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‘Obamazebo’ Reveals the Candidate’s Flawed Judgment
A million dollar botanical garden pushed by Obama has only a gazebo and a missing $100,000 to show for it.
Those who view the videos accompanying the Sun-Times‘ original and September 25 reports will see that there is still a lot of concrete and trash.
There is also $100,000 of state money Obama obtained for the project that is mostly unaccounted for.
Oh, we know who got it. But for the most part, we have no idea what they did with it, with one exception — a gazebo that graphic contributor “tnculp” dubbed the Obamazebo:
(Original photo is from AP and Chicago Sun-Times; a Google Earth screenshot of the area, with the lonely Obamazebo visible, is here.)
Kenny B. Smith Jr., to whose Chicago Better Housing Association Obama steered the grant, was an Obama campaign volunteer who also contributed $550 to Barack’s 2000 state Senate and congressional campaigns. While Smith claims to have submitted paperwork to the state supporting what his association and his wife’s construction company spent on the project (which, oddly enough, he said he didn’t have copies of), the Sun-Times could only confirm the existence of the Obamazebo plus a few thousand dollars’ worth of site clearance work by a subcontractor.
Illinois’s attorney general is investigating.
Team Obama’s reaction: A not-our-fault, move-along, change-the-subject press release (at the end of this Sun-Times blog post).
Paraphrasing what I noted in mid-July shortly after the first Sun-Times report, this episode is about a lot more than almost $100,000 virtually vanishing:
- Obama doesn’t feel responsible for the results of money clearly misdirected to someone he chose.
- The press release announcing the project in 2000 shows that Kenny Smith was present. Smith made grand claims about how he was “work(ing) with a variety of governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups to secure funding (for) this project including the Chicago Transit Authority, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture. We have made some progress… “
- Given the lack of results, it’s reasonable to believe that Smith had at most met with these entities once or twice, and was blowing smoke about his realistic chances of getting money.
- So for a nominal $550 in campaign contributions and a few blow-offs by wishful-thinking funding sources, Smith got 100 grand, which has somehow disappeared.
From all appearances, Obama simply got hustled at Illinois taxpayers’ expense. You have to wonder if he even looked into how the rest of the “fund-raising” was going before the grant was made.
The Obamazebo episode shows that the Democratic presidential candidate can’t even get a $100,000 grant right. And while I’m thinking of it, who in the world really believes that building a botanical garden spurs economic development? When has such a result ever occurred?
Now Obama wants to have the final say in matters relating to a $3 trillion-plus federal budget and a $14 trillion economy in a town chock full of con artists and tricksters.
Yikes.
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Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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30 Comments
1. Marc Malone:What happened to “working tirelessly”? If a Pub had done that, there’d be all kinds of hearings. Where I come from, if you put your name and rep on something, you’d better follow through or suffer the consequences. But, there are no consequences, because it’s Chicago. What a cesspool.
(Oh, shut up. I was born there.)
Oct 9, 2008 - 1:06 am 2. skink:Oh Look, the Gazebo to Nowhere!
Did he get earmarks for this?
Was it funded by moslem groups?
Why didn’t they build something useful, like a hockey stadium?
If you’re going to pork-barrel, then you really need something huge like the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Yhis gazebo shows a singular lack of vision.
I am indignant
Oct 9, 2008 - 1:22 am 3. Silent Running » Blog Archive » A Trajectory Analysis:[...] annoyance, and usually several steaming piles of poop. Which is an apt description of the immediate results of most of Obama’s early Chicago [...]
Oct 9, 2008 - 1:43 am 4. Silent Running » Blog Archive » O’Fail, Visible From Space:[...] $100,000 buy in Chicago? Obamazebo! View Larger [...]
Oct 9, 2008 - 1:50 am 5. Ed Wallis:“Gazebo To Nowhere.”
Thank you, “skink,” you can now clean the coffee off my laptop…a good one!!!
Oct 9, 2008 - 3:20 am 6. BizzyBlog » Latest Pajamas Media Column (’‘Obamazebo’ Reveals the Candidate’s Flawed Judgment’) Is Up; Follow-up Point:[...] It’s here. [...]
Oct 9, 2008 - 3:38 am 7. Broadsword:“Working tirelessly” means working, without any tires, until you are tired of working. Beneficiaries of the “tirelessly working” (for you)…let them play golf. Teed off…
Oct 9, 2008 - 4:12 am 8. Dick Gonzalez:Hint: If you really want to do anti-Obama propaganda, don’t announce at the beginning of the piece that you’re looking exclusively for reasons to slam Obama.
LOL!!!
I love the fact that so many wingers are drawn to echo chambers where their ideas can only get nuttier…
Oct 9, 2008 - 5:15 am 9. Cybergeezer:A good demonstration on WHY the socialist media wants Obama elected; He’s so clueless on economics, the socialist media believes they can steal some money from the U.S. Government, with Obamas help. Once Obama has the keys to the bank, he will conveniently lose the keys or give them to someone else. Needless to say, Obama will be a devastating appointment for America. Like he already said, America won’t be what it once was; he’ll make sure of that!
Oct 9, 2008 - 5:46 am 10. Tarell:Many of americans have hung their hat on Obama. He has disapointed us all
Oct 9, 2008 - 6:49 am 11. jerry:I see we hav a new Astroturfer in here Dickie Gonzales. He is probably nclatter in drag.
Dickie:
There is a pattern to all of things Obama has been involved in. A lot of talk, a lot of money and failure to perform followed by an excuse.
Let’s see: Community organizer working to “improve” housing. Result: condemned housing and enriched cronies.
Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Result: $100 million disapears and the program is shut down because educational performance has declined.
In comparison the $100k is chump change but it does encapsulate Obama’s judgement and skills.
I will be waiting for a fact based rebuttal from Dickie.
Oct 9, 2008 - 7:32 am 12. kelly k:“who in the world really believes that building a botanical garden spurs economic development?”
That my first thought. What a joke.
There are plenty of vacant lots on the South Side. Some of those could be turned into community gardens or playgrounds for a lot less than $100,000. And the planning and construction could involve, you know, actual people from the neighborhood, so that they feel some ownership, instead of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Yeah, that Obama, he’s a great community organizer.
Oct 9, 2008 - 8:52 am 13. SAF:If McCain or Palin had done the same bit of work we would hear about it day and night and with the derision it deserves.
How did the MSM get to be so bad at vetting candidates?
Scary to think he is on his way to becoming president. What a country!
Oct 9, 2008 - 8:54 am 14. Lance:I recommend that you all Google Saul Alinsky and Saul Alinsky socialist (I found more info, that way). Alinsky, who died in 1972, founded the community organiser concept. Obama has been following the far, far left marxist’s economic goal to redistribution of wealth. It even justifies lying.
Obama downplays any Alinsky influence but the Boston Globe of 31 August has a letter from son David Alinsky. (see it online):
Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.
I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.
L. DAVID ALINSKY
Oct 9, 2008 - 10:10 am 15. Marc Malone:Medfield
skink – Gazebo to Nowhere! Quip of the week. Hate your politics, but love your humor!
Oct 9, 2008 - 12:45 pm 16. TL LEE:It’s so much better here than those Communist blog sites. Now that I least could enjoy reading it.:)
Oct 9, 2008 - 2:52 pm 17. Obama’s $100,000 Gazebo « Sooshi Soo:[...] Obama’s $100,000 Gazebo Posted on October 9, 2008 by sooshisoo ‘Obamazebo’ Reveals the Candidate’s Flawed Judgment [...]
Oct 9, 2008 - 5:43 pm 18. DisturbedEma:All Hail to the man who dispenses hope. . .with other people’s money. . .that he keeps in the family. . .Marx is spinning in his grave with this one. . .
Oct 9, 2008 - 5:58 pm 19. zeppenwolf:The “Gazebo To Nowhere” is kinda nice, in a zen sort of way…
But if you ***GIVE $100,000 TO ME***, I can incorporate the gazebo into an elegant bocci lawn, (benches extra).
Obama, give me a call.
Oct 9, 2008 - 8:27 pm 20. Marc Malone:jerry – Gonzales is NOT nlcatter. Too many words. I know nlcatter. I’ve argued with nlcatter. Dick Gonzales is NO nlcatter!
Oct 9, 2008 - 9:01 pm 21. BigHerm:That gazebo is from Menards!
Oct 9, 2008 - 9:07 pm 22. Thatguy:Ahhhh Chicago, the New Orleans of the North. Now With 40% Less Urine Smell!
Oct 10, 2008 - 4:27 am 23. Marc Malone:(Rethink) It’s the “Gazebo in Nowhere”.
Oct 10, 2008 - 3:02 pm 24. BizzyBlog » The Obamazebo, and Obama’s ‘Judgment to Lead’:[...] This item originally appeared at Pajamas Media on [...]
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:13 am 25. Anthony (Los Angeles):Good article. It’s a small incident, but it reveals Obama for the slick-talking phony he is.
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:39 pm 26. Dave:What’s really funny is that L. David Alinsky, son of the urban savior, now lives in Medfield, Massachusetts, the town where I grew up. Medfield is a prosperous, lily-white* suburb where famous athletes live in $10 million homes and send their kids to good public schools.
*There was _one_ black kid in my high school class of ‘88. He didn’t live in Medfield — the school borrowed him to strengthen its football team!
Oct 12, 2008 - 8:01 pm 27. Anon:Shucks, folks, I’m sure that AG Lisa Madigan will do a full and impartial investigation. Oh, and yeah, that botanical doohickie will really boost the economic life of that neighborhood of half-empty lots sandwiched between an expressway and RR tracks.
Hehehe, I’m from the Chicago area (”technically” in IL-speak, I’m “downstate” cuz I’m outside Cook Co). Looks like SOP to me. I’m surprised the $ are so small. Reporting like this is a sport here in Chicago, sorta like the Cubs: the appearance of sound and fury, but guaranteed to choke with no lasting affect.
Oct 13, 2008 - 1:42 am 28. nobozons:BO IS PART OF THE PROBLEM NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.
Oct 13, 2008 - 10:46 am 29. AdrianS:Song sung for Obama followers
http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/nextgenblog/
Oct 14, 2008 - 8:52 am 30. Maurice B Thomas:Glad to see that punitive efforts like this to focus on the warts and ignore the physiognomy of public servants like Obama, who could not possibly guarantee 100% accountability on the part of all funded projects any more than any other public servant could, did not succeed in their desired goal, any more than the recipient of the funding did.
So, I will archive this as one of those smear efforts against the President of the United States, that failed.
Jan 25, 2009 - 5:44 am