So my dad tells me that Obama is in trouble because people are

[hedgehog]

challenging claims in his autobigraphy; supposedly Obama was much more clean cut than he likes to let on! Anybody see anything about this?

[Colobo]

1. Nah...

If anything, Obama just needs to start getting away from the somewhat vague message he's been putting out and start laying out specifics.

[NYCGirl]

2. You might want to send your dad these links showing how this hit piece is

being spread around:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/27/politico/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703270006

[hedgehog]

10. Wow - thanks for the links

I had no idea that this started with Drudge. Documenting how a smear passes from "journalist" to "journalist faster than head lice in a kindergarten is a revelation!

[hedgehog]

12. One good turn deserves another - here is a link to the original

article in the Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070325obama-youth-story,1,4006113.story?page=1&?track=sto-relcon&coll=chi-news-hed

Not all the sources sound like the most reliable in the world, plus there is a lot of room for different interpretations. In other words, those interviewed saw one thing, Obama saw another and it's all a matter of perspective more than anything else.

The item I get a kick of is disputing whether Obama saw a picture of a black man who had been injured by an attempt to bleach his skin. Obama remembers the picture as being in Life, but apparently it wasn't there or in Ebony either. Does that mean Obama made up the story? I think it means that he can't remember the name of the magazine. Heck , it could have been Parade,Look, Jet...

[Solo_in_MD]

3. The book was quite self serving, a poor attempt at street cred before he thought

he was going into national politics. There is a lot of nonsense in it, and some stunning misrepresentations.

[Raskolnik]

4. To which nonsense & stunning misrepresentations are you referring? n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

5. Most of the stuff about his time at Punahou

[Raskolnik]

7. Such as? n/t

[Solo_in_MD]

8. Attitudes of the locals, how things went for him there

CLUE: I was there too at that time and knew Barry as he called himself then.

[hedgehog]

11. I don't know.

I believe that you are telling th\e truth as you see it, but he lived his life day by day, you didn't. When I talk to people that I went to high school with, it's stunning how our memories and perceptions of events vary. How many people look on their immature habit of bullying people as good hearted joshing?


As for those who contend Hawaii was a Paradise of multiculturalism when Obama was growing up:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=321991117225545

This perspective of Hawaii, according to Jonathan Okamura, "as having especially tolerant, harmonious, and egalitarian race relations has continued to be advanced from the 1940s to the present." Advanced by scholars such as sociologist Andrew Lind, the Hawaiian Islands were "presented as an exemplary model with valuable lessons to offer other ethnically/racially divided societies in managing their conflicts and problems resulting from ethnic and racial diversity."<3> Indeed, even today the notion of the "spirit of aloha" is so widespread that many long-time residents categorically deny that racial discrimination exists in Hawaii. A decidedly different picture of Hawaiian society in the 1960s is supplied by Lieutenant General Frank Petersen, the USMC's first African-American aviator, however. He writes, "The fact that we were in Hawaii, and considering the makeup of that population, I didn't anticipate a problem finding a place for my family and me to live….A problem finding housing? You've got to be kidding, I told myself….I was as wrong as the proverbial two left shoes…."<4> Hawaii in the 1960s was quietly discriminatory. And the hell of it was that it wasn't just the whites who were doing the discriminating. Hawaiians didn't really mingle with anyone else. The Japanese had their own community. It all was a definite eye-opener. The web of discrimination may have existed quietly, but it became a cacophony when someone tried to pierce it.

[Telly Savalas]

6. Madrassa Clerics for Truth. Oy.

[sutz12]

9. You know, I have this freeper I spar with at times....

He read that article, the Politico.com one, that is, and immediately blamed it on the "Clinton HIt Machine" or something bogus like that. He really can't see RW media bias at all. Everything that isn't Faux Noise is Liberal media spin.

I guess this is a bit of a warning. The RW'ers are blaming the Obama hit pieces on Hillary, and most of them aren't even coming from her camp at all.

:shrug:

[hedgehog]

13. After a little checking around, I think all these rumors go back to a single

article in the Chicago Tribune which another Duer tells me is a right leaning newspaper!