Obama’s nasty, partisan, divisive, racially accusative memoir
Obama has written still another autobiography, this one about his presidency. Actually, it’s not a new book; it was published last November 17, although I don’t recall reading about it at the time.
The reviews quoted on Amazon are glowing: Obama “is as fine a writer as they come” and has “illuminated a pivotal moment in American history, and how America changed while also remaining unchanged” (according to the New York Times Book Review). There are almost 110,000 customer ratings/reviews and almost all of them are 5-star, a ratio that seems hard to believe for such a polarizing figure.
But perhaps it’s because only the most fervent of Obama fans would be willing to wade through all 768 pages of what is only volume one of a promised 2-volume set of tomes. I’m certainly not going to read either book. Just the excerpts set my teeth on edge, demonstrating Obama’s familiar fake profundity and affected “literary” style. And of course it’s self-serving – as most political memoirs are.
This recent review in the Claremont Review of Books seems on point:
“Our democracy,” Barack Obama writes in the first pages of his third autobiography, A Promised Land, “seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis—a crisis rooted in a fundamental contest between two opposing visions of what America is and what it should be.” One vision “appeal[s] to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.” It sees “a hopeful, generous, courageous America, an America that was open to everyone.” The other vision is as base as this one is noble. At its core is anger, fear, nativism, and racism.
These two visions, not surprisingly, align with our political divisions. On the side of the angels stand Obama, Democrats, and the millions of voters in 2008 who made the first-term U.S. senator his party’s nominee for the presidency and then elevated him to the nation’s highest office. On the other side stand Republicans (leaders and followers), Fox News, talk radio, and the Koch brothers. Despite his vows “to move past the tired Washington partisan divide,” “to change Washington and transcend partisan gridlock,” and “to end constant partisan rancor,” Obama’s aim throughout this 700-page first installment of his presidential memoirs appears to be nothing less than to delegitimize Republican and conservative opposition to a vast and growing welfare state.
Good old Obama – most divisive president in my lifetime. Obama good, opposition bad. Democrats good, Republicans bad. And Obama is the most objective person on earth to tell us about it.
Joseph M. Bessette, the author of the Claremont review, doesn’t seem to be an Obama-hater. He thinks the book is well-written, and the parts about Obama’s wife and daughters are “charming.”
Then there’s the subject of race and Obama’s presidential campaign. The Obama quotes in the following excerpt from the review bear his trademark stamp of pretending to be nobly above it all while defaming his opponents as racists, perhaps some of them secret racists but racists nevertheless:
Richard Nixon “had determined that a politics of white racial resentment was the surest path to Republican victory.” In the presidential campaign of 2008, Obama was not so much “running against Hillary Clinton or John Edwards or even the Republicans [as against] the implacable weight of the past; the inertia, fatalism, and fear it produced.” If his supporters could make him “an outsized symbol of hope, then the vague fears of detractors could just as readily congeal into hate.” Sarah Palin’s appeal to Republicans in 2008 “was a sign of things to come, a larger, darker reality in which partisan affiliation and political expedience would threaten to blot out everything.” A month before the election, she was “enthusiastically gassing [big crowds] with nativist bile.” Through her, “it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party—xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, and antipathy toward Black and brown folks—were finding their way to center stage.” Rick Santelli, whose “lengthy on-air rant [on CNBC] on our housing plan” helped to launch the Tea Party movement, together with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican leader John Boehner all understood “how easily that anger could be channeled, how useful fear could be in advancing their cause.”
Obama wonders aloud whether the Tea Party member who supports “states’ rights” does so “because he genuinely thought it was the best way to promote liberty, or because he continued to resent how federal intervention had led to an end to Jim Crow, desegregation, and rising Black political power.” And he wonders whether the “conservative activist [who] oppose[d] any expansion of the social welfare state” did so “because she believed it sapped individual initiative, or because she was convinced that it would benefit only brown people who’d just crossed the border?” Although Obama generously concedes that “I saw no way to sort out people’s motives,” he concludes that “[w]hatever my instincts might tell me, whatever truths the history books might suggest, I knew I wasn’t going to win over any voters labeling my opponents racist.” Translation: My instincts (and the truths of history) tell me that my opponents’ principled arguments are merely a cover for their racist attitudes, but it would be politically unwise to say so publicly.
And finally, though not exhaustively, on one occasion Obama sent Vice President Joe Biden to Capitol Hill to negotiate with McConnell about an extension of the George W. Bush tax cuts. Although the president could have negotiated directly, he was aware “that in McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperating with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do.”
That’s enough of a reminder for me of the nature of the poison Obama kept injecting and re-injecting into his presidency and the body politic. He may not have used the exact word “racist” in labeling his opponents, but he let his supporters do it, and he often spoke in ways that strongly indicated that any criticism of him was racist. This began even during his 2008 campaign, and I chronicled it as it was happening, in posts such as this one and this one, for example.
It was destructive then and it’s destructive now. But it worked, didn’t it?
Amen. Amen. Amen, Neo.
And not hesitating a moment before throwing his longtime Marxist Spiritual Mentor Jeremiah Wriight, under the bus with his white grandmother who paid his path to politics & Bill & Bernardine Ayers and so many others. And, never a penny to his hungry relatives in Shack Sweet Shack in his supposed treasured Africa. And, just looky-looky what the country is reaping now.
Are we not blessed?
I wonder… Did Bill Ayers work “pro bono” on this one?
Biden and McConnell were the same age and had been in Congress for decades. They both saw themselves as dealmakers and powerbrokers. Obama was younger, less experienced, and less a part of the good old boys club. He had more trouble dealing with people he disagreed with. That, rather than race, was the reason for Biden and McConnell to handle negotiations.
Plus, who knew that the “negotiations” were going on? Whatever the president does attracts attention. The vice president can go anywhere and nobody much notices. I have to say, though, McConnell seems to be holding up mentally, physically and emotionally much better than Biden (or Pelosi) nowadays.
I didn’t have too much of a problem with Obama as president. I didn’t vote him, but the abuse directed at him was so over the top that I couldn’t hate the guy. All the Marxist Muslim (and worse) talk cleared the air and made Obama not seem as bad as the haters believed. But more and more he’s revealing himself as somebody without much class or depth or self-knowledge. He was always superficial and apt to be petty, but so long as he had a job to do it didn’t show as much.
Your quotations are another piece of evidence, in case you needed one, that Obama hasn’t one thought in his head that isn’t a restatement of the clichés swirling around in the heads of the sort of people he and Mooch have associated with for 30 years.
Here’s an essay on how, for 17 years, Michelle Obama came by her salary.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs
Note, Mooch was the primary earner. He was the lawyer who quit practicing after three years; the law instructor who published no scholarly articles, taught no foundational courses, and sat on no faculty committees; the state legislator who was a maven in no area of policy. It’s indicative of cultural decay that the White House was occupied by two people who had a simulacrum of an adult life rather than the real thing. And who sends their child to Harvard to study film-and-photography? Gloria Steinem once offered that the hidden bond between the Nixons might be their anxiety and resentment that others might glide right by them in spite of all the work they put in. What’s the bond between the Obamas?
Art Deco:
Who said that Obama was some sort of innovative philosopher? I never did. He was and is a committed leftist who was excellent at self-promotion and at convincing people he was a moderate and a nice guy, as well as at using racial divisions and accusations to his advantage. He uses a smooth exterior to hide the radical nature of his intentions. He is strong-willed, focused, and not genius level, but plenty smart..
Plus, the book is a piece of propaganda for public consumption. In that capacity, it is no soul-bearing revelation of his true innermost thoughts. Au contraire. It is a political PR document.
“I didn’t have too much of a problem with Obama as president. I didn’t vote him, but the abuse directed at him was so over the top that I couldn’t hate the guy. Michael Smith
“the abuse directed at him was so over the top”?
Really? The criticisms of Obama were a response to his actions like his support for infanticide. Botched abortions where living, breathing babies are thrown into hospital closets and left to die in the dark. Numerous unconstitutional executive orders. Refusing to allow the US military to intervene in a terrorist attack that resulted in the killing of a US Ambassador and four other Americans. Repeatedly engaging in outright lies to the American public to gain public support for Obamacare. Using Federal agencies to spy on an opposition candidate for the Presidency.
The list could compose a book, just by itself.
Art Deco;
I think you fundamentally misunderstand Obama. He was intent on politics quite early on and set his sights on the presidency. He was adept at using lawfare and/or airing the dirty line of others through friends in the press, to get where he wanted to go to “fundamentally transform” America. He had no interest in legislation for the sake of legislation in state legislature or federal. He had an interest in taking credit for the work of others in Illinois in order to build his reputation.
He was quickly successful at what he set out to do.
I’ve documented all of this in many previous posts.
To be fair, if I were Obama I’d probably hate white people after being around the liberal whites he swam with in college and politics.
I’m reading the recent Jason Riley bio of Thomas Sowell and the comments/insights on white “supporters” of black causes is distressing. They are all mouth and (other people’s) money and no actual care for the people. Riley wrote a book about the topic which I read this year and really liked though it was published some years ago. I think it is called “Please stop helping us” … but maybe that’s a subtitle
“…although I don’t recall reading about it at the time.”
Supporters of Israel sure responded to the book’s in-depth rehashing of Obama’s “views” on Israel/Palestine…and what “must be done” to “solve” that irksome imbroglio.
That response was not, um, terribly positive…unless “turgid” and “dishonest” are viewed as positives…though—who knows?—these days that may well be the case (depending, of course, on who the book’s author might be…).
Rehashing? Here’s a reminder (and it’s going to get worse):
https://lidblog.com/obama-anti-israel-resolution/
“I didn’t have too much of a problem with Obama as president.”
Neither did Maxine Waters.
Actually, she really adored him:
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/proof-this-all-leads-back-to-obama/
My opinion has always been Barky was just a recording of Leftist diatribe.
And have a big doubt he actually wrote his so called other books so wonder if he wrote this one.
The build up to the racism push has been going on since his beginning, just like a snow ball rolling downhill it keeps building, this didn’t start just a year ago.
I wonder, or maybe doubt, whether any readers of the book will come to the conclusion that Obama was a fine guy if they didn’t already think that.
Although I do know a couple of otherwise smart people who read Teddy Kennedy’s autobiographical years ago and still think he was a terrific guy.
Years back, W. F. Buckley observed that Holocaust denial books were not written for today’s audience but to look like legitimate resources a century hence. Maybe Obama’s book is aimed at the function. Otherwise, it’s a waste of paper.
For the record, there are no “Koch Brothers” (as in David and Charles) any more. David passed away in 2019.
These days, Charles is more aligned with liberals than conservatives.
If ever a President was guity of “high crimes and misdemeanors” it is Barack Obama aka Barry Soetoro*.
*https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hyyK1opzyY
Though Joe Biden does deserve an dishonorable mention in that category. Closely followed by Bill Clinton.
Years back, W. F. Buckley observed that Holocaust denial books were not written for today’s audience but to look like legitimate resources a century hence.
I hadn’t heard that aperçu of Buckley’s before. It makes a certain sense.
“aperçu”
Nice.
All good fuel to the fire. What Obama thinks or says hardly matters. He’s not an original thinker and no kind of proper demagogue — all he has is a talent for twisting the knife, picking at sores, and then sauntering around lecturing us from the pinnacle of his preening aloofness. As alluded to above, probably another Bill Ayers Job. His book may awaken a few Normies, or may not. Probably not. If it encourages more overt nastiness from the Left, all to the good.
This whole thing has gone well past the point of no return and you should be welcoming those who show up with cans of gasoline and boxes of matches. Sooner it goes up, the smaller the conflagration.
Two things:
1. When BO first spoke at the Dem convention I told my wife he would be the first “Black” President.
2. When he was running I told my wife that BO was just a Chicago Thug.
Guess I was under appreciating just how much a Mobster BO is.
“Years back, W. F. Buckley observed that Holocaust denial books were not written for today’s audience but to look like legitimate resources a century hence. Maybe Obama’s book is aimed at the function. Otherwise, it’s a waste of paper.” – JimNorCal
“aperçu” – Art Deco
“synecdoche” – huxley (yesterday)
“I ***knew*** this was a classy crowd!” – Owen
References for the bibliophilic compulsives like me.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/24/shakespeare-wrote-quotes/
I actually agree with Buckley’s observation and would opine that it encompasses most memoirs of politicians and generals, not a few corporate leaders, and all activists.
Wikipedia insists that assertions in their posts must be buttressed with second-hand references; they never ask if the supporting assertions are any more reliable than the first-hand testimonies, or even wild speculations, of their writers.
“If it’s in the newspaper it must be true. They don’t let people print lies.”
If anyone ever lived by Writing Things to Quote, my vote would go to Wilde.
Even I get a bit bored with the JQ sometimes… So shall we have an argument about the Shakespeare Authorship Question? The fact that I know nothing about it at all won’t be much of a hindrance, I assure you.
“the abuse directed at him was so over the top”?
Really?
I’m talking about things like the idea that he was born in Kenya, that he was gay and killed his lovers, and that his wife was a man. Read enough of that stuff and you might find it hard to add to the abuse
}}} One vision “appeal[s] to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.” It sees “a hopeful, generous, courageous America, an America that was open to everyone.” The other vision is as base as this one is noble. At its core is anger, fear, nativism, and racism.
Amusingly, this is precisely true, yet, he casts the wrong groups into the wrong camps.
The Right seeks the better angels of our nature, and wants a hopeful, courageous, and generous America.
The Left relentlessly appeals to its anger, fear, sexism, and racism.
If it weren’t so sad, it would be hilarious.
Some future generation is going to look back at their schtick and shake their heads at the insanity of it.
It always amazed me that a white born and white raised biracial with zero African American heritage and unlike Caribbean and West African immigrants has also no genetic connection to African Americans, could culturally appropriate a false African American identity.
Especially when his family were white slave owning scum
I guess Lincoln was correct that you can fool some of the people all of the time:
Shape-shifting is in the Declaration of Independence, doncherknow?
Just think . . . if upon being elected, Obama had some sense of the magnitude of the task he was about to undertake, and had decided to seek, and follow, advice from a wise man, and had consulted Thomas Sowell.
History provides few people the opportunity for greatness, and he wasted it.
“Just think . . . if upon being elected, Obama had some sense of the magnitude of the task he was about to undertake, and had decided to seek, and follow, advice from a wise man, and had consulted Thomas Sowell.
History provides few people the opportunity for greatness, and he wasted it.”
Hmm…
“Born and bred in the briar patch, that’s me,” laughed Brer Rabbit. “I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that’s the place I love best!”
The Magical Negro is Silly Whitey’s Tar-Baby. Brer Fox identity left as Exercise for the Reader.
As for me, I’m late for a very important date!
“…some sense of the magnitude…”
Ah, but he did. Absolutely.
After all, “Transforming America”(TM) is not for the faint of heart (or for those lacking “passionate intensity”)….
(Nor is the vast criminal enterprise he carefully put in place against his political enemies and to cement his policies. True, Hillary blew her chance, but it only made him more determined….)
He had/has other models to follow—not all of them Black (nor should they have to be…but one might imagine that CRT would have something to say about that! Or maybe not, since the sordid ends so clearly justify the criminal means).
IOW, the essential problem is: with regard to “greatness”, you (along with a great many others) and Obama (and his ilk) are not quite on the same wavelength….
Neo:
What gets to me is that, when we endured all this blather the first time around, Obama had a strong vested interest. He wanted to get elected, he wanted to get re-elected, and, while in office, he wanted to achieve things and be respected.
He’s no longer in office, and likely never will be again. Does he not shut up simply because he cannot?
Or is this to distract us from him being rather more active behind the scenes than we’d be comfortable with, if we knew about it?
Unfortunately, far too many Americans seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid, and gotten drunk on it — believing that anything proposed by Republicans is bad and must be opposed vigorously, because of the source. As such, Obama has a wide audience, no matter how outrageous his arguments, or how poorly reasoned.
Trump is no longer in office either, and it shows. If he were, I imagine he’d be pushing all sorts of innocuous proposals, just to watch the Democrats fight against them. Can you imagine Trump getting the Democrats, for example, to protest against motherhood?
Oh, wait… they’re doing that. Sorry, my bad.
Speaking of wavelength….Here’s some (more) info on “Deplorable” responses to COVID….
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/ivermectin-can-drug-be-right-wing
File under: If it works—but contradicts the sacred Narrative(TM)—then just make it illegal (or otherwise squelch it)…or, in Real terms: THOSE PEOPLE DID NOT HAVE TO DIE, OR SUFFER…(actually, I guess they did have to).
“He’s no longer in office…”
Wanna bet?
Daniel Schwartz:
He has a vested interest in protecting and shoring up his “legacy.”
He also is quite active behind the scenes.
Also, as a leftist, he’s still interested in furthering the same goals he was promoting as president.
“Deplorable” medication, continued:
All that this means, really, is that the Hippocratic Oath will have to be adapted slightly to something along the lines of:
“First, do no harm; but should it contradict the sacred Narrative then one is obligated to do what has to be done.”
(Either that or just rename the thing as the Hypocritic Oath, which in fact might be a whole lot easier….and which sounds quite a bit preferable to “Murderer’s Oath”)
“…behind the scenes…”
In fact…
https://people.com/politics/joe-biden-and-barack-obama-still-talk-regularly-white-house-says/
…but rumor has it that they only talk about the grandchildren…(or mostly).
A possible metric for how plugged Obama really is in Current Year is his public speaking, ‘consulting’, ‘book deal’ earnings. There’s a time lag with these, but if they spike to some multiple of his (say) 2019 earnings then that could be a hint.
I’m talking about things like the idea that he was born in Kenya, that he was gay and killed his lovers, and that his wife was a man. Read enough of that stuff and you might find it hard to add to the abuse
The first was from the Hillary campaign and based on promo material he had provided for his own book. I hadn’t heard about killing lovers but that stuff (aside from the gayness) was fringe stuff. Obama was created by Emil Jones, an Illinois pol who provided the “accomplishments.”
I’m talking about things like the idea that he was born in Kenya, that he was gay and killed his lovers, and that his wife was a man. Read enough of that stuff and you might find it hard to add to the abuse
In more than a dozen years of reading cuts directed at the Obamas, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone call his wife a trannie except as a cack-handed joke. That aside, a certain number of people will indulge in crank nonsense or vicious humor or inane profiling. A figure as innocuous as Pat Nixon had to put up with this; Nancy Reagan was smacked around a good deal worse that was Mrs. Nixon.
If Obama actually minded the speculation about his birth, he’d have put it to bed in 2008 by releasing his long-form birth certificate. He didn’t do it until Gov. Abercrombie suggested it three years later (some partisan Democrats are enraged at Trump for having goosed Obama on the issue). A mess of people wasted their time puzzling over this instead of just asking why a pair of impecunious college students would travel halfway around the world to sample Kenyan obstetric care (and introduce Ann Dunham to BO Sr.’s legal wife). Others fancy Frank Marshall Davis was his father. All this diversion kept interested parties from looking for what he really wanted concealed. (I’m wagering his academic transcripts, a history of psychotherapy, and what of his personal finances he could conceal).
By the way, the amount of effort regular reporters put in to understanding why Michelle Obama abandoned law practice, who hired her over a period of 17 years, and what she actually did all day was close to nil. Another was understanding why they turned to Tony Rezko to finance their home purchases. Another was understanding just how and why it was he was hired and retained by the University of Chicago. You read about these things, it’s because cranky Republicans have pulled together available bits of data and put it online. (I think Steve Sailer has identified some of their weaknesses as human beings).
While we’re at it, Mr. Smith, partisan Democrats and palaeotrash cranks were all in on smearing the Bush family, to the point of all but accusing Prescott Bush Sr. of being a Nazi collaborator. That bother you?
“While we’re at it, Mr. Smith, partisan Democrats and palaeotrash cranks were all in on smearing the Bush family, to the point of all but accusing Prescott Bush Sr. of being a Nazi collaborator.”
Man, just when I think I’m a crank for too frequently rehashing old arguments about the Clintons, good old Art comes along and reminds me that other folks have political fetishes even more ridiculous. At least Democrats have martyrdom to explain their Kennedy fixation.
Mike
The reviews quoted on Amazon are glowing: Obama “is as fine a writer as they come” and has “illuminated a pivotal moment in American history, and how America changed while also remaining unchanged” (according to the New York Times Book Review). There are almost 110,000 customer ratings/reviews and almost all of them are 5-star, a ratio that seems hard to believe for such a polarizing figure.
The media and the Left (but I repeat myself)…
As I keep saying, I don’t KNOW if the media is/are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, or if it’s the other way round, but it’s OBVIOUS that they are in CAHOOTS, and sleep together in very large beds…
To be expected.
I’m pretty sure those hagiographic accounts were written well before the book was even published. (And the reviews for his next doorstopper are probably ready too, for the most part.)
Keeping in mind just when it was—on the Presidential timeline—that Obama “won” his Nobel prize…
Kind of like it was a Scandinavian door prize for the dapper man who penned the thrilling “Audacity of hope” (assuming it WAS him)….
(Fab phrase, but when you actually start thinking about it, like quite a few of his Sibylline utterences in fact, you find yourself asking just when it was that hope become “audacious”…but that’s water under the dam for another day.)
The classic glimpse of Obama goes back to his 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate, as captured by Ryan Lizza toward the end of “The Natural” (published in The Atlantic Monthly, September, 2004):
“I couldn’t help noticing, when we sat down to talk in the dilapidated storefront that houses his Springfield [Illinois] campaign headquarters, that the blue-pen drawing he’d doodled on his newspaper during fundraising calls was a portrait of himself.”
Consistent with that, talk-radio host Tammy Bruce routinely referred to Obama and his charmer of a wife as “malignant narcissists.”
I always thought Obama was best understood as an ordinary white liberal and was amused to read the same thought from the parents of one of his white girlfriends.
Whenever I read snippets of his writing–life being too short for me to read more–I think of an academic careerist, someone who has an intellectual bent but isn’t really that gifted or, in the end, even ultimately interested in his subject, who moves from teaching into administration, but likes thinking of himself as an intellectual and knows how to speak the language. Not the scholar’s or intellectual’s language, but the language of a sort of middlebrow fan–not a scholar, but something like the intellectual counterpart of what the bourgeoisie is to the truly rich.
And like the PhD (in comm arts, maybe, or management) who leaves the classroom for the admin building, having a very shrewd and skillful sense of how to advance his own interests. Unfortunately for the United States, he gained access to a much larger stage.
Rudy Giuliani has done and said some dumb things over the past few years, but I was struck by his saying a while back that Obama does not really love this country, “not like we do”, or something like that. It was a harsh thing to say and of course the “we” part is susceptible to the charge of racism, but I think it was correct, and gets to the fundamental problem with Obama. I take the “we” to be more or less ordinary Americans with a more or less ordinary affection for the country, who do not see it as a lump of highly suspect clay which one *might* be able to fundamentally transform.
“I’m pretty sure those hagiographic accounts were written well before the book was even published.”
Maybe even before the book was ghost-written.
“…an ordinary, white liberal…”
Um, no.
(Well….make that, “Perhaps; but only if one glorifies in misprision, which—it is true—can be creative, refreshing, original and thought-provoking…but alas not always is….” True, who could fail to be impressed, even dazzled, by those creased pants I ask you?…)
Anyway, here’s something that that “ordinary, white liberal”‘s rambunctious and irrepressible pals in Teheran have been up to…
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/308837
I take the “we” to be more or less ordinary Americans with a more or less ordinary affection for the country, who do not see it as a lump of highly suspect clay which one *might* be able to fundamentally transform.
Obama’s attitudes are perfectly banal among professional-managerial employees, especially those employed in the educational apparat. There’s never been anyone in the White House with those attitudes. Clinton is the sum of his appetites; he looks down on others only in the way a con man looks down on his marks. Jimmy Carter went from the Navy to the family agribusiness to facing down the local political boss in Sumter County, Ga. I don’t think he’s a man without a chest; there is something of the capon about him.
Whenever I read snippets of his writing–life being too short for me to read more–I think of an academic careerist, someone who has an intellectual bent but isn’t really that gifted or, in the end, even ultimately interested in his subject, who moves from teaching into administration, but likes thinking of himself as an intellectual and knows how to speak the language.
Yep. The deputy dean of students.
“The deputy dean of students.”
[laughter]
Life is too short to even THINK about reading a boat-anchor from the world’s champion Conniving Four-Flusher.
Art Deco, you asked why people would presume someone wold travel ‘roun d the world to sample Kenyan HC.
Friend, back then the Leftists did EVERYTHING they could do to disassociate themselves from ‘white western culture’.
It is difficult to believe that SAD would NOT travel to anyplace that WASN’T America to have her precious non American baby.
@Art+Deco:
“Obama’s attitudes are perfectly banal among professional-managerial employees, especially those employed in the educational apparat. There’s never been anyone in the White House with those attitudes. Clinton is the sum of his appetites; he looks down on others only in the way a con man looks down on his marks. Jimmy Carter went from the Navy to the family agribusiness to facing down the local political boss in Sumter County, Ga. I don’t think he’s a man without a chest; there is something of the capon about him.”
Credit where due. You’ve nailed them all. The Carter bit is masterful.
It is difficult to believe that SAD would NOT travel to anyplace that WASN’T America to have her precious non American baby.
[eyeroll]. Plane tickets cost money; BO Sr. would have been dependent on his sponsors for the funds and Ann Dunham her family, which would have meant in 1961 her father’s salary and commissions from selling furniture. Note, in 1961, the number of passenger trips on commercial airlines was such in a given year that an ordinary person could expect to board a flight once every 15 or 20 years. I spent my young years in a handsome suburb of a then-prosperous city. The only kids I knew who had traveled abroad were (1) a couple of faculty brats who had done so on the foundation dime and (2) one girl whose family trip to the Canary Islands led her to being subject to ridicule for a year afterward. It was only when Freddie Laker’s business took off in 1978 that you began to see foreign travel among roughly ordinary people with families.
While we’re at it, the leftoid youths you’re thinking of were fancy bourgeois university students ca. 1970, not the furniture salesman’s daughter a decade earlier.