Newt Gingrich said to National Review Online recently, "What if[Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if youunderstand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior, can you begin to piecetogether [his actions]?" Gingrich's comment sparked off DineshD'Souza's Forbes article, which argues that America is "governed by the ghost"of Obama's "Luo tribesman" father.
But let's not forget the white-liberal neocolonialism ofhis mother, which influenced him too. In Dreams from MyFather, Obama reveals just as many or more dreams from hismother, the Ford Foundation anthropologist who introducedenlightened liberal ideology to the native tribes of Indonesia.There in that "land" of "fatalism," Obama writes, "she was a lonelywitness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps,position-paper liberalism."
The patronizing tone that Obama adopts in the book whendiscussing his father's failures makes him sound more like aneocolonialist cut from his mother's cloth than an anticolonialist.While he approves of the anticolonials' anti-western anger, hestill thinks they could use some direction from western liberals.He expresses disappointment with his father for not swallowing theliberal faith whole. His father lacked "faith in people" and heldtoo tightly to certain Luo ways -- "too much of its rigidness, itssuspicions, its male cruelties." If only, he implies, the Africananticolonials were less stubborn and let neocolonialists at theFord Foundation guide them to Planned Parenthood clinics andschools bankrolled by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, all would havebeen well.
It is an open question how much of the book is real ormade up. Obama casually drops into the introduction that quotes inthe book are "an approximation of what was actually said or relayedto me," and that for "the sake of compression, some of thecharacters that appear are composites of people I've known, andsome events appear out of precise chronology." One wonders if hetoo is a composite in his postmodern memoir. The book is long onaffected literary flourish and short on candor. He does a lot of"listening to the wind and its whispers of mortality."
But here and there amidst the pretentious throat-clearinghe makes some accidental revelations. I didn't know that his Kenyangrandfather converted from Christianity to Islam, which comes outin a story told to Obama by his grandmother, a story that doesn'texactly lend credence to Obama's Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace line:"What your grandfather respected was strength"¦This is also why herejected the Christian religion, I think. For a brief time, heconverted, and even changed his name to Johnson. But he could notunderstand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that thisman Jesus could wash away a man's sins. To your grandfather, thiswas foolish sentiment, something to comfort women. And so heconverted to Islam -- he thought its practices conformed moreclosely to his beliefs."
Obama writes about his trip to Kenya with theanthropological detachment of his mother, not so much learning fromhis relatives during the "emotional odyssey" as looking down onthem. But he is happy when his sozzled half-brother Roy turns up athis Jeremiah Wright-presided-over wedding as a convert to Islam."The person who made me proudest of all," he writes of thereception, "was Roy." He had decided to "reassert his Africanheritage," "converted to Islam," and "sworn off pork and tobaccoand alcohol." His "conversion has given him solid ground to standon, a pride in his place in the world."
But Obama can't resist a final moment of looking down onhim. "Not that the changes in him are without tension"¦ The words hespeaks are not fully his own, and in his transition he cansometimes sound stilted and dogmatic," he writes.
The implication left from all the self-importantruminations about "his divided inheritance" is that theanticolonial dreams of his father can only be completed through theneocolonial dreams of his mother.
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Letter to the Editor
George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.
" 'The person who made me proudest of all,'he writes of thereception, 'was Roy.' He had . . . 'converted to Islam,' and 'swornoff pork and tobacco and alcohol.' " He said while eating a BLT,drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.
Just like you should give up on the idea of getting an educationand seeking your millions to serve the "community" in whatevercapacity Mr. & Mrs. Obama bless (Of course as she works at her$330K no-show job at the "community" hospital or from his state jobas, well, professor, senator, community agitator or any number ofparasite endeavors he chased.)
Just like Obama thinks being part of a terrorist, racistorganization is bad - like the TEA Party. But if your a Lefty scumit's okay to be friends with - and soul brother to - Bill Ayers, anactual terrorist. Or The New Black Panther Party thugs, whointimidate voters with racist remarks while standing around a withbilly clubs - nothing to see here, move along! That's perfectlynormal.
Gee, where are the Republicans like Carl Rove enumerating thesecharacter flaws? Too busy looking for their balls, I guess.
But just for forestalling the gerontocracy of John McCain alone,Obama's face ought to be on Mt. Rushmore.
Alan, I know you're got a thought rattling around. Make yourpoint not just a jab. If your point is that too much power hasaccumulated in the hands of too few to the detriment of the rest ofus I agree. McCain was foisted on an unsuspecting public as justanother member of the ruling class. Dem. or Rep. they both run inthe same cocktail circles. They only disagree on how to rule thedisagreable mobs in fly-over country...But Obama on Mt. Rushmore? Why not just give him the nobel laureatefor speaking with a teleprompter (wooops, slipped into sarcasm)
There is no alternative to a ruling class, to think otherwise ismarxist or libertopian. My judgment call is Obama is the betterchoice for 2012 than whatever compromise candidate is nominated atthe GOP convention (less than 2 years from now).The GOP is lying when it even hints it can give us another Reagan:the Cold War is over and thus GOP unity is over-- such has beenamply demonstrated in the last 21 years.
... oh, wait, I forgot; some here think the Cold War neverended; okay, then, the demise of the Warsaw Pact.Is that good enough?
putz
Yep...I agree. Alan is a putz. Not much room taken up in thatvast skull except the liberal talking points.
Allan you are a macro head with a micro brain and it's onlyfunctioning at 2%... get a clue and save your breath because as badas barry is screwing over America you're gona need it
BTW alan in case you didn't hear the individual States arerevamping their vetting process so that if barry can't prove hiseligibility BEFORE he gets on the ballet his name will be vacant.that means the documents and process it takes to get into theMiitary and to aquire a top secret clearance are the same documentsand process he will be exposed to. he will have to explain theconflicting SSN's, his passport discrepancy, his lack of a longform BC and all of his time must be accountable for along the linesof the last 10 years or perhaps more. his "friends" and family willbe put under a microscope and probed not by one state but byseveral if the laws are passed and i see no reason why they won'tpass! your boy barry's number is coming up and soon...
So once again, and again and again"¦your argument is that therepublicans and Bush are what we should be discussing, not ourmagnificent young president who was elected king (or messiah). Yourtheme is consistent and always tiresome.
Obama is toast. America has awakened... even with the whiteguilt we carry from the centuries of enumerated atrocities...whichlike opium induced our apathetic stupor (the IV has been removed bythe ONE). The Islamic worldview Obama has revealed will result in ahistorical turning point in our electorate.
Unintended consequences, Newton's law, whatever"¦ Obama has donewhat no figure in our history could have accomplished"¦.awakenedAmerica.
Athough we know war is perpetual.... we now finally know we arein one and that our adversaries are more cunning than we hadimagined.
This will be interesting. Churchill's bust is grinning....
Americans are dumb. They will vote the dimwitted, authoritarianDemocratic majority out of Congress. And, then in 2012, they willre-elect BO back in office after the Republicans save his ass, justlike Clinton. Then the dimwitted Democrats and independents willremember the golden age of BO and purposely forget that theRepublicans saved the country from BO's maleviolence.
i wish barry hadn't given that bust back to the U.K.... we mightneed it to redecorate after barry vacates the office!
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