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Believe it or not, it’s an interesting conversation...(snipped, go to the website to read the lot.)

http://countusout.wordpress.com/

Some excerpts from the conversation:

...Matt Welch: So tell us what we should know about Barack Obama that we don’t?

Wayne Allyn Root: I think the most dangerous thing you should know about Barack Obama is that I don’t know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me. I don’t have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever!

Welch: Yeah, but you were like selling, you know, Amway in college or something, weren’t you?

Root: Is that what you think of me! And the best damned Amway salesman ever!

Welch: No, I’m sure that you were an outgoing young man, I’m just guessing.

Root: I am! That’s my point. Where was Obama? He wasn’t an outgoing young man, no one ever heard of him.

Tim Cavanaugh: Maybe he was a late bloomer.

Root: Maybe. Or maybe he was involved in some sort of black radical politics.

Welch: Ooooooooooh.

Root: Maybe he was too busy smoking pot in his dorm room to ever show up for class. I don’t know what he was doing!

Welch: Wait, you weren’t smoking pot in your dorm room?

Root: No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t. But I don’t hold that against anybody, but I wasn’t…. Nobody recalls him. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not kidding.

Welch: Were you the exact same class?

Root: Class of ‘83 political science, pre-law Columbia University. You don’t get more exact than that. Never met him in my life, don’t know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, 20th reunion, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! Who was he, and five years ago, nobody even knew who he was.

Other guy: Did he even show up to the reunion?

Root: I don’t know! I didn’t know him. I don’t think anybody knew him. But I know that the guy who writes the class notes, who’s kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange? It’s very strange...

So the misdirection was that Team Obama put out a cover rumor ~~story,~~ that no one from Columbia would talk about him. Cute.

Viz:

COVER STORY
Barack Obama ’83
Is He the New Face of The Democratic Party?
By Shira Boss-Bicak ’93
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan05/cover.php
...
Obama says he was somewhat involved with the Black Students Organization and participated in anti-apartheid activities. “Mostly, my years at Columbia were an intense period of study,” he says. “When I transferred, I decided to buckle down and get serious. I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk.”
Obama says it is difficult to separate his college experience at Columbia from the urban experience of living in New York City, and his memoir offers little about his time on campus
...
Upon graduating from Columbia, Obama attempted a career as a community organizer. He wrote that when classmates weren’t sure what that was, he didn’t have a sufficient answer for them. “Instead, I’d pronounce the need for change,”

Did he go to classes at all? I bet not hardly -- he was doing something else out of his apartment. What? Was his degree a grant? Just a ticket to Hahvahhd?

Sometimes there is a grand conspiracy, maybe who knows? Quite a few aligned stars otherwise -- the heavens are rarely that aligned for anyone.

Wow. Thanks Fred Nerks, and Lucy for the ping.

Some excerpts from the conversation: ... Wayne Allyn Root: I think the most dangerous thing you should know about Barack Obama is that I don't know a single person at Columbia that knows him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! ... Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding. Welch: Were you the exact same class? Root: Class of '83 political science, pre-law Columbia University. You don't get more exact than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him. At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, 20th reunion, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! Who was he, and five years ago, nobody even knew who he was... the guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him. Is that not strange? It's very strange...

That’s just bizarre.

This Columbia University newspaper article from January 2008 underscores the seeming Bermuda Triangle existing at Columbia 1981-1983.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/28889

Obama clearly has gone out of his way NOT to appear at Columbia. The paper reports that Columbia has been trying to get him to speak there since 2006. Nada. Now comes the primary campaign in full force and still he doesn’t hit one of the prime venues for affinity votes, one’s own alma mater. The guy’s stumping in every diner, African-American church and day care center at the time, but the value of an appearance at Columbia eludes him? Don’t buy it. If he didn’t speak or campaign at Columbia, he had a damn good reason to avoid the place, imho.

The article’s author admits that the only info he has about Obama’s time at Columbia is gleaned from scant references in Obama’s memoir...which conveniently offers explanation for no one remembering him: he kept to himself and holed up in the library all the time. Might be embarassing to have no idea where the library was that you spent so much time in.

If this were a screenplay, the intrepid reporter would now be contacting families of the class of ‘83 whose names begin with N, O, and P for the videotapes of their kids’ commencement ceremonies.