The basic premise of Mrs. Obama's speech--that she and her husband had struggled economically like so many other Americans--is false. Not only did they enjoy many advantages that others do not, but CNS News reports that Barack Obama inherited
half a million dollars in stock from his grandmother, a bank vice president who Michelle misleadingly cited as a victim of gender discrimination.
Michelle: Bank Sex-Discriminated Against Barack’s Grandmom;
Tax Returns: Barack Inherited $480,908 in Bank's Stock from Bank's VP (His Grandmom)
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michelle-bank-sex-discriminated-against-barack-s-grandmom-tax-returns-barack-inherited These fibs are not new for the Obama camp. The UK
Daily Mail reported during the 2008 campaign that Michelle Obama has benefited from vast exaggerations of her "working-class origins," substituting a humble single-room residence for what was in fact a middle-class home, and obscuring the fact that her family shared in the spoils from the Democratic Party's regime of (segregated) patronage in Richard Daley's Chicago.
Many of the details the First Lady revealed of the Obama's purported struggles were previously unknown. They would certainly have been available to the Obamas for use in speeches and campaign propaganda four years ago, if true. Yet many of them were mysteriously revealed to the public for the first time at the DNC.
If Barack Obama was an impoverished student, for example, it would certainly have been news to his friends, who included rich Pakistani socialites. He dabbled in recreational drugs such as cocaine--hardly a cheap thrill--and traveled to Indonesia and Pakistan while still at college. Barack Obama is known to have a penchant for exaggeration, having embellished much of his memoir; it seems that tendency is shared by his wife as well.