Posted on 07/23/2005 11:30:56 AM PDT by mathprof
The line forms the moment Sen. Barack Obama is done speaking, a procession of admirers clutching copies of his book, magazines, scraps of paper, disposable cameras and one homemade American flag. It doesn't take long before someone pops the question.
An elderly woman, dressed in bubble-gum pink, looks up with wide eyes. The lanky senator leans in to hear her amid the din in the stuffy library meeting room.
"In 2008 or some other time," she says, "will we get a chance to work for you for president?"
Obama grins, but demurs. He is not running for president. Not in 2008, at least.
[snip]
He's a deliberately low-key newcomer to Capitol Hill, careful to avoid upstaging the powerful old bulls on their home turf. But he's also an A-list celebrity, courted by everyone from Oprah to Gorbachev.
[snip]
Obama — the only black member of the U.S. Senate — knows no matter what he does, the expectations in some circles are in the stratosphere.
"In some circumstances, there probably are people who expect me to have solved the world's problems already ... ," he says
[snip]
Not everyone has been enamored. Peggy Noonan replied caustically to an essay Obama wrote for Time about Abraham Lincoln.
Obama compared his humble roots to those of 16th president: His father was a Kenyan he barely knew, his mother was from Kansas. Their son, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, would become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
"There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's resume, but it is a log-cabin-free-zone," Noonan recently wrote in an online column for The Wall Street Journal. "So far it is also a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this, it will always be."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The guy is an empty suit. Besides, no one named Obama is getting elected at the national level in the United States any time soon.
Yeah, maybe he could run with Kwesi Mfume. Or Shanikwa or LaShonda, etc.
I don't agree with Obama politically, but I think you are being completely unfair. I have heard both mention the fact that they are biracial and talk about their white families numerous times. Did you know that Halle Berry's white mother told Halle when she was a little girl that she should identify as black because the world would see her as a black girl? She would be disrespecting her mother if she didn't call herself black.
I saw Obama's speech at the Dimwit Convention last year and Halle Berry's Academy Award acceptance speech. Both were "how-black-I-am" speeches without a scintilla of credit to those who raised them. I'm not saying to deny mixed parentage...but at least give credit where credit is due.
As opposed to all the other celebrities?
Obama did mention his mother during his speech- what did you want him to say? If he had the same racial background, but was a rising star in the Republican party, would you care that he calls himself black instead of biracial?
Puff promotion piece from the MSM.
Give Senator Obama everything he's got now, but with my politics, and the media would be calling for his impeachment. Take it to the bank.
I think the model is Tiger Woods. When he was asked why he didn't speak out for Blacks, he said he didn't want to deny any part of his heritage.
He makes it clear that he is mixed heritage. He doesn't claim whichever race would get him the biggest advantage.
I'd prefer that he call himself American instead of playing off of pigmentation as if somehow he overcame tremendous odds to achieve what he has today. His father was an African immigrant, i.e. Obama wasn't descended from slaves here and didn't endure 1/10 the stuff Condi Rice did as a child in the segregated South. Moreover, his maternal grandparents sacrificed to put him in an elite prep school. He may not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but compare what he was given as a youth to Colin Powell growing up in Harlem. There really is no comparison. Obama is a phony...same as Kerry...just different half-truths.
Bingo. Well said.
Thats what he has led everyone and the media to believe.
He actually only saw his did once after he dumped the family before the guy died (1982 I believe).
Seperating the B.S. and the truth with him is impossible, but if you want some real fun about the stuff he says do this.
Go to google, type in his name and jefferson davis.
He claims he is a decendent of him.....and that he is part native american too.
He claims his mother is part cherokee.
I'm assuming your referring to his claims of being part native american....or you could be referring his other insane claim of being a distant relative of jefferson davis.
Either way, his dad was kenyan and had a tribal religion, not muslim.
Obama himself is christian (in name only).
If he had conservative politics, the media would be quoting passages from Obamas own autobiography where he notes his previous history of coke use in every story written about him.
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