John Fund has joined a growing chorus of conservative bloggers in asserting that the MSM has not given the Rezko affair the scrutiny it deserves. But is this all because of pro-Obama bias?

I'm not so sure that's the only reason, because it does not explain the failure of pro-Hillary newspapers to scrutinize Obama's dealings with Rezko. The problem is that as of yet, there has been no showing that anything illegal occurred. Obama was involved in a real estate purchase with a crooked businessman who may have gotten the purchase money from an even more crooked Iraqi billionaire. The problem is that dealing with crooks is not a criminal offense, nor is getting a 15% discount on a purchase price absent a showing of more. I can buy or sell real estate to or from the Mob or foreign crooks, and unless I commit a crime in the process, it's legal.

Right now it appears that Obama may have committed a breach of Senate ethics, and was involved with unsavory people. As Hot Air asks:

Why was a politician supposedly interested in clean politics doing business with someone with such a bad public reputation, and with a man whose creditors had already begun to take him to court?

However, I think the MSM collectively see a bit of a risk in giving high profile coverage to a story about an aroma that might ultimately be about nothing more than the aroma.

But I don't think that's the only reason they're avoiding it. Rather, I think that up until now, there's been a sort of unwritten "gentleperson's agreement" between the Clinton and Obama campaigns to just let well enough alone where it comes to financial transactions which might give off the appearance of impropriety, and the less-than-vigorous MSM coverage (especially by pro-Hillary newspapers) may reflect that.

Fund's piece touches on the Clinton campaign's reluctance:

This year, Hillary Clinton made a clumsy attack on Mr. Rezko as a "slum landlord" during one debate. But her campaign has otherwise steered clear -- at least until last Friday, when Howard Wolfson, a top Clinton aide, suggested to reporters on a conference call that "the number of questions that we don't know the answers to about the relationship between Mr. Rezko and Mr. Obama is staggering." Mr. Obama's campaign told me they have answered all questions about Mr. Rezko and have no plans to release any further records.

Mr. Obama has admitted that the 2005 land deal that he and Mr. Rezko were involved in was a "boneheaded" mistake, in part because his friend was already rumored to be under federal investigation. The newly elected Mr. Obama bought his $1.65 million home on the same day, June 15, that Mr. Rezko's wife bought the plot of land next to it from the same seller for $625,000. Seven months later she sold a slice of the land to the trust that Mr. Obama had put the house into, so the senator could expand his garden.

Mr. Obama has strenuously denied suggestions that the same-day sale enabled him to pay $300,000 under the house's asking price because Mrs. Rezko paid full price for the adjoining lot, or that he asked the Rezkos for help in the matter. Both actions would be clear violations of Senate ethics rules barring the granting or asking of favors.

Drop the other Hsu.

And I don't just mean Norman Hsu, but the still undisclosed Clinton tax returns, the Peter Paul affair, the Pardongate scandal, possible illegal foreign money pouring into the Clinton campaign via speaking fees, huge foriegn donations to the Clinton Library, and more.

Obama's Rezko transaction has an unpleasant aroma and there may be more to it than that. But I think Hillary has a much bigger aroma, and there may be a lot more to it than that.

(The public's right to know seems to be a secondary question.)