Obama, Prince of Pork

Sizzling hot taxpayer bacon:

Back when Barack Obama was a state senator, the Illinois Legislature offered this perk: You get elected, you get to give out some money. . . .
He ... pumped cash into St. Sabina Catholic parish, the South Side church whose pastor is the Rev. Michael Pfleger. . . . St. Sabina got $100,000 to help rebuild its community center.
And a venture capital fund linked to the Rev. Jesse Jackson . . . got $200,000, thanks to Obama.
In all, Obama doled out more than $3.6 million in state grants in just the last half of his state legislative career, records show.

Buying friends is a quick way to popularity, and it's such a bargain when you're spending other people's money. Ed Morrisey:

[T]his underscores the superficiality of Obama’s claims to be a reformer. He played the game in Chicago as well as anyone plays it on Capitol Hill. . . . The notion that he has any kind of track record in New Politics gets eaten by the pork that the Sun-Times lists on its site.

"Chicago reformer" -- an oxymoron, as opposed to a redundancy like "corrupt union."