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| Obama with Pakistani roommate Sohale Siddiqi |
Most rational people have accepted the fact that President Obama was born in Hawaii. Just ask the
bona fide Clintons. However, the controversy generated by the right-wing over his citizenship as a means of attacking his credibility has not subsided this election cycle. If anything, the cynical questioning of his background has taken a new twist. Critics are pointing at a curious artifact located in the electronic archives of the publishing company, Acton & Dystel, that published Obama's first book,
Dreams From My Father. The company stated in a
publicity booklet Obama was, "
born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and Kenyan finance minister."
[underline added] Not exactly Indonesia, but certainly not Hawaii. That biographical item was not changed until two months after the Senator declared for the Presidency in 2007.
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| with his Kenyan grandmother* |
If the Kenya birthplace was just a "fact checking error" as claimed by the responsible editor, then it persisted for more than
sixteen years, long after Obama was a public figure. When Edward Acton was contacted by non-mainstream journalists, he stated that featured authors did not write their own biographical material, but that they were usually given an opportunity to approve the text. According to
biographer David Maraniss, Barack Obama cultivated an international identity well into adulthood. Maybe Obama was just trying to impress 'chicks', or understandably still confused about his identity given his peripatetic life experience. But in the opinion of his critics like Andrew Breitbart the false biographical information fits a pattern in which Obama's pubic persona is manipulated by friends, political supporters, or himself. For a politician this is not particularly unusual behavior, but Obama seems to have a penchant for selective myth-making when politically advantageous. During the 2008 campaign Obama claimed that his
dying mother fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments because the insurance companies considered her disease a pre-existing condition. Obama repeated this story in a campaign video despite the
Washingon Post calling the story misleading. The actual dispute was over disability payments, not coverage. The paper gave Obama "three Pinocchios" for that one. Certainly, there are some uncommitted voters who still want to know the real Barack Obama after four years in the White House. In his memoir, his college girl friend is a composite figure of real women he knew. Perhaps the same can be said of the protagonist.
*More curious than the 16 year factual error is the grandmother's insistence her grandson was born in Kenya. What reason she has for providing grounds to disqualify her grandson from holding the highest public office in the United States is unclear. Reverend Jeremiah Wright has publicly alleged he was offered money by Obama supporters to not make public speeches prior to the election in 2008. "You said you'd never compromise with the mystery tramp; But now you realize, he's not selling any alibis; And ask him do you want to make a deal?...When you got nothin', you got nothin' to loose; you're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal...How does it feel?"
