Joe Walsh and the debt he didn't pay

If Congressional candidate Joe Walsh was so hard up for money that he couldn't fulfill his obligation on a $300,000 mortgage, why was he able to afford to rent an $860,000 colonial in Winnetka with an in-ground pool?

If he needed more room for his large family, why didn't he look to rent a house of the same size but for half the price in, say, Wauconda or Lake Zurich? Is it possible he could have managed his mortgage payments if he had done that?

Walsh said that people have to understand the circumstances that led to the foreclosure on his Evanston condominium. He was only making $40,000, he said, and he couldn't afford to keep paying for two homes.

Take a look at the picture above. Does that look like the house you would rent if your family was making $40,000 a year? Especially if you also owed money on another residence?

There may be good answers to these questions, but Walsh so far hasn't provided them. He refuses to submit to questions, choosing to issue manipulative political statements instead.

Walsh owes it to the voters in the 8th Congressional District to provide answers to the questions we just posed. And to answer a lot of other questions related to the foreclosure of his condo last October, the same month that he announced he was running for office.

Walsh characterizes these questions somehow as "ridicule," as distractions from the real issues. But they are not. They are fair questions to ask of someone running for Congress. They are fair questions to ask a candidate who brought much of this attention on himself by failing to disclose his financial problems in the first place.

In this day and age, many, many people have gone through the trauma of foreclosure. Many, many responsible people of good character have been caught by tragic circumstance. Our heart goes out to them.

Joe Walsh could be one of those people.

But he just as easily could be someone who got himself into trouble through his own misjudgment or unrealistic lifestyle.

Or he just as easily could be someone who walked away from a debt because it was easier than paying it.

The citizenry has a right to know which Joe Walsh he is before deciding if he is fit for Congress.

To help them understand, Walsh has an obligation to start answering questions instead of trying to divert attention with hackneyed assaults on the news media that fool almost no one.