According to the Sun Times columnist Carol Marin, the Tony Rezko story is not just going to go away [ed note: it will not go away as long as the press smells blood, and still has a heartbeat]:
"Tony Rezko is a story that is just not going away. This was made abundantly clear Tuesday night when Sen. Barack Obama announced that his U.S. Senate campaign is now returning almost double the money it had already given to charity from its former, now-indicted fund-raiser, Tony Rezko. The grand total of returned cash now stands at about $150,000.
"There is no suggestion that the Democratic presidential contender is connected to the kind of illegal dealings for which Rezko will stand trial next month. But his judgment with regard to Rezko is distinctly in question.
"Obama has admitted it was "boneheaded" to enter into a land deal with Rezko that allowed the senator and his wife to buy a $1.65 million mansion on the same day Rezko's wife bought the lot next door. But there are a host of unanswered questions. Here are just a few:
"Exactly how were the terms and timing arrived at that allowed Obama to buy the house at a $300,000 discount, while Mrs. Rezko paid full price?
"Given that Rezko was already publicly known to be under investigation, what persuaded Obama to still deal with him?
"When did Obama realize that Rezko, a low-income housing developer, had 11 failed properties in Obama's state Senate district alone? Or that Rezko was defaulting on taxpayer-funded deals at the same time he was still an Obama political benefactor?
"Was there, at the least, the appearance of a conflict of interest between Obama's legal work for low-income Rezco-connected developers and Obama's responsibilities as a state senator?"
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