Be careful what you wish for *UPDATED*

Barack Obama, a political nobody in terms of experience, has been thrust to the highest echelons in a matter of months, with the White House realistically within his reach. This is every politician’s dream, it’s the Hollywood movie, but it may not be quite the perfect scenario that Obama and his followers envisioned. You see, it turns out that even political nobodies have a past, and that past is finally starting to catch up with Obama. In, of all places, the Spiegel magazine, one finds as good a summary as any of the history that’s beginning to reveal itself:

In love, the first sight is followed by a second. The voters are not gamblers. Perhaps Tuesday’s results are already a sign of their disillusionment following the new, less flattering light that has been shone on Barack Obama in recent days.

First of all: He is possibly not the man he pretends to be. In the industrial state of Ohio he has spent weeks railing against NAFTA, the free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that Bill Clinton signed when he was president. Obama has blamed it for unemployment and the collapse of industry. At the same time his top economics advisor met with the Canadian general consul in Chicago to assure him that this was all electioneering — Obama would stick to the free trade agreement. Canadian TV aired a story on the meeting. The advisor then said that he had been misunderstood. Perhaps it was lost in the translation, the Wall Street Journal joked.

Secondly: Obama is not just spiritual, he is material. As a politician in Chicago he was involved with the local businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps too closely to suit his Messiah image. The one-time real estate king is currently in court following a three-year FBI investigation and faces charges including corruption and money laundering. Rezko was an early patron of Obama’s. He donated money to Obama’s campaign and encouraged others to do the same. Obama has since given this money to charity.

Furthermore, Obama has Rezko to thank for his villa in south Chicago. In the summer of 2005 Obama had just been elected to the Senate, and wanted to buy the luxury home. It should have cost around $2 million but the realtor wanted to sell it together with an adjacent undeveloped lot, which would have cost another $625,000 — too much for Obama. Then Rezko’s wife got involved. She bought the piece of land at the full price, while Obama got his house for a $300,000 markdown. An act of friendship? Corruption? A normal move in the world of real estate tycoons? Obama said in 2006 and repeats to this day that is was “a boneheaded move.”

Thirdly: “I say what I think, and do what I say,” Obama says about himself. But it seems he is also just a politician, one who subordinates the truth to his own interests. The conversation between the economic advisor and the Canadian was denied — until the TV story appeared.

He has had to correct his memory several times when it comes to the Rezko case, which the US media has only gradually started to show an interest in. At one stage he was aware of the FBI investigation into Rezko when he agreed to the house deal with his wife, and then he wasn’t. First he said he had never discussed the house with Rezko, then he admitted that they had looked at it together.

It is not clear if Rezko introduced Obama to his Iraqi financial backer when he was in Chicago on a visit. He was part of Saddam Hussein’s circle and was handed down a suspended sentence in the French Elf scandal. Obama says he has “no memory” of ever meeting him.

What’s impressive isn’t just the fact that there is baggage, but that there is so much baggage when compared to Obama’s very short political life. Hillary has an impressive trail of slime by any standards, but she’s been working on it since the mid-1970s.

When one couples the problems described above with Obama’s inability to handle anything other than a Love Fest, his refusal to answer tough questions, and the fact that his wife appears to loathe this country, despite the many benefits heaped upon her, it’s entirely possible that Obama’s glow may fade more quickly than I had originally imagined. Indeed, it may fade so much that I don’t even have to worry too much about what my neighbors agreed one day, while waiting at the bus stop, would be a dream ticket: Hillary and Obama.

UPDATE:  Power Line also wonders if Obama has peaked and reality is starting to set in.