Or, it was simply an error in a bio blurb for a book that was never published, as the literary agent’s assistant said that it was.
In 1990, the following publications ran articles about Obama being elected President of the Harvard Law Review and every one of them mentioned Hawaii as his birthplace:
The New York Times: 2/6/90
The Chicago Tribune: 2/7/90
The Washington Post: 2/9/90
The Chicago Daily Herald: 5/3/90
Columbia (University) Today: Fall issue, 1990
Perhaps. But how did it get in there in the first place? Did Obama say he was born in Kenya? Or did the agent simply think it made a more interesting bio, and Obama didn't bother correcting her?
It was a convenient error, at least until Obama set his sights on the presidency. It supported the persona he wanted to project. He knew it was to his advantage to seem unique and exotic. And his prospective publisher knew his unusual biography would help sell the book. As he said in his 2004 keynote, which was basically his introduction to the nation:
Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father -- my grandfather -- was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.