Who's Obama Partying With?

Welcome New York Times readers!

News coming out of the Tony Rezko trial today puts Barack Obama in the company of very smarmy people:

CHICAGO (AP) -- The government's star witness at the fraud trial of political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko testified Monday that he attended a party for a British billionaire at Rezko's home, where Sen. Barack Obama and his wife also were among the guests.

Attorney Stuart Levine testified that the party took place in April 2004 and was held to honor Iraqi-born, London-based billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who was visiting the United States at the time.

Rezko, of course, is on trial for demanding kick-backs from companies desiring lucrative state contracts, good old school Chicago politics at its best -- the kind of politics Obama cut his teeth on. But Rezko's not the real story in this blurb; Nadhmi Auchi is.

I posted on Auchi back in February, and he's exactly the guy Obama does not want to be seen as in cahoots with. He was, for example, convicted of fraud in France and is under investigation in Britain for the largest-ever swindle of the National Health Service. Several US political fundraisers are currently on trial for corruption in connection with loans received from Auchi ... who, BTW, is currently barred from entering the US by the state department as an undesirable alien.

Maybe that explains why Obama's in favor of drivers licenses for illegals ...

Here are excerpts from my Feb. post on Obama's party-mate, drawing mainly from a London Times piece:

Most interestingly, he worked for Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Oil before setting up his own company, intriguingly based in the laissez faire business back room of Luxembourg. He is also the longstanding president of the Anglo-Arab Organisation (the link is to a Web site that's under construction). At one A-AO event, he said:

“What is happening in the Middle East is not acceptable or justified in any way, and I would like to appeal here from this stage to all international government which have influences in the Middle East to gather and stop this bloodshed and massacre."

Massacre? Is he talking about how Arabs are massacring innocent Israelis with their suicide vests? Well ...

“Dialogue is the only way that can get us together out of this problem. We reiterate our role as an organization in building the dialogue bridges between Arab and Moslems on one side, and Britain, Europe and the West in general on the other side”.

Notice who's missing from the dialog? There appears to be no room for Israel in the thinking of this man who extended such largess to a certain Chicago politician with a Muslim name (even though we know he's a Christian!).

Also check out this Guardian piece that really flames Auchi.

What's that old saying? You can tell a person's character by the company he keeps? Yeah, that's it.