Obama's Relatives

From Nairobi, Kenya:  Barack Obama's polygamist half brother, 52 year old Malik Obama, marries a teenage girl.  The girl's mother stated that her daughter wanted to marry Malik several years ago, but the mother refused.  Another example of Muslim men following Mohammad's lead and being sexually attracted to little girls?

As to another oth Obama's relatives, Malik and Barack's father,   Bruce L.R. Smith writes in the Washington Post about his personal acquaintance and take on Barack Obama Sr. and refuting a recent article by Dinesh D'Souza on Obama's anti-colonialism, saying, "What he is not is a rabid anti-colonialist."    Smith and Obama Sr. were at Harvard at the same time and Smith's wife had several classes with Obama Sr.  They even invited Obama Sr. to their wedding. 

I suspect I am one of the few Americans still alive and modestly in possession of his faculties who knew President Obama's father, and I see nothing of the man I knew in Dinesh D'Souza's Oct. 8 Washington Forum commentary, "The dreams from his father."  [snip]

As it turned out, he didn't make it to the wedding. But he did call my wife at her parents' apartment at 3 a.m. on our wedding day. He said it was a Kenyan custom; he was in high humor, possibly aided by a few drinks. Judging from the times we had a beer in one or another Cambridge hangout for students, Obama Sr. was no teetotaling Muslim. [snip]

He was overall, though, a serious man (even if it wasn't always easy to tell when he was joking and when he was serious), extremely private and something of a mystery to his classmates. He disappeared at times, apparently on travel connected with his fellowship, then would reappear in good spirits and give the appearance of having accomplished some mission. It was known that he was close to Tom Mboya, a leading Kenyan politician who many thought would be a great friend of the West. Some of his fellow economics students speculated that Obama Sr. was on some sort of mission for Mboya, but no one really knew.

So what is Smith's take on President Barack Obama from readin his books and from knowing Obama Sr?

President Obama's self-identification as a black man did not originate with his father but is a rather more mysterious process that apparently took shape in his teenage years or even slightly later.  

In "Dreams," Obama does not seem to acquire his black identity out of rage, a deep sense of social injustice or wrenching affronts. It is more cerebral, rooted in a kind of pragmatic view that one has to choose to be either black or white, and since he is obviously not white, he should accept his blackness -- while understanding that he has a special status as a bridge between the races and someone able to accommodate different traditions.

It is surely this detached, almost clinical, and highly cerebral bent that is a source both of President Obama's appeal and of the anger of his detractors. We expect our politicians to have some core, and we can tolerate much if we feel confident we know what they stand for. President Obama is a politician whose inclination is to veer with the political winds as he seeks to satisfy one side of his coalition and then another -- often leaving everyone angry at him.

Which leads us to the November elections 2010 and 2012 where voters will express their anger at him and those who followed his failing policies by voting for Conservatives.

 

Comments

[MK]

"President Obama is a politician whose inclination is to veer with the political winds as he seeks to satisfy one side of his coalition and then another -- often leaving everyone angry at him."

Or less eloquently put, an empty suit.