THE hottest potential contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, has come under scrutiny for his links to a shady businessman over the purchase of his $1.65m (now £845,000) family home in Chicago. After winning extraordinary adulation, the honeymoon period of the senator for Illinois is coming to an end. Obama, a relative political novice, is being mocked for his middle name, Hussein — “like the dictator” as a member of his staff helpfully put it — and pilloried as Odumbo the elephant because of his jug ears. The public is beginning to learn that the charismatic senator...