If it requires a head-on smackdown, let's take care of it now.

Rezko?? Are you a fugitive from TalkLeft.com? For God's sake, man.

"Rezko's ties to Obama are completely irrelevent, but I'm choosing to talk it up anyway."

Personally, I'm egnostic on the subject of large doners and fund raisers turning out to be criminals, no matter what party the politician belongs to. Wealthy criminal types seeking power will always gravitate towards politicans and try to cozy up to them. It is inevitable that anyone in politics who wields any kind of power is going to attract these kind of people. As long as their no evidence that the politician did anything beyond the normal favors they do for their larger benefactors, accepted bribes, or committed crimes on their behalf, it is hard to get to worked up about it. As long as politicans must seek financing from the public these relationships are ineveitable.

Okay, try to imagine this: You are hired by the Republican primary (or some related 527) and paid a million dollars to come up with a campaign ad that links Obama and Rezko in the most incriminating fashion. Truth is not an issue. It just has to seem terrible and affect millions of people who don't pay all that much attention to the facts, anyway.

What do you see happening?

OK, FOX will probably mention it...

There's no suggestion of illegality on Obama's part, even after this verdict, and at this point there's no reason to believe it'll seriously impact his candidacy. But a verdict like this, coming down just in time to make the evening news, is not the way anyone would want to kick off their general election campaign.

Translation: There's no real story here, but we will dutifully report on the story about the story. Even though there's no story.

"There has been no suggestion of illegality on Obama's part." Correct. So will you please explain why you're bothering to give this story such a prominent mention?

In the immortal words of Dick Chaney: "So?"

At least this will give FOX News something to obsess about, now that Reverends Wright and Pfleger are dimming from memory and Hillary has played her last card. (We hope.)

What do you see happening?

More-or-less the same thing I see here -- some stories about the fact that there is a story about a non-story, with (at best) a grudging admission near the end of the story that there is no story.

"There has been no suggestion of illegality on Obama's part." Correct. So will you please explain why you're bothering to give this story such a prominent mention?

-- debpet

That's one stop too far on the logic train, deb. The media has long since given up filtering their stories through anything resembling intelligence. It's all regurgitation now. They won't stop bringing up Tony Rezko until they think the meer utterance of the name has stopped grabbing viewers' attention.

Are you suggesting that we run someone who HAS NO questionable ties? Those people don't exist in the world of politics. Hell, those people don't exist in life!

You are correct that Con 527's will try to fashion any issue out of whole cloth - we just witnessed it 4 years ago - its even been given a name: "swift-boating". Responses to these things are often the key to diffusing them quickly. They can be laughed off in some cases, but as in Kerry's case, they do have to be addressed. Obama shown an ability to do this, sometimes surprisingly easily, so I'm not worried. Especially about Rezko.

A press release takes care of Rezko, especially since all the cable news shows want to talk about is "what Hillary wants" in order to properly concede.

Rove is far closer to Rezko than Obama is. Funny that little fact didn't make it into your little hit job of an article.

Yeah, one of Obama's fundraisers and the guy who helped his family arrange the deal for their house deal is now a convicted felon but how dare the media even mention it!

Hmmmm?

"There's no suggestion of illegality on Obama's part."

So, Salon, why aren't you telling us a bit more about Senator McCain's dealings instead?

You're right, you know the Republicans are going to do this, so my response - if they do it - is to remind everyone of the Keating 5 and how American Continental / Lincoln Savings bilked old people out of their life savings.

There's plenty of dirt to sling, but I don't hate John McCain so I won't get into it here. Fair warning, though, if the Swift Boat scum want to rumble, we need to be ready and good to go.

I think I'm not alone in saying that I'm really tired of stories that distract from the real issues that the nation is facing right now and will be facing for some time. Please try to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Few people know what "Rezko" means or why it's a point against Obama, but they'll use it against him anyway. You know why? Because "Rezko" just sounds sinister! Just say "Rezko" and people get chills down their spine. Oooohhhh.....REZKO!

Why did I expect that this article would end...."not that there is anything wrong with that !"

So now we are at felon fundraising parity. MCain has Keating, Clinton has Hsu and Obama has Rezko. And Rezko didn't arrange the house deal. But I'm sure you already knew that.

(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obamafullwebmar16,1,6766557.story)

Even as one who is literally noncommittal regarding Obama, I agree with the others that pouncing on this coincidence is indeed a cheap, bogus, and sensationalistic grab for attention.

It's like interrupting a toast at a wedding reception to report that a fly was just seen buzzing outside, and there's no telling if it'll end up in the wedding cake!

Not to mention the irritating fact that the putative observation, however slight and speculative, of an alleged "interruption" of a "uniformly positive news cycle" is a self-fulfilling statement, insofar as it's expressed in-- yes!-- a news (or at least a "media") story that is an interruption of the positive news cycle.

Next time take the day off and maintain a dignified silence.