RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hillary in 2008

On the subject of the Rezko scandal, and how it affects both Clinton and Obama, this Mclaughlin Group transcript, from 1/29/2008 :

• Issue Two: Hot Rage.
  
  (Begin videotaped segment [televised debate between Clinton and Obama].)
  
  SENATOR BARACK OBAMA (D-IL, Democratic presidential candidate): Let's talk about Ronald Reagan. What you just repeated here today is patently --
  
  SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), Democratic presidential candidate): Barack --
  
  SEN. OBAMA: Wait. No, Hillary, you just spoke --
  
  SEN. CLINTON: Barack, I did not say --
  
  SEN. OBAMA: You just spoke for two minutes.
  
  SEN. CLINTON: I did not say anything about Ronald Reagan. You said two things.
  
  SEN. OBAMA: You just spoke --
  
  SEN. CLINTON: You talked about admiring Ronald Reagan --
  
  SEN. OBAMA: Hillary, I'm sorry, but --
  
  SEN. CLINTON: -- and you talked about the ideas of the Republicans.
  
  SEN. OBAMA: -- you just --
  
  SEN. CLINTON: I didn't talk about Ronald Reagan.
  
  SEN. OBAMA: Hillary, we just had the tape. You just said that I complimented the Republican ideas. That is not true. What I said -- and I will provide you with the quote -- what I said was that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interest to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to. So these are the kinds of political games that we are accustomed to.
  
  SEN. CLINTON: No. Now, wait a second.
  
  SEN. OBAMA: I'm sorry.
  
  SEN. CLINTON: Wolf [CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer] -- wait a minute.
  
  (End videotaped segment.)
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Did this exchange unveil a hidden side of Obama's personality? I ask you, Monica.
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Well, the Clinton team fights like biker chicks at a biker bar with broken beer bottles, right, and they've got you on the defensive. And the next thing you know, they've got their combat boot on your neck. Barack Obama is like Wile E. Coyote. Finally the anvil has landed on his head and he's woken up to the tactics of the Clinton team. And what you saw in that clip is Obama finally wising up to the fact that the Clintons play gutter politics. And unless he is willing to be as aggressive on the substantive points and actually calling her out -- and him, by the way, meaning Bill -- calling them out on their tactics, he's going to be sunk --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You think Obama --
  
  MS. CROWLEY: -- (inaudible).
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think Obama appeared mean-spirited in any way in that exchange?
  
  MS. CLIFT: Actually, that reminded me of the McLaughlin Group. And when I heard him say, "Let me finish," I identified with him -- (laughs) -- not with her. And I have to admit, I wanted to close my eyes and imagine Romney or Giuliani standing in Obama's place, because, look, Hillary Clinton knows how to fight, and that's the whole premise of her campaign is that she can handle it in the fall.
  
  I think it was hard to watch and I think Obama is beginning to find his voice in fighting back. But he doesn't want to damage his brand as a healer and a unifier. And if he gets down there in the back and forth --
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: He's been dragged --
  
  MS. CLIFT: -- it hurts him.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The public is concerned about health insurance. They're concerned about the price of gasoline. They're concerned about the state of the economy. And they're talking about whether or not you're a Reaganite.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: What happened is --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What is that, dancing on the head of a pin?
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: No, I think the Clintons have done a job on Obama. He came out of Iowa. He was a transcendent, transformative figure. He'd gotten all these white votes. He's running way up high. And they gutted him and kicked him and dragged him down. And now he's fighting back, and it's very unseemly. And he's being reduced to the African-American vote in South Carolina. He's lost the women. He's lost the Hispanics. He's lost the --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Because of the evil Clintons.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: Because they all got him into this ugly brawl.
  
  MS. CLIFT: I'm not going to go that far. MR. ZUCKERMAN: The way she is now fighting in this campaign is the kind of -- it's an echo of the partisan politics that was associated with the Clintons while they were in office. And I think both of them were diminished as a result of it, because he went off -- she forced him off the pedestal.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why don't you focus on the weakness of his campaign, Obama's campaign?
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: No, I think -- not only I have focused on it, frankly, because I think the real problem with it is it's too ethereal. There is not enough substance in the way of policy.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay. Icy rage -- icy rage.
  
  Obama taunted Hillary by saying that during Ronald Reagan's presidency, he, Obama, was pounding the streets in Chicago as a community organizer at the same time Hillary was a director on Wal- Mart's board.
  
  SEN. OBAMA: (From videotape.) While I was working on those streets, watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That Wal-Mart barb from Obama triggered Clinton to correct Obama, saying that she actually fought the Reagan policies while Obama was on the payroll of a lowlife influence-peddler.
  
  SEN. CLINTON: (From videotape.) I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Rezko that Hillary named is Tony Rezko, a Syrian-born American restaurateur and real estate developer. Rezko is regarded as a political fixer and a back-room operator.
  
  1990 -- Obama, still at Harvard Law School, interviews for a job at one of Rezko's development companies and declines it.
  
  '93 -- Obama joins a Chicago law firm that represents Rezko.
  
  '95 -- Rezko contributes $2,000 to Obama's Illinois Senate campaign.
  
  '98 -- Illinois Senator Obama seeks government funding for a Rezko housing development.
  
  2003 -- Rezko foots the bill for a $1,000-a-head kickoff cocktail reception for Obama's U.S. Senate run. Obama appoints Rezko to serve on his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee.
  
  '04 -- FBI begins investigating Rezko for business fraud, influence-peddling, extortion, conspiracy and money laundering. June '05 -- Obama executes land transaction with Rezko involving an Obama $1.65 million home purchase, $300,000 under the asking price, and the purchase of land adjacency involving Mr. And Mrs. Rezko.
  
  December '05 -- Obama purchases a piece of the adjacent lot from Mr. And Mrs. Rezko for $104,000.
  
  '07 -- Obama divests himself of $44,000 in funds tied to Rezko.
  
  January '08, one week ago, on the eve of the debate, Obama divests himself of an additional $40,000 in Rezko-linked contributions.
  
  February 25, '08, one month from now, Tony Rezko goes on trial on federal charges of business fraud, influence-peddling, extortion, conspiracy, money laundering, with Patrick Fitzgerald as prosecutor -- the same U.S. attorney who gained headlines and the conviction of Scooter Libby.
  
  Rezko and Obama have had dealings for 17 years.
  
  FYI, there is no evidence whatsoever that Barack Obama or Mrs. Obama were involved in anything illegal regarding Tony Rezko.
  
  Question: Is Obama tarnished by Rezko? Eleanor Clift.
  
  MS. CLIFT: With all due respect, John, you're not the first person to turn over all these rocks. It's been examined by the Chicago newspapers.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Sun-Times.
  
  MS. CLIFT: Right. And, yeah, I mean, I think the Clintons are going to try to make this seem like Jim McDougal and Whitewater, the 2008 version of that, which was a whole lot about nothing.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: They've been on it for a year, examining it.
  
  MS. CLIFT: Right. But, you know, if you want to make charges like this stick, there has to be some underlying characteristic about this candidate that makes you uneasy. I really don't think people look at Barack Obama and think corrupt; they think he's in it for the money somehow.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The public will say, "Why is he hanging out with this guy?"
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: Well --
  
  MS. CLIFT: Well, and the Clintons also hung out with this guy.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: But John, you know, this --
  
  MS. CLIFT: There's actually photographic evidence of that.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay. Okay. She's raised a point. This photograph has emerged of the Clintons and Rezko.
  
  (Begin videotaped segment.)
  
  MATT LAUER (NBC "Today"): It is undated, I'm going to tell you right now. We know it's him. We don't know when it was taken. We think it was taken during your husband's presidency. I'm just curious. Do you know anything about the picture? Do you know when it was taken? Do you remember meeting this man?
  
  SEN. CLINTON: No, I don't. You know, I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. I don't know the man. I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door. I don't have a 17-year relationship with him.
  
  MR. LAUER: Does it make sense to use someone like this, Tony Rezko, against Senator Obama when there really is no such thing as political purity anymore?
  
  SEN. CLINTON: There's a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know and haven't seen since and having a relationship.
  
  (End videotaped segment.)
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: You know, John --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Has this photograph turned Hillary's bullets, destined for Obama, into blanks? Pat Buchanan.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: No, it hasn't. Look, anybody that's been in politics know they walk people through hundreds of them at fund- raisers and you take a photograph and move on. That's what that is.
  
  Now, this thing -- he does have a connection with a sleazy character, but let me defend Obama. I have seen no hard evidence that this guy did anything criminal at all -- I'm talking about Obama -- for this guy. He's got a guy who hangs around politics, who turned out to be very sleazy and maybe a crooked character. And I think it's tarnished Obama. And I think it's somewhat unfair, all this attention focused on that.
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Yeah. And you know what? The reason that Hillary did this is because that's the only thing that they have on the guy. Barack Obama is a very intelligent, skilled, class act. They found one guy, and so she gets panicky in the debate. She goes nuclear on Obama by dragging up the Rezko guy, which is particularly rich coming from the queen of the mother of all shady land deals, Whitewater, okay.
  
  MS. CLIFT: Which was a whole lot about nothing.
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Wait a minute. What the Clintons are so good at is accusing their rivals and opponents, accusing them of exactly what they are guilty themselves of.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you so positive towards --
  
  MS. CROWLEY: It's -- (inaudible) -- from them.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you so positive towards Obama because of your odium for the Clintons?
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Look --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that why you're positive towards him?
  
  MS. CROWLEY: I would not -- no, no, no. Look, I think that the Clintons have a rap sheet of shady donors going right up to Norman Hsu as of, what, last week. But there's some nerve on the part of the Clintons to attack Barack Obama for one night --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think a list could be put together --
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: How about Marc Rich?
  
  MS. CROWLEY: He has apologized and given the money to charity.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Two-part exit question. Part one: Will Rezko's association with Obama torpedo Obama's prospects in the primaries to come? Second part: Will Rezko torpedo Obama's prospects long term?
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: No. But look, there's a tarnish, a bit of a smear on Obama. But, no, that's not what's going to kill him, John. What's going to kill him (is) what's already been done in Nevada and South Carolina, which is turn him from a candidate who happened to be black into the black candidate.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you forgotten something?
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: And second --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I'm doing this for the rest of the panel so they will not embarrass themselves. We've got a trial coming up. The trial is going to be prolonged. There are many counts.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: I don't know of --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It's Patrick Fitzgerald. It's day in and day out, video every night --
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: I don't know that Rezko --
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- of Rezko.
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: I don't know of a thing that Obama has done for Rezko that is in any way shady or criminal.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I'm telling you, the trial is not going to leave a pleasant odor.
  
  MS. CLIFT: The answer is double no. Barack Obama is not on trial. And every politician in Washington has a rap sheet of donors. It's unfortunately the system that we operate under.
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Well, what is going to torpedo Barack Obama is the Clinton war machine. It's not this individual Rezko charge.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean, there's more that they have on him?
  
  MS. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, look at how the Clintons are playing this game. Barack Obama is trying to run a class operation, and the Clintons wouldn't know class if it hit them on the head.
  
  MS. CLIFT: It's called politics, Monica. (Laughs.)
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Could there be a counter-sympathy for Obama because of what the alleged Clintons are doing?
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: Well, I think there is. There's been a lot of editorial comment really hostile to both Bill Clinton and Hillary for doing exactly this. And frankly, both of them end up being diminished by it. The country is just sick and tired of this kind of stuff. If you want to go back through the Clintons, you could find all kinds of material, okay, that could be brought up. I think this is an absolute non-issue.
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The trial will be a non-factor?
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: Absolutely. He is not on trial. You know, it is really a ridiculous issue. It is just another attempt to smear. And I think both of them --
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: Hey, Mort -- you've got to get behind Romney, Mort. (Laughs.)
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: I will. I will, if I knew who he was, okay?
  
  MR. BUCHANAN: (Laughs.)
  
  MS. CLIFT: Which Romney should you get behind?
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: Right. Which Romney?
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: My feeling is Obama --
  
  MR. ZUCKERMAN: Who is he today?
  
  MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Can we get out? My feeling is Obama will not be hurt permanently by the Rezko matter.