The Obama Girlfriend Story: It's Real

I put that link up as mostly just a bit of baiting of Andrew Sullivan. I didn't expect much to come from it.

Having now spoken to someone tracking the story, I can say:

1) It's not just a silly little rumor.

2) It will break in some form shortly. The question is how prestigious an outlet breaks it. (PS, at best, it won't be that prestigious, at least at first, but there's a lot here so when someone finally touches, there is a good chance of an Edwards-like "Oh yeah, we were working on that too" pile-on.) Fire is being held as those who know the story try to get someone of import to break it; if they pass, it will be flooded out through secondary channels.

3) The story has a Fred Baron. Not The Fred Baron. But actually-- an even better Fred Baron. The woman is "working" in the Caribbean drawing a salary from.... uhhh... let's say from someone who is a big, shiny part of the dirty Chicago political machine. And it makes no sense that she's doing her supposed "job," for which she seems unqualified anyway, in the Caribbean, of all places. It's unclear how she could possibly do this job at all, never mind from the Caribbean. And she's been there for at least a year. (At least.) This isn't some sabbatical or few months' of "work" on an island paradise.

4) This woman was a major, big-time fundraiser. She raised x millions of dollars for various Democratic interests (connected to Obama) and then opened her own shop in DC. Since she was (as any fundraiser does) getting a cut of the take, this was a lucrative job. But she, for reasons unfathomable, suddenly shut the shop down and decamped to a little Caribbean island. And somewhere along the line got a "job" from her own Fred Baron. Which conveniently put her far away from Obama, Michelle, and the media.

5) Within hours of the Daily Mail article breaking, she called the Illinois hq of the Obama campaign. They wouldn't talk to her.

Incidentally, didn't Obama vacation in the Caribbean after he won the primaries...? Oh that's right, he did. I raised this with my source who, alas, hadn't even made that connection.

All that said, while I find this interesting, I don't think anyone cares about this per se, but I the Fred Baron-esque angle seems like the sort of thing that takes it out of the realm of "personal business" into public corruption.

There's another big twist too, which I can't say anything about. I wouldn't even hint about it, really, even if permitted to, because it's so delicious it makes it nearly fantastical -- in the sense of "No one gets this lucky!" -- and actually would be used to denigrate the rest of it. But there is a chance it gets more interesting than even the Chicago Machine connection.

Obama's Vacation: Not sure if this makes it more suspicious or if I'm now just being silly.

For days, the Obama campaign refused to confirm where the senator and his family were heading on a short Easter vacation, even as rumors spread among the press corps that they were bound for the Virgin Islands.

So that presented a conundrum for news organizations: Should they send a correspondent on the — presumably enjoyable — assignment to the Caribbean, to investigate the white sand beaches and clear blue waters?

As it turns out, CNN was the lone cable network to play a game of “Where in the World is Barack Obama?” Chris Welch, an off-air producer covering the Obama campaign since the Iowa caucuses, headed out to the islands.

Incidentally... No, this doesn't come from McCain. Duh. He'd never do that.

My source is someone in the blogosphere.

Note: Please don't post the woman's name. I know who we're talking about. I'm not comfortable about outing her since the media hasn't and I don't have enough to verify this on my own.

posted by Ace at 03:21 PM

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