The Chicago Sun-Times takes a front page whack at Barack Obama with this story - which is apparently part one of two - about Obama's ties with Tony Rezko.

For those who aren't aware, Tony Rezko is the sleazy political bagman for Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich who was indicted prior to last year's election on fraud and corruption charges. He's also the guy who did a rather conspicuous real-estate deal in conjunction with the Obamas that raised eyebrows last year.

Anyway, I haven't sifted through the details of the Sun-Times "expose" yet, but the hook from today's article certainly doesn't do Senator Obama any favors:

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.

It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years. Rezko has been a political patron to Obama and many others, helping to raise millions of dollars for them through his own contributions and by hosting fund-raisers in his home.

Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.

The building in Englewood was one of 30 Rezmar rehabbed in a series of troubled deals largely financed by taxpayers. Every project ran into financial difficulty. More than half went into foreclosure, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

The Sun-Times has published a bunch of related material, including the Senator's answers to the paper's written questions, a map of the Rezko properties included in the investigation, a profile on Allison S. Davis who was Obama's former boss at his law firm before becoming a partner in Rezko's development deals.

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