Barack Obama has already had a tough week, and it’s just about to get worse. With his campaign reeling from the videos of his pastor spewing race-baiting rhetoric, the Tony Rezko trial just produced a new nugget that makes Obama look more dishonest. For the second time, the amount of money Rezko raised for Obama has been significantly increased from Obama’s prior admissions:

Indicted Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko was a more significant fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s earlier political campaigns than previously known. Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for the first three offices Obama sought, the senator told the Tribune on Friday.

Obama also said for the first time that his private real estate transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment. The mistake, Obama said, was not simply that Rezko was under grand jury investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings. “The mistake was he had been a contributor and somebody involved in politics,” he said.

Obama said that when he questioned Rezko about news reports of his questionable political dealings, his friend assured him there was nothing wrong. “My instinct was to believe him,” he said.

Are we starting to see a pattern here? When Obama has an associate who proves to be an embarrassment, he says he simply didn’t know anything about their activities. I never heard those sermons. I never asked him about the rumors of his legal troubles.

Well, did he ever think to check it out? After all, the Chicago papers hadn’t exactly shown reticence in covering Rezko’s financial and legal troubles. Before going into business with Rezko, we’re expected to believe that the president of the Harvard Law Review was so naive that he didn’t read the papers or ask around about his business associate, especially when going in on a real estate deal with a man who was also a major contributor.

Let’s also take a look at that. When Obama’s connection to Rezko first came to light, he initially told reporters that Rezko didn’t raise any more than $50,000. Chicago reporters then dug up almost $150,000 in fundraising last summer, and Obama was forced to admit that he underestimated Rezko’s contributions. Now he’s telling us that it’s over $250,000. How many more revisions on this story can he make? Will the figure get closer to a million dollars by the time November gets here?

In both situations, the best Obama can ask us to believe is that he is a benighted idiot. He managed to attend a church with a race-baiting, America-hating pastor for twenty years without noticing it. During that time, he did business with a corrupt politico without ever noticing that, too, and he blithely went from election to election without being able to tell the difference between $50,000 and $250,000.

That’s the best case. And that is supposed to instill confidence in his ability to lead the nation?

These revelations reveal that the best for which we can hope about Barack Obama is that he’s an empty suit. And an empty suit won’t bring any kind of change to the Beltway — not for the better, anyway.

Update: Here’s Obama on why he’s the better candidate:

In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters.

And here’s Obama on his Rezko entanglement:

Obama also said for the first time that his private real estate transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment.

I feel so much better now.