I am following up with a detailed analysis of the two books, as follows.
Initially, I dismissed the "birther" challenges to Barack Obama's legitimacy and refusal to produce a credible birth certificate as pointless distractions from more important questions. Since then I have studied Obama in detail and I have carefully read and cross-checked both of his books, Dreams From My Father (DFMF), published in 1995, and The Audacity of Hope (AOH), published in 2006. Although both books are apparently ghost written, the real issue is not so much whether Obama wrote them, but whether or not he even bothered to read them after they were written by others for publication under his name. They are replete with contradictions and inconsistencies, as more specifically set forth below.
The purpose of this post is to analyze the factual contradictions between (1) the two books and (2) between the two books and the public record with respect to the timeline and historical narrative of Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) and his family, the Dunhams and his purported Kenyan father, BHO SR.
The Dunham’s Arrival in Hawaii: In DFMF, Obama says his family (the Dunhams) arrived in Hawaii in 1959. (p. 23) In AOH, however, he says it was 1960 (p. 29) .
Birth of Ann Dunham in 1942:Conflicting claims and controversy surrounding the circumstances of birth are not limited to Obama Jr, but extend to his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham as well. According to the family mythology, the grandfather, Stanley Dunham, enlisted in the US Army the day after Pearl Harbor and ended up at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas before being deployed to Europe and achieving the rank of sergeant. Wartime pictures produced by the family, however, show him wearing a U.S. Marine Corps uniform, including a USMC officer’s hat with a US Army badge pinned on it. One of these pictures appears on the cover of the paper back edition of DFMF. There is no explanation of why a US Army non-com would be issued a Marine Corps. Uniform and hat.
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/13720000/13720654.JPGFor US Army Enlisted Man's Visor Hat from WWII, see the following:
http://www.militaryheadgear.com/types/74/items/3262At p. 15, DFMF Obama flashes back over the family history during WW2 and says that “…my mother [Stanley Ann Dunham] is born at the army base where Gramps is stationed.”
Well…Ann Dunham’s birth certificate surfaced and it says she was born in St. Francis Hospital in Sedgwick, Kansas. This is a small town approximately 200 miles southwest of Ft. Leavenworth. Stanley Ann Dunham's Birth Certificate REVEALED.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2586313/postsThis is just one of many examples of Obama’s departing from the truth about a seemingly insignificant detail of family history.
Marriage of Ann Dunham to Barack Obama Sr:In DFMR, at page 12, he says his parents were married in 1960. Divorce papers filed by Ann Dunham Obama, in January 1964 in Hawaii, however, state the date of marriage as February 2, 1961, although no known official record of that marriage appears to exist. Obama 1964 Divorce Papers - 13 Pages - Missing Pg 11. Ann says Barack Jr was the only child of this marriage and lists his date of birth as August 4, 1961. Interestingly enough, Ann obtained a court order authorizing service of process on Barack Obama Sr. by US Mail because he was allegedly residing in Cambridge, Mass., where he would have been attending Harvard University. Barack Sr. never responded to the service of process and never appeared in the divorce action in any way. As an alcoholic, a slick womanizer who enjoyed the favors of numerous white women, and a serial polygamist who did not support any of his many children with four or more different women and who intended to return to Kenya, it is possible that Obama SR was unclear on the concept of child support didn’t think it was worth the effort to participate in the proceedings in which Ann charged him with mental cruelty.
The Cause of the Divorce Between Ann and Barack Obama Sr.DFMF has conflicting versions of the cause of the separation of his parents. At P. 10, DFMF says that after graduating from University of Hawaii in June 1962, Barack Sr. “…won another scholarship-this time to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard-but not the money to take his new family with him. A separation occurred, and he returned to Africa to fulfill his promise to the continent. The mother and child stayed behind, but the bond of love survived the distances.”
Well, the bond of love didn’t survive for very long because in January 1964, Ann filed a petition for divorce in Hawaii alleging mental cruelty.
Notwithstanding the foregoing at p. 10 of DFMF, at page 125, Obama refers to a discussion of the separation with his mother, who was visiting him in New York City in the early 1980s. Obama quotes her as follows: “It wasn’t your father’s fault that he left, you know.
I divorced him.”Well, did Barack Sr. leave Ann because she divorced him, as stated on p. 125, or because he was following a higher calling and a higher duty to his African homeland as stated at p. 10? There is no explanation for these contradictory accounts.
Barack Obama Sr. and His Departure from Hawaii:In DFMF, Obama says his father left Hawaii for Harvard in 1963 (p. 5). The public record, however, including a feature story about Obama Sr. that appeared in the Honolulu Star Bulletin dated June 20, 1962, which reported that Obama Sr. was leaving “next week “for the mainland to tour American universities and commence post graduate studies at Harvard. At p. 26 of DFMF, Obama says he found this story in some family papers, but he carefully omits any reference to its date. However if you Google “Barack Obama Sr. you will find a detailed citation to this article. The conventional version of the Obama family saga is that Obama Sr. commenced his studies at Harvard in the Fall semester of 1962. He was long gone before 1963. Barack Obama, Sr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
DFMF says: that in 1962, Obama SR received a scholarship, “…this time to pursue his Ph.D at Harvard…”, thus creating the impression that BHO SR actually received his Doctorate. In fact Obama SR did not get a Ph.D either at Harvard or anywhere else, even though he referred to himself as “Doctor Obama” at Harvard and later after he returned to Kenya. In Kenya, he was widely known as “Doctor Obama” even though he never received more than a Master’s degree. (See DFMF at p. 305.) In July 1965, after leaving Harvard and returning to Kenya, Obama Sr published an article in the East Africa Journal.
http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM41_08...ticle_1965.pdf The introductory profile says: “Barak [sic] H. Obama read his economics at Harvard University. He is currently in Nairobi working for his doctorate.” In The Obamas, BBC journalist Peter Firstbrook spent many months in Kenya researching the history of the Obama family and he confirmed that Obama Sr. never obtained his doctorate degree, even though he insisted on calling himself “Dr. Obama.”
Amazon.com: The Obamas eBook: Peter Firstbrook: Kindle Store
Amazon Amazon
See Firstbrook interviewed on BookTV.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/297941-1Obama Jr. in AfricaDFMF pursues his dreams of knowing his father and travels to Africa in the 1980’s, to explore and celebrate the wonders of “black culture.” The first thing that happens is that the black airport attendants lose his baggage. After several days he returns with his African sister to the airport to follow up on the whereabouts of his lost luggage, and he reports the following interaction with the African employees, at p. 320-321:
“After two days, I still hadn’t recovered by bag. The airline office down town told us to call the airport, but whenever we tried the lines were always busy. Auma [his half sister] finally suggested that we drive out there ourselves. At the British Airways desk we found two young women discussing a nightclub that had just opened. I interrupted their conversation to ask about my bag, and one of them thumbed listlessly through a stack of papers.
Attendant: “We have no record of you here,’ she said.”
Obama: “Please check again.”
“The woman shrugged. ‘If you wish, you can come back tonight at midnight. A flight from Johannesburg comes in at that time.’
Obama: “I was told my bag would be delivered to me.”
Attendant: “I’m sorry, but I have no record of your bag here. If you like, you can fill out another form.’
Obama: “Is Miss Omoro here? She—“
Attendant: “Omoro is on vacation.”
Obama’s sister: “Who else can we talk to here, since you don’t seem to know anything.”
Attendant: “Go downtown if you want to talk to someone else,” the woman said curtly before returning to her conversation [about the new nightclub].”
How’s that for irony? Obama writes a 400 page book about dirty rotten racist white people who built America on the backs of poor oppressed blacks and with the “blood of slaves,” and then goes to Africa and gets blown off by his own people! The hated white man rolled out the red carpet for him at Harvard, but his own beloved Negroes basically tell him to go screw himself after they lose his baggage.
Obama’s Confusing, Inaccurate Narrative of His Education and Employment History:Although AOH is more political than autobiographical and consists largely of essays on various political issues, it still contains substantial autobiographical and person information about Obama and his family, including his mother, his grandparents (the Dunhams), his wife (Michelle Robinson Obama) and the Robinson family.
Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Duhnam Obama Soetoro, and his grand parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, are prominently featured in AOH although not as extensively as in DFMF. Curiously, they are neither identified by name and nor referenced in the book’s index in any manner. Detailed discussions of his mother and family members appear in AOH at pp. 29-30, 66-67, and 202-208 for those who are interested.
Likewise, although his wife Michelle is featured prominently in AOH and is even thanked and acknowledged for her assistance in the afterward “Acknowledgments” section, neither she nor the Robinson family are listed in the index of AOH. [DFMF has no index. You have to make one as you go along.]
AOH has only one complete date: January 4, 2005 when Obama was sworn in to the US Senate. (AOH, page 15). Thus, it has some of the same psychadelic, surrealistic style of DFMF, even though it is more political than person. Nevertheless, many of the few dates there either conflict with dates in DFMF or with the public record of Obama’s personal history.
Preliminarily, it should be noted that the “Acknowledgements” section of AOH names almost 40 people who read and commented on the manuscript, including his wife, Michelle, and such well knowns as David Axelrod, Cass Sustein and Robert Gibbs. In addition, he acknowledges a former staffer, Madhuri Kommareddi, who he says “…devoted the summer before she entered Yale Law School to fact-check the entire manuscript.”
With all of this assistance and a full time fact checker you would think his book would authoritatively set forth the personal details about his own life timeline and history, but such is not the case at all.
At Page 327, Obama makes the following statement:
“
I met Michelle in the summer of 1988, while we were both working at Sidley & Austin, a large corporate law firm based in Chicago. Although she is three years younger than me, Michelle was already a practicing lawyer, having attended Harvard Law straight out of college. I had just finished my first year at law school and had been hired as a summer associate.”
The problem is that this is demonstrably wrong. According to the Illinois State Supreme Court Web site, Michelle Robinson, later Michelle Obama was not admitted to the Illinois bar until May 1989, the following year. She was not licensed to practice law in 1988.
https://www.iardc.org/ldetail.asp?id=896974623Obama entered Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988 and the end of his first year was 1989, not 1988. Thus, Obama worked at Sidley and Austin in the summer of 1989, not 1988.
Why is this important? It’s important because it is highly unusual for professional, college educated people to be unable to accurately and truthfully relate their employment and education history, whether or not their work is reviewed by a full time “fact-checker” as was AOH, or not.
This is not the only mistake in the Obama timeline. At page 232 of AOH, he says that “Six months after Michelle and I met, her father died suddenly of complications after a kidney operation. I flew back to Chicago and stood at his gravesite, Michelle’s head on my shoulder. As the casket was lowered, I promised Frasier Robinson that I would take care of his girl.”
Unfortunately for Obama, public records show that Frasier Robinson, Michelle’s father, actually died in March 1991. Fraser Robinson III This is three years after 1988, and two years after the correct date of his first meeting Michelle in 1989. According to AOH, Obama was very close to the Robinson family whom he described as hard working, principled salt of the earth and with whom he bonded. That being said, isn’t it somewhat strange that he can’t remember whether he knew the family for only six months or for two years before the father, (for whom he professed so much respect) passed away in March 1991?
Why does it matter whether it’s 1988 or 1989? It matters because this is just one of a multitude of contradictions, inconsistencies and disinformations promulgated in connection with the murky, shadowy Obama narrative. It must be remembered that Michelle Obama read this manuscript before it was published and even she did not catch the error about (1) when she was admitted to practicing law, (2) when she worked at Sidley and Austen and (3) when she met her husband. This is astounding in that the “best and the brightest” who both graduated from Harvard Law and rose to the White House are incapable of truthfully and accurately relating their own personal, educational and employment histories, even when they’re working with a full time “fact checker.” Taken alone, this single misrepresentation might not be particularly important, but when placed in the turbulent, controversial and murky history of the Obama saga, it is one of many examples of disinformation and propaganda.
When Obama critics get a date wrong they are pummeled with condemnation by Obama supporters. Yet the Obama camp is perfectly reconciled with the fact that both Obama and his Harvard educated wife are confused about their personal histories and can’t keep their stories straight from one book to the next.
The fact that this Harvard educated President and First Lady can’t provide an accurate, consistent narrative of the most basic facts of their personal and professional histories suggests that their history was created for them by ghost writers and handlers. We have a right to ask questions about Obama’s birth certificate and many more details about his life and family. We have a right, and even a duty to ask: Who is this man who is the President and why is he so secretive and so seemingly confused about his own personal background?
The issue of Obama's birth certificate is important, but it's only a small part of the riddle of who this person really is.
