Lurid Stories Claiming Obama Ties to Murder of His Chicago Church's Choir Director and Gay Sex With a Convicted Drug Dealer are Published in Scandal Rags Controlled by a Former Deputy Treasury Secretary in Bill Clinton's Administration Who's also a Top Economic Advisor to Hillary Clinton
By Skeeter Sanders
Conservative blogger and commentator Matt Drudge is credited for triggering controversy in February by posting on his DrudgeReport.com Web site a photograph of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama dressed in traditional Somali clothing while on a 2006 visit to his father's homeland in Kenya.
But the photo was first published last May by Globe, a scandal-mongering celebrity gossip tabloid, then re-published the following September in its sister tabloid, the National Examiner.
Along with the photograph, Globe published false claims that the Illinois senator is a Muslim, when, in fact, he is a Christian. The tabloid also tried to make hey with Obama's own admission in his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, that he used marijuana while a teenager in his native Hawaii.
Tabloid Stories May Be Politically Motivated
But the tabloid attempts to smear Obama didn't stop there. Since then, Globe ran a story in which a Minnesota man claims that he had a gay sexual relationship with Obama in 1999 and that the Illinois senator smoked crack cocaine.
At the same time, another of Globe's sister tabloids, the National Enquirer, claimed that, among other things, "Obama's amazing appeal to woman has ignited shouting matches" between the senator and his wife, Michelle.
Much more seriously, the Enquirer -- citing "a top Chicago private investigator" whom the tabloid didn't name -- insinuated that Obama had something to do with the murder last December of the choir director of Obama's church in Chicago.
Supporters of the Illinois senator are convinced that the articles are politically motivated, but don't know who's behind them. But an examination of the tabloids' ownership yields one very interesting finding.
It turns out that American Media Inc., the parent company of the Enquirer, Globe and the Examiner, is, in turn, controlled by Evercore Partners, whose founder, chairman, co-CEO and principal owner is Roger Altman, a prominent New York investment banker.
Altman is also a former deputy treasury secretary in the administration of President Bill Clinton -- and a key economic advisor of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House.
Enquirer Claims Obama Behind Murder of Gay Choir Director of His Church
The Enquirer, in dramatic fashion, published a story in its March 17 issue claiming that Obama may have had something to do with the murder last December of Donald Young, the choir director at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, to which Obama has been a member for more than 20 years.
Yes, it's the same church whose former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, made headlines with his inflammatory sermons -- a controversy that threatened to derail Obama's campaign and forced the Illinois senator to confront the race issue head-on in a powerful speech last Tuesday that evoked memories of John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on the controversy over his Roman Catholic faith.
The 47-year-old Young was found dead in his South Side apartment two days before Christmas, the victim of multiple gunshot wounds. A spokesperson for the Cook County medical examiner's office would say only that Young's death was ruled a homicide and that Chicago police were investigating the incident.
