Let's dive right in. From Fox News:
"BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In "The Obama Chronicles" segment tonight: You don't get to be a presidential candidate without a lot of help. Barack Obama accumulated his power base in Chicago by allying himself with some very interesting characters, probably people you have never heard of.
Person No. 1: Bettylu Saltzman, a wealthy, committed left-wing philanthropist who can make or break a Chicago politician.
Person No. 2: Valerie Jarrett, currently a senior adviser to Barack Obama. She has been a close associate for 17 years.
Person No. 3: Penny Pritzker, whose grandfather founded the Hyatt Hotel chain. Another committed leftist. She is a top fund-raiser.
Joining us now from Chicago is a woman who knows all about Barack Obama's Chicago gang, Sugar Rautbord, who actually introduced the Senator to George Soros.
Wow. Why did you do that?
SUGAR RAUTBORD, OBAMA SUPPORTER: Well, because he was a Democrat, and he is rich, so that kind of makes sense. And when he was running, Barack, for the U.S. Senate, Paula and Jim Crown from the very important billionaire Chicago Crown family that owns Aspen, owns a lot of companies, very generous, very philanthropic, we were all working with Barack to run for the Senate, and I was going to host a dinner for George Soros, on a book tour here. And we persuaded him — and actually, George hosted...
O'REILLY: So you got them together. Soros, subsequently, became a big Barack Obama fan. But Soros is a far, far-left guy. And many people, I think, are very, very suspicious of George Soros for his past activities and his kind of crazy view on what the country should be. So if Barack Obama gets elected, we can blame you, Sugar, for putting the two together.
RAUTBORD: OK.
O'REILLY: All right. Let's go to Bettylu Saltzman. Bettylu Saltzman, big Chicago doyenne, correct?
RAUTBORD: Big Chicago doyenne. The daughter of Philip Klutznik, who was the secretary of Commerce, who was a major developer. And Bettylu, as we used to call them in my own Sarah Lawrence days, liberal — limousine liberals. Now we call them Lakeshore — after Lakeshore Drive — liberals.
O'REILLY: OK. She's loaded. And now, Bettylu Saltzman, I understand, was the one who said to Barack Obama, "You better — you better oppose the Iraq war. You better come out and say you're against it," and this was way back in 2002. Is that correct?
RAUTBORD: In October 2002, Betty was — Bettylu was the organizer for the anti-Iraq war that took place at Daley Federal Plaza, at which Obama made an important speech.
O'REILLY: Yes, and she said to him — he didn't want to — he was going, "I don't know whether I should do this." She said, "You'd better do it." And that's what I understand happened there.
RAUTBORD: That's true. And by a lot of the things — and I don't think a lot of people know this — Obama does a lot by consensus. He listens very closely to this circle of people that you mentioned."
So Ms. Rautbord was the one who arranged Obama and Soros to meet. I don't "blame" her for any of the President's actions since he's been in office, that's all on him, however, she was one of the folks in Chicago, along with Soros, who got the snowball rolling down the mountain by being a supporter for his campaigns.
Background Reading:
Fox News: 'The Obama Chronicles,' Part 4: People Who Helped Obama Rise in Power
