V. Obama’s Heart of Darkness: Rezko, Auchi, Alsammarae, and Chicago Graft 203INSPIRATIONAL: OBAMA ONCE EYED A CAREER AS A SLUMLORD
As we have already seen, Obama’s close cooperation with Rezko and Davis goes back almost
twenty years. Obama now claims that part of the affinity among these figures was their shared
ideology in favor of the public-private partnership, a setup which appears to combine the worst
disadvantages of government ownership with all the pitfalls of private rapacity: Obama ‘once told
the Chicago Tribune that he had briefly considered becoming a developer of “affordable housing.”
But after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, he turned down a job with Tony Rezko’s
development company, Rezmar, choosing instead to work at the civil rights law firm Davis, Miner,
Barnhill & Galland, then led by Allison Davis. The firm represented a number of nonprofit
companies that were partnering with private developers to build affordable housing with
government subsidies. Obama sometimes worked on their cases. In at least one instance, he
represented the nonprofit company that owned Grove Parc, Woodlawn Preservation and Investment
Corp., when it was sued by the city for failing to adequately heat one of its apartment complexes.
Shortly after becoming a state senator in 1997, Obama told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that his
experience working with the development industry had reinforced his belief in subsidizing private
developers of affordable housing. “That’s an example of a smart policy,” the paper quoted Obama
as saying. “The developers were thinking in market terms and operating under the rules of the
marketplace; but at the same time, we had government supporting and subsidizing those efforts.”’
(Binyamin Appelbaum, “Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy,” Boston Globe, June
27, 2008) Smart policy? Chicago’s ghetto victims are not in agreement, as this article will show.
Obama’s election-year promises have generally turned out to be worthless, but the promise of
inflicting public-private partnerships on the entire country seems to be one promise which we really
can take to the bank:
Obama has continued to support increased subsidies as a presidential candidate, calling for the
creation of an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which could distribute an estimated $500 million
a year to developers. The money would be siphoned from the profits of two mortgage
companies created and supervised by the federal government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “I
will restore the federal government’s commitment to low-income housing,” Obama wrote last
September in a letter to the Granite State Organizing Project, an umbrella group for several
dozen New Hampshire religious, community, and political organizations. He added, “Our
nation’s low-income families are facing an affordable housing crisis, and it is our responsibility
to ensure this crisis does not get worse by ineffective replacement of existing public-housing
units.” (Binyamin Appelbaum, “Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy,” Boston
Globe, June 27, 2008)
Given the Chicago results, Obama has negative credibility on this issue. Will he make Rezko or
Daley the Secretary of Housing an Urban Development, which is already one of the most corrupt
cabinet agencies? With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now insolvent, where would Obama get the
money for so much graft?
We have seen the reports from an FBI mole at various times in recent years that Obama was
meeting Rezko once a day and more than once a day. Despite this, the Perfect Master wants us to
believe that he was not aware that the properties Rezko had received from the city administration
were now in total disrepair and unfit for human habitation.
Eleven of Rezmar’s buildings were located in the district represented by Obama, containing 258
apartments. The building without heat in January 1997, the month Obama entered the state