On The Radio Factor, Chicago Trib.'s Kass falsely claimed Rezko's wife "b[ought] the Obama dream house"
SUMMARY: On The Radio Factor, John Kass falsely claimed that Rita Rezko, wife of Antoin Rezko, "b[ought] the Obama dream house" in what Kass called "that shady real estate deal." In addition, Kass, who was also featured on ABC's World News and the CBS Evening News in reports about the scandal involving Gov. Rod Blagojevich, suggested to Bill O'Reilly that President-elect Barack Obama must be tainted by corruption because he comes from Chicago.
On the December 10 broadcast of Bill O'Reilly's nationally syndicated radio show, The Radio Factor, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass falsely claimed that Rita Rezko, wife of convicted Chicago businessman Antoin Rezko, "b[ought] the Obama dream house" in what Kass called "that shady real estate deal." In fact, documents posted on President-elect Barack Obama's campaign website indicate that he purchased the house himself. In addition, Kass, who was also featured on ABC's World News and the CBS Evening News in reports about the scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), suggested to O'Reilly that Obama must be corrupt because he comes from Chicago.
On the December 10 Radio Factor broadcast, O'Reilly asked Kass, "[I]s it possible that Obama could have, for years, operated in this Chicago political world and not been dishonest? Is that possible?" Kass replied, "Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River."
As Media Matters for America documented, several media figures and outlets have used the Blagojevich scandal as an opportunity to suggest that Obama is a product of corrupt "Chicago politics," disregarding prosecutor and U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's warning to "not cast aspersions on people for being named or being discussed" in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich.
From the December 10 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Let's bring in John Kass. He is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. So what do you make of all this?
KASS: Bill, I was on your program -- television program during the election. You got it. I don't think many of the mainstream media got it. It wasn't about Ayers that was the thing with Obama. It's about the corruption of the Chicago machine. It's all over the paper. You can see it for yourself.
O'REILLY: OK, but what does that mean for Obama? Is it going to mean that this is just the beginning of a never-ending association problem for him?
KASS: That may be -- that may be the most of it or the least of it. Like you, I don't know.
O'REILLY: OK, so you don't have -- you don't have --
KASS: What we do know --
O'REILLY: OK, so ahead.
KASS: -- is that because -- as you said, because this is Obama's Senate seat, the focus will be on this for a while.
O'REILLY: Yeah. Now, everybody's gonna go nuts and investigate every corner of this thing, which can't be good news for Obama because he dealt with Blagojevich and these guys, right?
KASS: Who was the -- who was in common between Obama and Governor Blagojevich?
O'REILLY: Rezko.
KASS: Tony Rezko, right.
O'REILLY: Right. The bagman.
KASS: Who was in common between -- Mrs. Rezko buys the Obama dream house in that shady real estate deal? Patty Blagojevich is a real estate -- you know, gets a lot of real estate deals herself. The fellow in between is named Amresh Maharjan. He's a banker. And he too -- his family, too, is under investigation for rippin' off the state for millions -- allegedly for millions of dollars in phony drug tests. It goes on and on.
O'REILLY: Now, Blagojevich himself -- it's amazing that a guy would be this stupid knowing he's under investigation for four years doin' this on the telephone, right?
KASS: How about -- how about Jackson doing the -- do the pay-for-play with a guy who everyone in town knows is under federal investigation?
O'REILLY: But Jackson says he didn't do it.
KASS: Jackson said that his people and he will cooperate with the investigation.
O'REILLY: Jackson denied that anyone had been authorized to make payments or promises to the governor on his behalf.
KASS: Oh, OK. We'll see. We'll see on that.
O'REILLY: So are you saying that you suspect that Jesse Jackson Jr. offered a million dollars for the Senate seat?
KASS: I'm saying that we haven't heard the end of this, and this is going to -- you know, I can't say that Jesse Jackson Jr. sat down and offered the money. But I assume that based on my experience of covering politics here for 30 years that sooner or later, you know, things come out. And the best thing for Jackson and everybody else to do is to cop to it and get it out of -- you know, get it of the way.
O'REILLY: You know, everybody went over Obama's background. I mean, the right wing particularly really worked his resume over, and they couldn't find very much. The Rezko thing was embarrassing. That was the big headline as far as Obama's concerned.
KASS: Well, the Rezko thing should have been a Senate ethics investigation, for God's sake, and it wasn't.
O'REILLY: OK, but say -- is it possible that Obama could have, for years, operated in this Chicago political world and not been dishonest? Is that possible?
KASS: Yes, that is possible. It's also possible that he was found as an infant in a reed basket floating in the Chicago River, and that --
LIS WIEHL (co-host): Boy.
O'REILLY: So it's that bad, John? You're tellin' me it's that bad and everybody in there is a crook?
KASS: No, no, no. I'm saying this, the image -- what I think the McCain -- the McCain people had a problem with focusing, but the message of Obama is change, right? Change and reform. But look, look at just the facts. Rezko, Blagojevich -- he endorsed Blagojevich -- he endorsed the Daley machine, even after the mayor gave a hundred million dollars in affirmative action contracts to white guys with connections to the Mafia. I mean, he endorsed Todd Stroger, the sort of ridiculous son of another ward boss. It goes on and on and on and on, all right?. So is that -- I guess you can -- the most damning thing you can say now is clearly that's not, you know, Chicago machine politics is not change. Whether there's anything more to it, I don't know. But I'm sure that because of the Blagojevich situation, people will be -- finally, the national media will finally be focused on the corruption here.
O'REILLY: I hope so.
From the December 10 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:
DEAN REYNOLDS (CBS News correspondent): A dark cloud hung over Chicago this morning as Governor Rod Blagojevich made his way to work. And longtime observers of the political climate here wonder whether that shadow will fall on Barack Obama.
KASS: It'll be interesting to see what happens when the -- in Washington, he's compelled to speak. Will he be able to avoid this?
From the December 10 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
[begin video clip]
JIM AVILA (senior law and justice correspondent): Tonight, new Christmas decorations at the governor's house, but the same bunker mentality, as some of Blagojevich's old colleagues call for him to resign and worry about his mental health.
LT. GOV. PAT QUINN (D-IL): He became more and more isolated, and I think that wasn't healthy.
AVILA: Many of his former friends now call him, out of touch, and Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass says something is different now. This city used to laugh at the corrupt past, and its unofficial political catchphrase motto of "Where's mine?"
KASS: The Senate of our country sold like it's lunch meat by a governor from a machine. There's nothing amusing about it. And what we're looking for is an end to it.
[end video clip]
AVILA: But as Kass points out, despite the Obama moment this city has been basking in, this is not Camelot. It's just Illinois.
Oh boy..... here we go again. Are we going to be treated to another round of dry holes from the Republcan slime machine, like the $40 million Whitewater witch hunt?
boy, now we have another well documented lie that people like AA can deny because someone who calls himself a journalist is still talking about it (so it must be true now!)
I think with Clinton, the GOP crap machine and the media started to build once he was in office. Unless my memory has softened it a little, this seems way crazier. The Repubs have been working away at the sliming for the past 8 years, but they've had to concentrate on defense a lot too. The media seems to be coming off of an eight year nap, interrupted by GOP instructions, and they're going right back into Clinton overdrive.
Reminds me of a joke. Two guys, a republican and a democrat are sitting and talking about how bad the economy is when the republican pipes up, "It's all Clintons fault!" The other one looks and says "How can that be? He's been dead for 100 years?"
John Kass is human garbage. It's a shame that he's the only guy from a major paper who goes after Daley on a regular basis (the Reader does a fine job), but he only does it because Daley snubbed him over a speaking engagement before a Greek fraternal organization. Kass is another "phony ethnic" who likes everyone to think that he lives in Chicago when he actually lives in the posh suburb of Western Springs. Royko used to mock him as "Johnny Deadline" as he typically runs around in a trench coat.
Royko, naturally, used to live in one of the richest suburbs of the North Shore.
But he was right about Kass, who's an opinionated clown.
Kass is biased but what reporter from major paper isn't. Especially when they are in bankruptcy and thier owner is being talked to by the feds. He has had it out for Daley, Stroger, Blago, Madigan for years. Its too bad he gets national press on this for his own platform.
He is very much like OJS. When he was acquitted not a whole lot of people believed, just like when BOR made the Mackaris thing go away by coughing up millions.
Left to their own senses, OJ is going to jail and BOR will too.
Sorry, Bill-O, I'm not convinced until I see hard evidence in the form of a red-arrow flow chart.
Har! Thanks Pete, I LOL'ed like the first time. Was that more than a year and a half ago? I read through the comments, and Valentinian was funny as hell, Wesley was just as confused as today, and HuntingtonBeachLefty was really a dick.
Whatever happened to Huntington Beach Lefty?
I miss him.
Rumor is, he was eaten by coyotes while clearing brush for a fire break.
Surely no one believes anything that O'Reilly says about any Democrat. Bill O pravaracates when he talks about Dems because he cannot make the case for Republicans based on the facts. That is Bill O's main problem. When in doubt he simply fills in the facts out of his head. His ability to distort is legion. There are good Republican leaning opinion people who make very well thought out and truthful statements about Democrats but Bill is not one of them. His first goal is a smear and that means even if he is compelled to smear instead of sticking to the facts, he does it so easily.
The real story foir this thread is what a "journalist" Kass is. Thsi guy prints innuendo four times a week as if it is investigative journalism. Every once in a great while someone tells him something true that makes him look like he knows something, but the majority of the time it is crap like "this politician must be dirty because he has worked with this politician." For someone who calls himself a journalist it is rather shocking. Just in this piece, he says Rezko bought the Obamas house. He knows that is not true. He says that Patty Blagojecich is a realtor. That is true, but completely irrelevant since he does not say she was Obama's realtor. He talks about the mysterious "middle-man" banker, but he makes no mention of whether or not the banker had anything to do with financing the Obamas home. Based on these random facts, he tries to piece together the story line that everyone is working together, although he presents no facts whatsoever to back it up. Kass is nothing but a hack with no ethical journalistic standards whatsoever.