No mention is made in her article of Obama's intimate connection to someone who may not be quite so interested in ethics, indicted businessman Tony Rezko. Even after it was known that Rezko was the target of a Federal investigation, Obama asked the wheeler-dealer to get involved in the purchase of Obama's home.

Obama has received considerable cash from Rezko and friends. After their connection was made public, the senator decided to start returning some contributions. In a June 19, 2007 editorial, the Chicago Tribune noted an earlier Tribune news story reporting Obama "was giving charities some $16,500 in campaign donations from two Chicago businessmen who had financial ties to Rezko. . .The story said this marked the fourth time that Obama's campaign has shed contributions made by Rezko and associates to Obama's campaigns -- contributions totaling more than $33,000."

The June 14, 2007 New York Times, in the article "An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment," stated:

"Mr. Obama has portrayed Mr. Rezko as a one-time fund-raiser whom he had occasionally seen socially. But interviews with more than a dozen political and business associates suggest that the two men were closer than the senator has indicated."

Even Ms Hunter's own Sun-Times has reported on the apparent duplicity involved in Obama's story about his connection to Rezko. On June 18, 2007, the newspaper carried a story titled, "Rezko cash triple what Obama says." It began:

"During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman Tony Rezko and his associates than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found."

If Barack Obama really wants to clean up government, he should begin by candidly and truthfully addressing his own ethics problems.

And Ms Hunter may have to look elsewhere for her ethical champion. I'm certain she'd be impressed with Hillary Clinton, her husband, and her brothers and their approach to good government.

Yesterday, "The Politico" carried a story on a stalled lobbying reform and ethics package.  Referring to charges that the House wants to amend the bill in conference, the story notes: "Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman, calls those assertions 'phony as a two-dollar bill.'"

Surprise, surprise.  The $2 note isn't phony.  Heck, the U.S. Treasury Department even has a fact sheet on them.

Will the good people of Nevada EVER stop embarrassing themselves and stop electing this pathetic joke as one of their senators?  

Alcee has terrific credentials to hold a major role in Mrs. Clinton's campaign.  As a former federal judge, he was impeached and removed from office for soliciting bribes.

It's a match made in heaven for Hillary Gupta Clinton.

"Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an 'on your own' society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity."

This is reminiscent of Mrs. Clinton's statement back in 2004 that "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

The emphasis on the seeking the "common good" while diminishing individual rights has been tried many times before.  Red China, the USSR, North Korea and Cuba are but a few of the happy places where it's been attempted.

If the worst happens and the American people put the Clintons back into the White House, they can't say they weren't warned.  What we can hope is that Mrs. Clinton's sudden truthfulness will be responded to the same as Walter Mondale's in 1984.  In accepting the Democratic nomination, he said:

"Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

Walter only lost 49 states to President Reagan that year.    

To Senator Barack Obama, "Studs Terkel is not just a national treasure - he's one of Chicago's treasures. For more than 50 years, his writings, broadcasts and interviews have illuminated the American experience."

According to ABC News Chicago, "Terkel is a liberal's liberal."  Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg writes of Terkel : "He was a TV star -- one of the first. "Studs' Place" ran on NBC from 1950 until 1953, until the blacklist did him in." Syndicated columnist Amy Goodman wrote that Terkel's "support for the refugees from the Spanish Civil War, with the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, earned the attention of Joe McCarthy."

I can find no evidence that Senator McCarthy's attention was ever focused on Studs Terkel.  What I did find, however, was an October, 1952 Chicago Tribune news article that began:

"Louis (Studs) Terkel, disc jockey, TV entertainer, and one-time political broadcaster, declined yesterday to discuss charges by Owen Vinson that Vinson joined the Communist party in 1943 at the invitation of Terkel.

"Vinson, former Chicago radio writer, director, and actor, made the charge Thursday in Los Angeles before the house committee on un-American activities.  Vinson has left the party, he testified."  At least one other person also provided sworn testimony that he had joined the party at Terkel's invitation.

The news article goes on to report that Terkel refused to say whether he was or had been a Communist.  He also stated:

"I have an overwhelming pity and contempt for Mr. Vinson.  Here is a nightmarish example of what fear and hysteria can do to the human spirit.  It makes of a man the lowest of God' creatures - an informer.

"I've always believed in the principle that a man's thoughts, whether political or religious, are his private domain. . . . "

Well, they are private until the point they're put into action, such as joining - and getting others to join - an organization whose primary objective is to advance the interests of the Soviet Union and destroy the freedoms we Americans have enjoyed.

Insofar as informers being the lowest of God's creatures, would Terkel ever feel that way about an informant turning in Ku Klux Klan members?  Or someone turning in an abortion clinic bomber?

The horrors of Communism, and the dupes who fell for it, are a matter of record.  Yet here's your man who for decades gave a voice to working men and women, CNN.  Here's your national treasure, Senator Obama.  Here's your liberal's liberal, ABC News Chicago.

Maybe before he leaves the stage, he'll tell us whether he'd been a Communist.  Not that it would matter to any of you.

But how courageous was Murrow?  Did he save the Republic from a man whose vicious tactics silenced any criticism?

Not hardly.

There was already massive media opposition to the Wisconsin senator.  Edwin Bayley’s 1981 book, “Joe McCarthy and the Press,” catalogs newspaper coverage after Joe launched his anti-Communism crusade in February, 1950.

Within days, the Washington Post’s editorial, “Sewer Politics,” charged: “Rarely has a man in public life crawled and squirmed so abjectly.”  The New York Times condemned “the campaign of indiscriminate character-assassination.”
 
Other newspapers hopped on the bandwagon and ran editorials with headings like “Irresponsible Senator McCarthy,” “Utterly Irresponsible,” and “Jumping Joe McCarthy.”  Editorial cartoons incessantly ridiculed Joe and his efforts.

The 1973 book “When Even Angels Wept” by Lately Thomas points out that the same press that constantly warned of McCarthyite intimidation called the senator a “spiteful and delinquent mental patient,” “a primitive form of political obscenity,” a “nauseating character assassin,” and “our No. 1 Fascist.”  And this is merely a portion of what the author describes as “a sampling of choice billingsgate.”
 
By the time Murrow produced his “See It Now” attack on McCarthy in 1954, the senator had been extensively pilloried for four long years.  Yes, selectively editing thousands of feet of film to place McCarthy in the most unflattering light possible did have an impact.

It’s unfair, though, to single out Murrow's "courageous journalism" and suggest it vanquished Joe McCarthy.
 
Renowned broadcaster Eric Sevareid said in 1978 that the Murrow assault “came very late in the day.  The youngsters read back and they think only one person in broadcasting and the press stood up to McCarthy and this has made a lot of people feel very upset, including me, because that program came awfully late.”

Even Murrow admitted to less than a significant role in destroying Joe.  As quoted in Bayley’s book, the newsman told New York Times columnist Jack Gould:
 
“My God, I didn't do anything. (Times columnist) Scotty Reston and lot of guys have been writing like this, saying the same things, for months, for years.  We’re bringing up the rear.”

Yet Al Gore marvels at Murrow's courage.  It appears the former vice president might get his history lessons from Hollywood.

His campaign's Website stresses Richardson's diplomatic skills: "Presidents, Secretaries of State, and Prime Ministers soon came to know Bill as the go-to guy for tough hostage negotiations." 

The governor's being modest; at least one president came to know Richardson as the go-to guy when he needed to find Monica Lewinski a job.  Richardson was at the time the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Ms. Lewinsky expected President Clinton's assistance in finding a new career.  You know, something to keep her busy enough so she wouldn't have time to chat about her Oval Office Lothario.  Bill Richardson was designated the go-to guy.  As reported by the Washington Post in 1998:

"Under questioning by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), Richardson said deputy White House chief of staff John D. Podesta, a friend, called him and asked if he'd interview Lewinsky, then at the Pentagon press office. 'He said this was a friend of Betty Currie. . . . He asked me as a favor to Betty to interview her,' said Richardson, adding that Podesta 'did not even know what her name was when he asked me to interview her.'"

"Richardson said he and two aides met with Lewinsky last October in a Watergate Hotel suite he often used in Washington. 'She was impressive,' said Richardson. 'I remember my chief of staff being impressed with Ms. Lewinsky's gregariousness, her ability to express herself. She came very well-prepared,' he told the committee."

"Murkowski said he found it 'curious' that Richardson would be interviewing applicants for a $30,000-a-year political outreach job. But Richardson said it was 'a very normal procedure' for him to sit in on interviews."

It's little wonder Ms. Lewinsky was well-prepared for the interview; Clinton personally helped prep her for it using his favorite technology, the telephone.

With all the responsibilities he carried as a U.S. Ambassador, Bill Richardson still found the time to interview a deserving young person for an entry-level position.  That's what I call diplomatic.  Not only that, he offered her the job.  Talk about being the go-to guy.