Obama's mom: Not just a girl from Kansas

Chicago Tribune ^ | March 27, 2007 | Tim Jones

[george76]

Chip Wall can't help but zero in on the little stuff whenever he watches Barack Obama on TV.

It's his old pal Stanley.

For Wall and a few dozen others, Obama on the campaign trail often brings to mind Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother and a strong-willed, unconventional member of the Mercer Island High School graduating class of 1960.

"She was not a standard-issue girl of her times...

"She touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue,"

the only child was a ... daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly that he named her Stanley -- after himself.

Stanley Ann Dunham's formative years, spent not on the Great Plains but more than 1,800 miles away on a small island in the Pacific Northwest.

Stanley Dunham died in 1992, and the Obama campaign declined to make Madelyn Dunham, 84, available.

In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party.

The marriage failed. Stanley Ann filed for divorce in 1964 and remarried two years later, when her son was 5. The senior Obama finished his work at Harvard and returned to Kenya, where he hoped to realize his big dreams of taking a place in the Kenyan government.

Years later, Abercrombie and another grad school friend looked up their old pal during a trip through Africa.

At that point, the senior Obama was a bitter man, according to the congressman, feeling that he had been denied due opportunities to influence the running of his country. "He was drinking too much; his frustration was apparent," .

To Abercrombie's surprise, Obama never asked about his ex-wife or his son.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

“A good mother” who effectively abandoned her kid during his teenage years?!!!!!!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Plus, it sounds like it was a shot-gun marriage.

[beckysueb]

What is important in this is the fact that Obama’s dad is a muslim and his mom was an avowed athiest. That means there was no teaching of Christ in his life. People can argue with me all day long but I believe a person who rules a nation founded on Christianity with a disdain for anything Christlike is not going to be a good thing.

[beckysueb]

I read somewhere he was ashamed of their whiteness. But yet he wants to rule a country that is predominantly white. Scary.

[beckysueb]

I have seen this photo circulated all over the place. He has so many other things wrong with him, why in the world do people think smoking is the worst thing he could do? I would rather have a good conservative who smokes then a commie who doesn’t.

[beckysueb]

The fact that his white mother abandoned him and he was raised in part by white grandparents who he was ashamed of, and that he is a member of a radical black separatist church should show some resentment to white people on his part. It should send off some alarm bells, but most of his groupie supporters are a lot like his mama.

[beckysueb]

I still don’t know how or when Barack became an African American. I know that sounds silly, but he has no real personal history of the African-American subculture. He now seems to think and talk like a native born African American.

Could be an attempt on his part to adopt the life of the father he never knew as a means of holding on to him or something.

[beckysueb]

Wonder why it is that liberals mostly had broken homes or dysfunctional families.

[beckysueb]

Its not just you. I had trouble following it, too. I think it must be excerpts where the identity of some of the people have been omitted.

[george76]

That is the DUmmie plan : Change.

It means everything and nothing.

[beckysueb]

The family history and what they were like makes the man. We have a right to know what the background is of someone who wants to lead our country.

[Doc91678]

Heavens to Betsy, you mean she was knocked up before they were married?
Would that have made Barack a bastard if Obama senior hadn’t married her?
Hmmm?

[george76]

PART 1

.

[beckysueb]

But telling America’s black community that while their ancestors were breaking the shackles of slavery, Mr. Obama’s ancestors were placing those shackles upon their wrists would hardly play as an Oprah Winfrey best-seller.

But if a Republican had this sort of thing in their ancestory, it would be shouted from the rooftops.

[beckysueb]

But in seeing this photo of Obama with his mother I notice two things: 1. He looks very happy. 2. In the way she is looking at and holding him she appears very devoted.

Check out the picture of him with his father who abandoned him. He looks devoted and Obama looks happy in that picture, too.

[beckysueb]

Also, since her son is running for president, she evidently did not totally screw up

You mean his grandparents didn't screw up.

[beckysueb]

And my point is that it should be sufficient to discuss Obama's radicalism without dragging his dead mother into it. It doesn't add anything to the case against him. Is it the position of some of the Freepers here that people will be convinced to vote against him because his mother was an atheist?

You don't get it. What his mother was has a lot to do with who and what he is.

[Ditter]

Interesting.

[GraniteStateConservative]

This thread is disgusting.

This thread?

There are dozens just like it here at FR. I had no idea before this campaign that so many FReepers were such despicable souls.

[beckysueb]

Wow! Pretty passionate about things, huh. You haven’t been a member long enough to understand FR. We are realists who believe a child is the product of his/her parents and that checking the background of someone gives a person insight into who and what that person has become. You are pretty PC. That is not good in FR.