Compared to all the unpleasant stuff any President has to do just to keep the country going, posing for a photo or two with a crook who’d like to redeem his public image is pretty damn trivial. Did you have some specific greater service in mind?
What does posing for photos have to do with anything?
It would be unwise. Hsu is an outlier; the Pubs have a much larger and more reliable criminal base. (Enron, Custer Battles, Halliburton . . .)
You just proved my point. The Republicans have a “criminal base”, but Hsu is just an “outlier”. Ok whatever. There are none so blind, as those that will not see.
Halliburton!!
Hey, I’m just waiting for you to answer my twice-stated request for what you think the criminal will actually get for his donation, and in lieu of any significant benefit, I’ll suggest the relatively minor ill-advised photo-op.
But if you’d rather just bleat “but they’re crooooooooks”, go ahead. The more realistic view is that a President (as well as a serious candidate for President) has to deal with all kinds of people, some of whom are unsavoury, and it’s pretty childish to assume this is a recently-added or avoidable part of the process.
And sometimes he has nicknames for them like “Kenny Boy” and sometimes he invites them to become his Vice President – like the CEO of Halliburton Inc.
Back to the OP:
I saw this comment in another post. This one is news to me. What’s the straight dope on the rumor?
I’m not so sure that would make you embrace GWB. If the tabloids are correct, and they are sometimes, Laura leaves George on 1/21/09 and the details of the divorce have already been agreed on. The cause of the breakup is Bush’s longtime affair with someone quite well known.
Coulter? Hannity? Gibson?
Not sure which of those three makes me want to puke more. I think it will all come out sometime.
Brain bleach, stat!
There are nasty rumors about most of the candidates (including Obama) but I don’t think Hillary has as much bad press in this area. I seriously doubt anyone actually associates her with Whitewarter. She’s never been suspected or accused of infidelity or drug use or anything like that, as far as I know.
It does, but I’ve read a few in-depth articles about Obama’s real estate thing, and maybe I’m just being naive or I’ve “been tricked” by Obama, but I find his explanation plausible. All that happened is Obama bought a piece of property the same day as a (now-disgraced) Democratic fund raiser bought an adjacent property.
Slate posited that perhaps Rezko (the fund raiser) bought the adjacent property (from the same owner of the property Obama bought) at the same time for an inflated price so that the seller would give Obama the second property at a reduced rate.
There’s actually no evidence this happened, nor is there any evidence linking Obama to it at all. Obama says it was his understanding that he was getting the property for under market value because it was a “fire sale.”
It’s possible Rezko was doing a favor for Obama without Obama’s knowledge so that he could call it in later. It’s also possible that it was just a coincidence, of course it is also possible that Obama colluded with Rezko to buy his home below market price.
Personally I buy Obama’s explanation, and he even said the whole situation made him aware that he has to be more careful about the people he associates with (even though he did not have a strong association with Rezko, only having spoken to him once before, I believe.)
I guess if Bush was running in 2008 that would have some relevance, but last I checked comparing Hillary to Bush is well, pointless. Since a voter should be comparing the candidates who are actually running, not a candidate who is actually running to someone who isn’t.
Actually, I would say that by Chicago standards, it means we don’t know the whole story yet! 
According to this article, they have been friends since 1990, Rezko once offered him a job, and their wives are friendly. IOW, a lot more association than you realized.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article