Obama's amazing life story

Stinger · 03-28-07, 12:54 AM

As he tells it, in his speech in Selma

“So the Kennedys decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is."

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that, [in] the world as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama, Jr., was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Ala. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Ala.”

Well as Paul R. Hollrah notes at Footballguystalk > Obama caught needlessly "misspeaking".

(and I heard this elsewhere this link just happens to be at the top of the search list)

"Okay, so what’s wrong with that? It all sounds good—but is it?

Obama told his audience that because some folks had the courage to “march across a bridge” in Selma, Ala., his mother, a white woman from Kansas, and his father, a black Muslim from Africa, took heart. It gave them the courage to get married and have a child. The problem with that characterization is that Barack Obama, Jr., was born Aug. 4, 1961, while the first of three marches across that bridge in Selma didn’t occur until March 7, 1965, almost four years after Obama was born.

Obama went on to tell his audience that the Kennedys—Jack and Bobby—decided to do an airlift. They would bring some young Africans over so that they could be educated and learn all about America. His grandfather heard that call and sent his son, Barack Obama, Sr., to America.

The problem with that scenario is that, having been born in August 1961, the future senator was not conceived until sometime in November 1960. So, if his African grandfather heard words that “sent a shout across oceans,” inspiring him to send his goat-herder son to America, it was not Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.""

Hmmmmm, remember when Hillary claimed she was named after Sir Edmund HIllary, when in fact she was born years before his adventure to the North Pole.

Seems Obama doesn't think his true ego is big enough so he has to make things up about himself and his background. Not a good sign.

And I love this from further down the page at the link

"As one of my black friends, Eddie Huff, has said, “We need to ask some very serious questions of the senator from Illinois. It’s not enough to be black, it’s not enough to be articulate, and it’s not enough to be eloquent and a media darling. . . . The only question will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye, will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince.”"

Hatuey · 03-28-07, 02:03 AM

Quote:

As he tells it, in his speech in Selma

“So the Kennedys decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is."

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that, [in] the world as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama, Jr., was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Ala. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Ala.”

Well as Paul R. Hollrah notes at Footballguystalk > Obama caught needlessly "misspeaking".

(and I heard this elsewhere this link just happens to be at the top of the search list)

"Okay, so what’s wrong with that? It all sounds good—but is it?

Obama told his audience that because some folks had the courage to “march across a bridge” in Selma, Ala., his mother, a white woman from Kansas, and his father, a black Muslim from Africa, took heart. It gave them the courage to get married and have a child. The problem with that characterization is that Barack Obama, Jr., was born Aug. 4, 1961, while the first of three marches across that bridge in Selma didn’t occur until March 7, 1965, almost four years after Obama was born.

Obama went on to tell his audience that the Kennedys—Jack and Bobby—decided to do an airlift. They would bring some young Africans over so that they could be educated and learn all about America. His grandfather heard that call and sent his son, Barack Obama, Sr., to America.

The problem with that scenario is that, having been born in August 1961, the future senator was not conceived until sometime in November 1960. So, if his African grandfather heard words that “sent a shout across oceans,” inspiring him to send his goat-herder son to America, it was not Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.""

Hmmmmm, remember when Hillary claimed she was named after Sir Edmund HIllary, when in fact she was born years before his adventure to the North Pole.

Seems Obama doesn't think his true ego is big enough so he has to make things up about himself and his background. Not a good sign.

And I love this from further down the page at the link

"As one of my black friends, Eddie Huff, has said, “We need to ask some very serious questions of the senator from Illinois. It’s not enough to be black, it’s not enough to be articulate, and it’s not enough to be eloquent and a media darling. . . . The only question will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye, will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince.”"

Quote:

JFK Really Did Bring Obama’s Dad to America
by Paul Hogarth, 2007-03-06

At his March 4th speech in Alabama to commemorate the Anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, Barack Obama confronted the allegation that he is “not black” by connecting his family history to the civil rights movement. Some of what he said in the speech was technically untrue, but Obama was not trying to mislead the audience. While he implied that the 1965 Selma March – which occurred when he was four years old – caused his parents to first meet, Obama later explained that he meant to say “the civil rights movement as a whole.”

But a more puzzling part of the speech was Obama’s assertion that President John F. Kennedy – egged on by the civil rights movement – helped pay for his father’s trip to America through a scholarship. Barack Obama Senior emigrated from Kenya in 1959 and Kennedy was not President until 1961 – but it was JFK the presidential candidate who helped pay for the airfare, as a means of shoring up his credentials in the black community. Now that black voters have rallied behind Obama’s candidacy, the media should put to rest the ridiculous notion that the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother is somehow “not black” enough to become the first black President.

Of all the unfair attacks being hurled against Obama – that his last name sounds like Osama, that his middle name is Hussein, that he went to school in Indonesia, and that he (gasp!) smokes cigarettes – the allegation that he is “not black” is probably the most politically damaging. Obama’s ancestors may not have been brought on slave ships from West Africa in the 1500’s, but his family has suffered the same type of racism that all black people have encountered in their lives.

“My Grandfather was a cook to the British in Kenya,” he said in his March 4th speech. “Grew up in a small village and all his life, that's all he was – a cook and a house boy. And that's what they called him, even when he was 60 years old. They called him a house boy. They wouldn't call him by his last name. Sound familiar?”

Obama then explained that the civil rights movement embarrassed America’s leaders, because Jim Crow segregation was hurting our image abroad. “So the Kennedy's decided we're going to do an air lift,” he said. “We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.” One of those men, said Obama, was his father – who came from Kenya on a scholarship and enrolled at the University of Hawaii.

But the Kennedy's weren't in the White House at the time – Obama’s father came to America in 1959, two years before Kennedy became President. But the story is true – although it technically happened when Senator John F. Kennedy was still running for President.

In 1958, Tom Mboya, a cabinet minister in Kenya and a prominent trade unionist, launched a program called “Education Overseas” that organized a series of airlifts for Kenyan students who were seeking to get educated in the United States. One of the students who had received a scholarship was Barack Obama’s father.

But according to a 1960 article in Time Magazine, Mboya suddenly found himself stranded. “Education Overseas” needed $100,000 to airlift 250 students from Kenya, but the State Department refused to help because Kenya was a British colony. So Mboya actively lobbied presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy to make it happen. For the same reason that he later got Martin Luther King out of jail, Kennedy helped secure the necessary funding from his father to get the students to America.

It may have been misleading for Obama to say that his parents were brought together by the 1965 Selma March – or slightly inaccurate to say that President Kennedy brought his Dad to America. But he was right. Barack Obama is a product of the civil rights movement, and it should lay to rest the continuing nonsense that he is “not black.”

For reasons that this white author has never completely understood, African-Americans have a strong affinity for Bill Clinton – and there’s no question that it has helped Hillary’s presidential campaign. Eighty percent of blacks have a favorable impression of her, and she kicked off the 2008 nomination as the clear favorite of African-American voters. But now that Obama has launched his campaign and is building high name-recognition, blacks are deserting Clinton in droves and supporting Obama.

In a February 27th poll, 44% of black voters supported Obama – compared with 33% for Hillary Clinton. In contrast, Clinton led Obama among blacks in a December poll by a 40-point margin. As the Washington Post noted, the shift of black voters to Obama has cut Hillary Clinton’s leading margin in half – putting her front-runner status in question.

But what about statements from other African-Americans that Obama is “not black” because he isn’t descended from slaves? On the February 10th edition of the Colbert Report, columnist Debra Dickerson argued this point – but her logic was not convincing. She argued that Obama is “African-African-American,” or, to put it another way, he’s an “adopted brother.”

If the latest Washington Post poll confirms the trend, black people don’t seem to care about such semantics. Hillary Clinton still has much higher name-recognition, but as more black voters get to know Obama, I expect that they will fully embrace him as one of their own.

In recent weeks, reporters have mentioned that Obama’s white ancestors owned slaves – which has further fueled the “Obama-is-not-black” myth. The recent discovery that Al Sharpton’s great-grandfather was owned by a relative of Strom Thurmond has further propelled the media narrative that Obama is not a “black” presidential candidate the way that Sharpton or the Reverend Jesse Jackson were.

But Obama confronted that part of his family history head-on in his March 4th speech. “When my father came over to this country,” he said, “he met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

When Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, he said that one day the “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners” would be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood. Just because Obama’s white ancestors owned slaves doesn’t mean that he isn’t black. What it means is that his mother was willing to marry a black man – despite her own family history.

And that's what Dr. King's dream was all about.

BeyondChron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News » JFK Really Did Bring Obama’s Dad to America

If you'd only bothered to read the entire page.

niftydrifty · 03-28-07, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatuey

If you'd only bothered to read the entire page.

Stinger addressed the "salient" portions of the story.

Stinger · 03-28-07, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatuey

BeyondChron: San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily News » JFK Really Did Bring Obama’s Dad to America

If you'd only bothered to read the entire page.

"So the Kennedy’s decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is."

That's not what happened. The Kennedy's didn't go to Africa to bring Africans here including Obama's father. When some were stuck for lack of funds for an AFRICAN program they lobbied the presidential candidates, and rich, Kennedy, who also needed to shore up is rather weak civil rights record, sent some money.

The part about Selma stands.

"There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama."

He was born long before Selma and it is not his home and never will be. I have more claim to Selma than he does.

He'd better get some more accurate speech writers who check these things out before he goes around spouting them.

Skip · 03-28-07, 01:14 PM

I am loving this. If this is the best the right can come up with on Obama, he's perfect for the nomination.

Stinger · 03-28-07, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skip

I am loving this. If this is the best the right can come up with on Obama, he's perfect for the nomination.

If this is the best his speech writers can do he will get nailed all during the campaign.

But until he does come up with something of substance instead of just spouting platitudes and made up life stories what does he have to offer?

niftydrifty · 03-28-07, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinger

But until he does come up with something of substance instead of just spouting platitudes and made up life stories what does he have to offer?

It seems to me that he has a lot to offer if only the bottom-of-the-barrel-less-than-30%-Bush-lovin'-dead-enders are troubled by him.

disneydude · 03-28-07, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skip

I am loving this. If this is the best the right can come up with on Obama, he's perfect for the nomination.

You're right. They are trying a variety of talking points to try to get something to stick.....but so far nothing. Stinger and NP must be getting frustrated that all of their Limppaw lifts are not having much of an effect.

They have tried the no experience....(whoops.....they forgot about the lack of experience of GWB.....that one didn't work). They tried to make fun of his middle name (whoops.......didn't bank on the fact that most Americans are not so shallow to see beyond that one)......they tried the Hillary/Obama internal squabble.....didn't get anywhere with that....

Ok.....well....lets. try something else...... Its amazing watching Hannity/Rush and their "echoers" attempt to break down this man.

Here's a clue: Maybe rather than try political smear and spin for a while....we should sit back and let the election course take its path.....without the rhetoric.....now THAT would be a refreshing change.

jallman · 03-28-07, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by niftydrifty

Stinger addressed the "salient" portions of the story.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that is poignantly funny.

Hatuey · 03-28-07, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinger

If this is the best his speech writers can do he will get nailed all during the campaign.

But until he does come up with something of substance instead of just spouting platitudes and made up life stories what does he have to offer?

You didn't even read what he meant to say...

It's true that he said that the Selma bridge marches gave his family the strength to have him. Even though they took place 4 years after he was born but the point was that it was the civil rights movement that gave them the strength to have a racially mixed child in 1960s America. You're so blood thirsty however that you fail to see this and just want to attack him no matter how many times you miss. This is obviously a miss. Thank You? Yes.