Reply #44: Jones gave Obama his whole career, stolen from others who had [View All]

[anamandujano]

done all the work.

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," state Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the 1-yard line and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the Illinois Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law-including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced. It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics, and he couldn't have done it without Jones.

http://dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/2