Chicago Daily Observer

Barack Obama’s record as leader of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) has come under scrutiny by, among others Steve Diamond, Tom Maguire, Stanley Kurtz and our own Tom Lifson . The CAC was a group formed in 1995 by former Weather Underground terrorist and current educational radical theorist Bill Ayers and Barack Obama, then an attorney at a politically connected law firm-Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

Barack Obama was the founding chairman of the board and led the organization for 4 years. During his tenure, the CAC received $50 million dollars from the Annenberg Foundation and tens of millions of matching funds from local private and public dollars. This money was supposed to be spent improving the schools of Chicago. However, studies from the CAC itself, and confirmed by an analysis from the well-regarded Thomas B. Fordham Institute, show that the effort directed by Barack Obama led ... Read More...

Barack Obama is one crafty fellow, reaping political success out of career that got precious little done. He has accomplished very little legislatively in his entire career; his vaunted accomplishments in the Illinois Senate were more the result of the handicraft of his political ally and mentor State Democratic head Emil Jones (who tacked Obama’s name on legislation to bolster his career) than his own work on the issues .

Obama has done virtually nothing at the Senate level—he has not even seen fit to call a meeting of the Committee he heads, the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs. Despite its name, Obama’s subcommittee has some oversight over Afghanistan. While he now says on the campaign trail that Afghanistan requires more focus and attention , he overlooked his own jurisdictional responsibilities in that theatre for the entire time he has served in the US Senate. He refuses to take time ... Read More...