment. I think he gets too cozy with these characters

But, I also think he has enough of a record, as you indicate, to show that he's managed, in some instances, to act outside of their influence.

Just make your case and stop all of the crocodile tears over the raising of the association. Look at the statements of the Obama campaign yesterday where they indicated they were going forward with a strategy of attacking Clinton's associations as some kind of corruption. Don't expect that Obama can easily withstand the same questions of his own corrupt associations. And, don't suppose that his campaign isn't banking on their character assassinations to elevate themselves in this election.

[chascarrillo]

52. Quoting right-wing newspapers, not allowing other people to chime in with facts...

... brilliant!

Go away.

[madrchsod]

54. nah we don`t have a clue after all we live in this state....

[DJ13]

14. Why don't you quote that part?

Smears dont work when the whole truth is told.

Just another Clinton supporter trying to smear Obama through innuendo.

[bigtree]

28. the Gift Ban Act he helped pass in Illinois? Meh. I'll give him that

I believe he had his proposal for a limit on individual contributions yanked from the final bill, but, as you indicate, it was a major reform for Illinois which had other good aspects. He did show an ability to move that through, despite the association with the insider Jones, who reportedly handpicked him to lead that campaign reform battle.

[anamandujano]

44. Jones gave Obama his whole career, stolen from others who had

done all the work.

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.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," state Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the 1-yard line and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the Illinois Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law-including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced. It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics, and he couldn't have done it without Jones.

http://dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/2

[DemBones DemBones]

46. Lots more interesting things in that article; good find!

Edit: I put everything from the article in bold type so it would be clear what came from the article and what words are mine.

Obama can cite many bills he sponsored as an Illinois state senator, but there's a catch. He was in the legislature for six years and accomplished nothing because the GOP controlled the legislature. Then in 2002, Democrats won the governorship and both houses of the legislature, with Obama's mentor Emil Jones, Jr., becoming Senate Majority Leader. Jones was Obama's kingmaker.

"Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio program. I called Kelley last week, and he recollected the private conversation as follows:"

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones did it, too, as you described in your post, by convincing other senators to give the bills they'd been working on to Obama so he could be the sponsor and get the credit. Obama's name is on 26 pieces of legislation.

"He expanded children's health insurance, made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families, required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects. And the list goes on."

"It's a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year."

His entire legislative record built in one year and by the power of Emil Jones, Jr., ordering others who had done the hard work on bills to give them to Obama so he could put his name on them.

"Jones further helped raise Obama's profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news headlines.
For instance, Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a Chicago nightclub. Both stories had received national attention and extensive local coverage."

"I spoke to Jones earlier this week, and he confirmed his conversation with Kelley, adding that he gave Obama the legislation because he believed in Obama's ability to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans on divisive issues."

"So how has Obama repaid Jones?"

"Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones' Senate district."

Speaking of porkbarrel projects, Emil Jones, Jr., says "Some call it pork; I call it steak."



So that's the real Barack Obama, a guy who's willing to fake it to make it. The man who speaks of change based his run for the Senate on a phonied-up legislative record, arranged for him by an expert in old-style Chicago politics, and is now basing his run for the presidency on -- well, what is he basing it on? Talk about hope and unity? We heard that from Bush in 2000.

[Radical Activist]

51. A very important fact is left out of that article.

There's a good reason much of Obama's record came in one year. Republicans had control of the State Senate for years and didn't let any progressive legislation come up for a vote. The first year after Democrats had control of all the branches a lot of legislation was passed. Notice how easy it is to mislead people and give a false impression by leaving out one fact? Don't be so gullible.

[Radical Activist]

49. One jealous small time legislator

doesn't mean Obama had his career handed to him.

[DemBones DemBones]

45. Find your own article and post it instead of hassling the OP because

the article s/he posted doesn't mention what you want it to mention.

[billbuckhead]

4. Hillary's opponent actually has another mentor worse than Reverend Wright?

Unbelievable! This guy is awful.

[DemBones DemBones]

42. He's a politician so he's probably worse in a way but Wright is supposed

to be a man of God yet preached hate.

I have been to a lot of churches in at least six states, Europe, the UK, and Malaysia, and never heard hate preached. Not once.

Not among Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Friends (Quakers), Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, or Russian Orthodox.

[JoFerret]

58. How many actual "mentors" are there?

.

[Radical Activist]

5. "Jones’s staff say he blocked the bill because he intends to produce something tougher."

Also from the article since you forgot to include that part.

[bigtree]

8. you forgot to include

'No proposals have appeared.'

[joeybee12]

9. But Barack is loyal! He will not disown him, more than he could disown

his own white grandmother.

[bigtree]

12. He's probably just like a family member, his uncle . . .

. . . or a godfather.

[DemBones DemBones]

21. He lost the grandmother vote there, regardless of race, and

the votes of moms who hope to be grandmas, and the votes of those of us who loved our grandmas dearly.

He was also a fool to say she was a 'typical white person' and therefore racist.

Stereotypes are always wrong.

[PM7nj]

11. Oh Look! The Times! Do you know who owns the times?

RUPERT MURDOCH!!!

[DemBones DemBones]

19. Funny how his American media don't report in much depth

about anything. . . If it weren't for foreign newspapers online, we'd all be believing the tv talking heads.

[anonymous171]

25. Times is owned by Murdoch.

For a list of newspapers owned by Murdoch, go to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#Newspapers

[babylonsister]

16. There you go again, trying to tarnish by association. Not your best work. nt

[bigtree]

20. resembles a good bit of Obama's campaign against the Clintons though

And, it's not 'my work'.

Maybe we could have a look at those state records Obama's been sitting on to determine the truth behind these associations and how they affected his policy and legislative decisions.

[Tellurian]

41. The only way he'll produce those records is if Fitz subpoenas them

you know he's hiding something that will put the final nail in the crooks campaign!

[Straight Shooter]

24. Emil Jones, hoo-haw! I knew this name would come up sooner or later.

http://www.tomroeser.com/blogs/default.asp?categoryID=54

Here his old boss, the old liberal Jewish Judd Miner, tough as an old boot, applied venerable Jake Arvey old-school moxie from and cracked some heads. The order came from downtown that Obama was to go to the state Senate. And when there was some complaining, Senator Jones, the epitome of black working class that its adherents call “pick and shovel” said to his workers who kicked that Obama wasn’t one of them: “Y’all shut up! This guy is ours! And you will take him, hear me?” Jones was leader of the Senate Democrats and one of four top state officials who negotiate the budget with the governor on the South Side. Now he is Senate President, the second African-American in Illinois history to hold the post.

Under Jones’ tutelage, Obama learned in his local speeches to speak South Side and added it to his repertoire along with southern gentility and university talk. He proved to be a good student; he talked in blunt declaratives; once in Springfield he could do all three. He could and can switch to all three voices. I have a local ABC talk show on politics and he wanted on. So one day I passed through the metal detector to find him lounging around and talking to the state troopers in terms they understand. He signaled me, came over and said with a winning smile: “Say, Big Guy, when do I get on your show?” And, of course, just like that he was on.

Without Jones, Obama would have had a hard time climbing up that ladder of Chicago politics.

Some Barack supporters have complained when I reference Tom Roeser (staunch Catholic), but the fact is Tom has got his finger on the pulse of Chicago politics and its players and knows the score. His blog is worth reading for what's going on in the minds of conservative America. He's old-time Chicago and has been around the block a lot more times than most. His opinions and insight should not be dismissed as scornfully and casually as, say, those of Hannity.

More about Tom, for anyone interested: http://www.tomroeser.com/about/

[Radical Activist]

26. Are you always that gullible?

Obama worked as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side for years and you think Jones had to teach him how to "talk south side?" Give me a break. Only an idiot would believe that.

And you think Obama couldn't get himself elected after registering hundreds of thousands of black people registered to vote two years before? Obama made alliances like any good politician does, but he didn't depend on any one person.

[Straight Shooter]

31. Are you that naive?

Chicago has a powerful machine. That's why it's one of the most fascinating cities, politically speaking, in the U.S.

[Radical Activist]

48. And

a lot of candidates get elected without the machine. And sometimes the machine decides not to oppose someone who will win on their own anyway. I pointed out very specific reasons why the claims in the article aren't credible or even reasonable. Your only response is a vague and uninformed impression about Chicago politics.
Yes, Chicago is the big league of politics. It prepared Obama to run for President more than people realize.

[BearSquirrel2]

50. It was more interesting when the machine was broken ...

The machine was more interesting when Harold Washington broke it from the Democratic side and started a clean up job. Watching the Daily Machine join forces with Republicans ... priceless.

I don't think one party rule is good government, even if it's Democrats. You have to flush the system out and at the very least get a new set of chronies in. Once they're in for two long, they believe government belongs to them and they're no longer accountable. And of course if the people allow it, why not.

Chicago would be a great town to run a Green Party challenge from the left. Daley Jr. has a vernier of respectability, but his influence spans almost as large as his father's. He runs not only the city but Cook county as well having nominated a vegetable for Cook County commissioner so his son could assume the post. They pay a LOT of people to NOT do their municipal jobs in Chicago. That's why the taxes are so high and that's one of the reasons Democrats get a bad name.

[mopinko]

30. you people. tom roesser is a right wing crank.

damn i am tired of you cut and paste losers. you have no idea what you are talking about. none.

ok all, let it sink.

[Straight Shooter]

32. Crank?

Whatever you say. :)

[UALRBSofL]

34. It would be interesting to know what went on the past several years

Obama has a lot of currupt friends in Chicago.

[Straight Shooter]

35. It's hard to be high up in Chicago without having corrupt friends, apparently.

As for Roeser being dismissed as a "right wing crank," apparently Obama thought enough of his influence to want to be on his radio show. So, either Roeser has merit, or Obama has poor judgment.

Axelrod is also tight with Daley.

You want fascinating? Google Obama and Bobby Rush. Poor Bobby Rush, kicked to the curb to be replaced by a smooth-talking pol with better connections :)

[madrchsod]

53. you really have`t a clue about what you are talking about

rush endorsed obama over clinton...rush kicked obama`s ass...i really love it when people from another state decides they know the in`s and out`s of someone else`s state...nice try but what ever you just posted was crap..

[DemBones DemBones]

38. Newsflash: the right wing will be playing hardball against Obama if he's the nominee

We should have heard all this many months ago. Doesn't anybody vet the damn candidates to see if they've got piles of dirty laundry?

You can dismiss somebody as a "right wing crank" all you like, but that won't stop the word from getting out there about Obama's past and his connections. The MSM will be discussing Jones soon.

Then Obama can give another speech, maybe throw his black grandmother under the bus this time, call her a 'typical black person' with racist attitudes.

And all the obamatrons will say "ooh, aah, Obama is soooo wonderful" while the rest of the country says ":wtf: is wrong with this guy?"

[DemBones DemBones]

33. Obama's got "low friends in high places," doesn't he?

First we learned some unsettling facts about his pastor/spiritual mentor, Wright, and now his political mentor, Jones. All the obamatron talk about "guilt by association" is nonsense. We are known by the company we keep. These men are not casual acquaintances of Obama's. If they were, it would not be news. They're tight with him and that makes it news.


"For almost a year Jones has used his position as leader of the state senate to block anticorruption legislation passed unanimously by the state’s lower house. He has also become embroiled in ethical controversies concerning his wife’s job and his stepson’s business."

Jones does not sound like the sort of person who should be advising a senator, much less a president.

"At one point during Obama’s 2003 Senate campaign, Jones set out to woo two African-American politicians miffed by Obama’s presumption and ambition. One of them, Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon, a state senator, had scoffed that Obama was so ambitious he would run for “king of the world” if the position were vacant."

Hendon is right about that. BO would run for emperor of the universe if he could.

"When Jones secured the two men’s support, Obama asked his mentor how he had pulled it off. “I made them an offer,” Jones said in mock-mafioso style. “And you don’t want to know.”

I DO want to know. Bribery or threats?

"Jones is now at the centre of a long row over his attempt to block proposed laws cracking down on his state’s “pay-to-play” tradition – whereby companies hoping to win government contracts have to contribute to the campaign funds of officials . . ."

Obama sure picks classy guys to be his mentors.

Why the hell didn't the DNC vet Obama? If the DNC doesn't normally vet candidates, why doesn't it? This is a hell of a mess the party's in now that Obama's gotten a bunch of delegates and is rapidly losing support because of Wright's sermons, his own lies about not having heard Wright say such things, and throwing his grandma under the bus as a 'typical white person,' meaning a racist. Howard Dean should have had people looking into all the candidates' backgrounds to see what embarrassing things they might have hidden in their pasts. Did he know that Obama's church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan last fall? That should have been a big clue that there would be trouble ahead.

And here comes Jones. What's next?

[BeyondGeography]

36. No video clips of Emil screaming "God damn America" when he's cutting deals?

:boring:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

37. from the same article.....about Obama's race speech.....which is interesting

Obama’s response was hailed as one of the bravest and most eloquent speeches on race delivered by an American politician. Even conservative commentators such as Charles Murray of National Review called it “flat-out brilliant”; Michael Gerson, former speechwriter to president George W Bush, called it “one of the finest political performances under pressure” since John F Kennedy addressed concerns about his Catholicism in 1960.

Other analysts, Democrat and Republican, took a different view of Obama’s refusal to turn his back on Wright – whom he portrayed as part of an embittered legacy of discrimination.

Some saw it as a potential gift both to Clinton, who has been surging in opinion polls since videos of Wright were posted on the internet, and to McCain, whose aides have begun to wonder whether Obama might prove an easier target than Clinton in November.

“Nothing could be more dangerous to Mr Obama’s aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday – for 20 years – in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable,” said Shelby Steele, a Stanford University historian and author of a book on Obama.

Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio talk-show foghorn, expressed the popular view more succinctly: “No country wants a president who is a member of a church with this kind of radicalism as its mainstream.”

The latest polls confirm that, for all the acclaim heaped on Obama’s speech by political insiders, voters seemed to be taking a sharp step back from the charismatic candidate who built his campaign on the promise of a break from “old politics”. One of Obama’s best-known slogans – and the title of his bestselling book – is “the audacity of hope”, a phrase that originally came from one of Wright’s sermons.

In Pennsylvania, the next big state to hold a primary, on April 22, Clinton has doubled her lead in the past two weeks and is now 26 points ahead. In North Carolina, which votes on May 6, Obama has been leading comfortably all year but is now only one point ahead. A national Gallup poll on Friday put Clinton ahead of Obama by two points for the first time since January.

[Hoof Hearted]

40. A new one? Damn. Just amazing.

[DemBones DemBones]

55. He looks pretty chummy with Karl Rove, too.

You'd think a Democrat would be polite, not uncivilized, but not pat Rove, architect of years of Hell, on the shoulder.

[xultar]

47. x

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

57. .

[RBInMaine]

59. More right wing and/or Team-Hillary effort to sling mud at Obama. Sickening !