Some free advice for Obama

The Clintons' personal and financial affairs have already been investigated ad nauseam. He should focus on answering any serious questions raised about his own.

By Joe Conason

March 7, 2008 | Whether the Democrats know enough about Barack Obama to nominate him for president -- and whether the nation will endorse that nomination in November -- remains to be seen. So far, as the trial of his former patron Antoin Rezko unfolds, nobody has even suggested that Obama did anything illegal or unethical to advance his relationship with the indicted Chicago developer. Yet many questions are still unanswered about that relationship, which included well over a hundred thousand dollars in political contributions and simultaneous real estate purchases that concluded three years ago with the Obama family owning a South Side mansion (and the Rezko family owning an adjacent lot that enlarged their celebrated neighbor's yard space).