Obama's "Rezko" house: Tony Rezko's "big favor"

"Thanks to the release" of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)'s income tax records, Thomas Lifson wrote March 27, 2008, in the American Thinker (h/t Jay Rubin), "we are finally able to get some necessary perspective on the big favor Tony Rezko did for the Obamas in buying what has been termed in the press [as] 'the adjacent, undeveloped lot'. It turns out this is a seriously misleading description."

Lifson discovered that although personal information had been blanked out on Obamas' tax returns from 2000-2005, "strangely enough, the 2006 Form 1040 left in the home address. Thanks to Google Earth [pictured above], by typing in the Obamas' home address we are able to obtain an overhead view of the Obama mansion and the 'undeveloped lot' next door."

As can be seen, the house and the adjacent lot are landscaped as one property. There appears to be a wall around both properties together, enclosing the house and its side yard. There appears to be no access from the street to the property Rezko purchased except through the Obamas' driveway. It is, in other words, the yard of the Obamas' house.

Rather than merely purchasing a separate lot, Rezko appears to have purchased the yard of the Obama manse, and allowed them to live in the house+yard property, amounting to a gift (or loan, if you will) of considerable value.

Reportedly, since purchasing a strip of the Rezko lot for $104,500 when the deal became public, the Obamas have errected a fence on the dividing line between the two properties. That is not visibly reflected in the Google Earth picture, though.

The fence, however, can be clearly seen in this photograph.

The point that is missed here by Lifson and others looking at this Google Earth version of the Obama property and adjacent lot is that this is a fixed picture which has not changed over recent weeks or even many months, regardless of Chicago's weather. Compare the Google Earth view with the photograph above and it is obvious that the fence should be as clearly visible in both.