No, not his special help from his special friend, corrupt businessman Tony Rezko.

I mean from his mortgage company.

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

A $300 a month mortgage discount for a new Senator? Sounds rather suspicious to me -- especially in light of the recent disclosure of special favors to other Democrat senators by Countrywide. Since Obama's spokesperson says that the rate he received from Norther Trust was in response to an offer from a competing financial institution, one has to ask if that other lender was Countrywide -- meaning that Obama also benefited from the special program for powerful politicians.

And I'd like to argue that we should be questioning this -- after all, it certainly helped Michelle Obama's children!

Posted by: Greg at 02:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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