Keeping The Eyes On Obama's Circle of Friends....

Inasmuch as he would love for America to simply forget who his old mostly troublesome criminal buddies are, and where they are now before he decided to throw his hat in the presidential ring and them under the bus with grandma, assuring the democratic hierarchy pre election run that there would be none of these types of skeletons residing in his uppity closets.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe keeps the eyes focused on where they should be in his Sunday column instead of his High School Basketball days as his campaign was doing this weekend hoping to erase the Obama bowling debacle that he's now blaming on some kids that bowled a few frames for him that day.

(See a youtube here that was overloaded when I posted this article earlier)

Obama's 'mainstream' friends -

The Boston Globe: "SHOULD VOTERS care that Barack Obama is friendly with William Ayers, a onetime leader of the Weather Underground terrorist group that committed dozens of bombings and other violent crimes between 1969 and 1975? That question came up during the recent Democratic debate in Philadelphia, and scorn by the bucketful was heaped on the ABC moderators who asked it.

The Washington Post's Tom Shales, for example, was appalled that Obama should be confronted with 'such tired tripe' as the fact that he 'once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist.' Michael Grunwald of Time derided the 'extremely stupid politics' responsible for questions like the one about the 'obscure sixties radical' with whom Obama 'was allegedly 'friendly.' ' Other commentators were even more outraged.

The chorus of protests echoed Obama's own defense. When George Stephanopoulos challenged him to explain his relationship with the unrepentant former terrorists - "I don't regret setting bombs," Ayers told The New York Times. "I feel we didn't do enough" - the senator dismissed the issue as irrelevant.

"This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that [my] knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George." His links to the ex-Weathermen he brushed aside as "flimsy," saying he was sure "the American people are smarter than" to think he shares the terrorists' radical views. continued

Here's a little more on Barack's buddies today in the Sun Times on Tony old Buddy Rezco and his ongoing trial of surprises that will sink the Illinois Governor and Obama likely before it's over..In this case it's about the old "he's a friend of a friend" variety, a fugitive Iraqi who has ponied up the property, 8.5 mil worth to secure Rezco's bail.

Quite a character for sure this guy is and I'm sure Barack has met him somewheres a time or two we'll be finding out soon enough. As they say, just keep following the money trail to where the trouble is.

Ex-fugitive put up homes to spring Rezko

FEDERAL COURT | Ex-Iraq fugitive, a longtime pal, covers a third of his $8.5M bail\

Chicago Sun Times An ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko's bail, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae -- a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 -- are part of a long list made public in Rezko's case Friday following a Sun-Times request. Six of the other individuals who pledged property to get Rezko out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on April 18 are current or former state employees.

Alsammarae put up $1.9 million in equity in his Oak Brook mansion, along with $840,000 in equity from two South Loop condominiums, according to court records. In recent days, he appeared in the downtown federal courthouse to pledge his property and signed papers related to Rezko's bail. That proceeding, however, was conducted in a private session with U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve and lawyers. Records from it weren't immediately released.

Interpol warrant active

International intrigue surrounds Alsammarae, who dramatically fled Iraq in late 2006 after being held on a corruption conviction he maintains was groundless. He and Rezko have been friends since they were classmates at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

U.S. court papers recently revealed that the feds once accused Rezko, a native of Syria, of paying Alsammarae a $1.5 million bribe when Alsammarae was electricity minister. continued

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