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Obama's Years at Columbia Are a Mystery
the Sun ^ | September 2, 2008 | ROSS GOLDBERG

Posted on 09/02/2008 10:31:44 AM PDT by george76

He Graduated Without Honors.

Senator Obama's life story, from his humble roots, to his rise to Harvard Law School, to his passion as a community organizer in Chicago, has been at the center of his presidential campaign. But one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him.

Contributing to the mystery is the fact that nobody knows just how well Mr. Obama... performed as a student.

The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript...

The Obama campaign declined to comment for this article and did not offer an explanation for why his transcript has not been released. But observers speculated that one reason might be the racially charged nature of the election.

Mr. Obama has acknowledged benefiting from affirmative action in the past, and details about his academic performance might open him up to critics eager to accuse him, probably unfairly, of receiving a free ride...

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Illinois; US: New York
KEYWORDS: affirmativeaction; barackobama; columbia; columbiau; democrats; election; electionpresident; elections; harvard; obama; obamasecrets; obamatruthfile; occidental
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To: freespirited; Argus
The connection to Khalid al-Mansour is certainly interesting

In late 1988 Obama entered Harvard Law, upon the recommendation of Percy Sutton, a powerful New York politician. Why did Sutton pull strings for Obama? In an interview from "Inside City Hall, (youtube clip Obama and Khalid Mansour) Percy Sutton says he was introduced to Obama by Khalid Al-Mansour of Texas, "principle advisor to one of the world's richest men". Mansour talked to Sutton about Obama and asked Sutton to write a recommendation to Harvard, using Sutton's contacts. Percy Sutton wrote the letter to Harvard calling Obama a "genius".

Now who is this Khalid Al-Mansour, and who is this rich man he represents? Looking further, we have Africa Venture Partners announcement:

AVP WELCOMES DR.KHALID ABDULLAH TARIO AL-MANSOUR TO IT'S BOARD.

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years. Dr. Al-Mansour was also responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal's investment company. During his distinguished career, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Bombay University, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Kenya, London School of Economics and the University of Ghana.
In addition to Africa Venture Partners, Dr. Al-Mansour sits on the Boards of: Saudi African Bank; Kingdom Holdings, Africa; Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia); Space Tech Inc.; AmNet Corp. International; New Avenues Fund Ltd; United Bank for Africa; United Networks; and Landmark Entertainment

Dr. Al-Mansour has authored 24 books and is listed in Who's Who in the World; International Who's Who in the Arab World; Two Thousand Men of Achievement; Royal Blue Book of London; World's Who's Who of Intellectuals and American Hall of Fame.

Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University (Phi Beta Kappa) and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at Berkeley.


So now it gets interesting. Obama got his push behind the scenes from an advisor to a Saudi Prince. And not just any Saudi Prince. Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has an estimated net worth of US$29.5 billion, is the 19th richest person in the world, and is the second richest man in royalty next to the Sultan of Brunei.

So this Saudi Prince's advisor somehow or other takes an interest in Obama when Obama is an unknown. Why?

61 posted on 09/02/2008 1:33:36 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell)
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To: 1066AD

Are there usually old friends, associates or colleagues on stage when someone accepts the nomination? I thought it was just family members. What old friends, etc. were up there when George W. Bush made his acceptance speech?


62 posted on 09/02/2008 1:37:09 PM PDT by Crystal Cove
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To: Rapscallion
> vetted” by the FBI?

A month or so ago the head of the Cleveland FBI was on a local radio show and was asked about the vetting of members of congress in general, (I think the question was asked in such a way so that he wouldn't have to answer a specific about Obama).

I'm paraphrasing now, but the answer was that no vetting was allowed to take place, even concerning access to classified materials, because the people in question had been elected, (or were on the ballot), by the will of the electorate, and the decision of the people could not be interfered with.

As I interpret what he said, anything that would demonstrate unfitness for office would have to be handled by the courts.

63 posted on 09/02/2008 2:52:13 PM PDT by ADemocratNoMore (Jeepers, Freepers, where'd 'ya get those sleepers?. Pj people, exposing old media's lies.)
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To: BunnySlippers

Ah, the Audacity of Dope.


64 posted on 09/02/2008 3:03:03 PM PDT by Fresh Wind (Tom Manion USMC '08!!)
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To: PapaBear3625

http://www.freedomszone.com/archives/2005/12/harvard_accepts_bribe.php

Islamic Studies Gets $20M Gift
Mayor Giuliani once spurned Saudi prince’s altruism, but Harvard embraces billionaire
Published On Tuesday, December 13, 2005 2:14 AM

By SAMUEL P. JACOBS
Contributing Writer

The world’s fifth wealthiest man, Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, is donating $20 million to Harvard to expand Islamic studies, the University announced yesterday.

The donation will be used to launch a University-wide Islamic studies program and to endow four senior professorships, according to a press release. The gift will also fund a new initiative, the Islamic Heritage Project, which will digitize classic Islamic texts and make them available via the internet...

(The pay-off)


65 posted on 09/02/2008 3:17:42 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: NinoFan

He lived with a white girl when he attended Columbia.


66 posted on 09/02/2008 3:21:00 PM PDT by lonestar
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To: 1066AD
An article last week (Krauthammer ?) raised the point that neither on the stage last Thursday evening nor in the Obama movie were there any old friends, associates, colleagues from his past appearing to give BO an attaboy, testimonial etc and saying this was rather odd.

I noticed a long time ago that there was never any mention of old childhood or college friends. It's hard to spend two years in a college without making lasting friendships.

I'm horrible at keeping up with people but I just counted 10 people in my email address book that I have known since childhood and/or college...not counting relatives.

67 posted on 09/02/2008 3:32:03 PM PDT by lonestar
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To: Fred Nerks

mark


68 posted on 09/02/2008 3:37:55 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: Rapscallion
I found it. This is a conversation between the Special Agent-in-Charge: C. Frank Figliuzzi of the Cleveland FBI and Mike Trivisonno on the Mike Trivisonno Show, WTAM 1100, 7/02/08, Hr. 2.

Caller - Do they perform background checks on candidates and fellows who are in Congress and the Senate and perhaps potential presidential candidates?.

FBI - The short answer is no, no we don't, but they're given top secret clearances because they're members of Congress, or Senators, or even higher ranking officials.

Host - Time out. There are no background checks from the FBI on the people that lead the country, the United States of America?.

FBI - Let me emphasize, elected officials. This is a democracy, the people have elected an official to represent them in Washington, and we do not routinely run background checks on those people.

Host - Even people running for president of the United States of America?.

FBI - That's correct.

Host - That's a little weird

FBI - Well, its part of democracy, its part of what the American people want, they want to be able to vote for somebody to represent them in Washington and they don't want us to get in the way of that and we have no predilection to get in the way of that.

Host - Yeah, but what if they're voting for a bad person and they don't know that person is bad, do you follow me?. I'm saying, if the guy's got a background and maybe he's involved with some people that he shouldn't be involved with, shouldn't we know that as voters?.

FBI - Well, I think you'd agree that the American political process is about as rigorous as you'll ever see and if there's dirt back there, probably the opponent is gonna get it out probably before anyone else will.

Host - Now I know why you're the head of the FBI, they're good, aren't they?.

Me - Let's just hope that somebody is up to the job!.

69 posted on 09/02/2008 4:29:14 PM PDT by ADemocratNoMore (Jeepers, Freepers, where'd 'ya get those sleepers?. Pj people, exposing old media's lies.)
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To: george76

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaEducation.htm

In 1981, in search of a community to belong to, he transfers to that prestigious university on the edge of Harlem — Columbia, where he majors in political science with a specialization in international relations. He also swapped drugs for Marxism.

When Obama arrived in New York, he already knew Sohale “Hal” Siddiqi, a drug addicted illegal alien from Pakistan, who was a friend of Chandoo’s and Hamid’s from Karachi, who had visited them at Occidental College.

He had come to New York from London two years earlier and found his caustic wit and unabashed desire to make money perfectly pitched to the city’s mood. He had overstayed his tourist visa and now made a living in New York’s high-turnover, illegal immigrant workforce, waiting on tables.

In 1982, Siddiqi and Obama got an apartment at a sixth-floor walk-up on East 94th Street.

In “The Book,” Siddiqi is identified only as “Sadik” — a short, well-built Pakistani” who smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and liked to party. There’s a chapter in Obama’s book that features this guy and Obama conversing — every other word is “whitey” — whitey this and whitey that — damned whitey. The were roomies for

Watching Sadik’s drugging obviously got Obama’s attention.

“I stopped getting high. I ran 3 miles a day and fasted on Sundays. For the first time in years I applied myself to my studies and started keeping a journal of daily reflections and very bad poetry,” he wrote in “Dreams.”

He went to the Marxist-Socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyn and started lecturing his relatives until they worried he’d become “one of those freaks you see on the streets around here.”

The Obama campaign declined to discuss Obama’s time at Columbia and his friendships in general. It won’t, for example, release his transcript or name his friends. It did, however, list five locations where Obama lived during his four years here: three on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and two in Brooklyn — one in Park Slope, the other in Brooklyn Heights. His memoir mentions two others on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.


70 posted on 09/02/2008 4:40:36 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: george76
Obama's Years at Columbia Are a Mystery

No, let me guess...
he wants to have some "silent years" to develop a Christ-like aura.
71 posted on 09/02/2008 4:50:14 PM PDT by VOA
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To: george76

How do we even know he was at Columbia?


72 posted on 09/02/2008 4:51:49 PM PDT by cookcounty (Barack has dreams of Reform. But Sarah lives it.)
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To: george76

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaEducation.htm

On February 6th, 1990, Obama became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review — first Muslim-American too! The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.

He manages to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review without ever publishing a SINGLE piece of written work — not one!

Update: Politico claims that an unsigned — and previously unattributed — 1990 article was produced by Obama and offers a glimpse at hi’s views on abortion policy and the law during his student days, and provides a rare addition to his body of work.

The six-page summary, tucked into the third volume of the year’s Harvard Law Review, considers the charged, if peripheral, question of whether fetuses should be able to file lawsuits against their mothers. Obama’s answer: No.

I sent Politico an email asking how they knew the document was produced by Obama, since it is “unsigned — and previously unattributed.” I’ll let you know if they respond.

After his appointment, the NY Times carried a story in February 1990, which included a few quotes from Obama:

“The fact that I’ve been elected shows a lot of progress,” Mr. Obama said today in an interview. “It’s encouraging.” “But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance,” he said, alluding to poverty or growing up in a drug environment...

On his goals in his new post, Mr. Obama said: “I personally am interested in pushing a strong minority perspective. I’m fairly opinionated about this. But as president of the law review, I have a limited role as only first among equals.” Therefore, Mr. Obama said, he would concentrate on making the review a “forum for debate,” bringing in new writers and pushing for livelier, more accessible writing.

Obama was elected after a meeting of the review’s 80 editors that convened Sunday and lasted until early this morning, a participant said.

Until the 1970’s the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. Among these were Elliot L. Richardson, the former Attorney General, and Irwin Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.

That system came under attack in the 1970’s and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review.

And, it worked!

In other words, Obama was the first affirmative action President of the Harvard Law Revue.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12705.html

Exclusive: Obama’s lost law review article


73 posted on 09/02/2008 4:54:23 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

If he got in on AA, that is truly abusive. He had every privilege and more of any white person (his gramma sent him to the most prestigeous private school in Hawaii). If He got in by faking slave ancestry, that means somebody else didn’t make the cut. Someone else black and from the ghetto.


74 posted on 09/02/2008 4:56:56 PM PDT by cookcounty (Barack has dreams of Reform. But Sarah lives it.)
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To: Nathan Zachary


Same goes for Michelles collage transcript.
Her thesis is sealed until after the election.

I hadn’t heard that before.
Somehow Dinesh D’Souza wrote a column dissecting the poor writing in
Michelle Obama’s “undergraduate thesis”.
And he says it’s available on the web.

There was a column on this on FR, but I suspect it would take some
time to find it.

http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2008/06/30/michelle_obamas_inferiority_complex


75 posted on 09/02/2008 4:58:02 PM PDT by VOA
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To: george76; wildbill
I am certain that Wayne Allen Root, who also graduated from Columbia with a BA in Political Science in 1983 would know some information. Of course, as the Libertarian VP nominee, he is not an unbiased source.

Root was an early member of the Columbia Conservative Alumni Association. We were hoping that Congressman Cantor would be McCain's VP, if only to have a debate over at Morningside Heights.

76 posted on 09/02/2008 5:06:14 PM PDT by rmlew (NYARLATHOTEP / BIDEN'08 . If you don't believe me check out the first's wikipedia page.)
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To: Crystal Cove

For comparison, I just did a scan of when W was firstrunning. It’s easy to find articles including friend after friend commenting on George and what he was like at Yale, and I mean friends are quoted by the dozens, (including frat brother Lanny Davis of Clinton WH fame).

Obama seems like an extremely introverted, unsocial loner at that time, and friendless or with very few friends.


77 posted on 09/02/2008 5:42:41 PM PDT by cookcounty (Barack has dreams of Reform. But Sarah lives it.)
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To: Crystal Cove

For comparison, I just did a scan of when W was firstrunning. It’s easy to find articles including friend after friend commenting on George and what he was like at Yale, and I mean friends are quoted by the dozens, (including frat brother Lanny Davis of Clinton WH fame).

Obama seems like an extremely introverted, unsocial loner at that time, and friendless or with very few friends.


78 posted on 09/02/2008 5:42:43 PM PDT by cookcounty (Barack has dreams of Reform. But Sarah lives it.)
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To: Pyro7480; SlowBoat407; cyborg; Rodney King; Piranha; Pitiricus; Seeing More Clearly Now; lancer; ...
Columbia Ping

Did anyone know Barry Obama (Barack Hussein Obama-Soetero)?

79 posted on 09/03/2008 7:41:48 AM PDT by rmlew (NYARLATHOTEP / BIDEN'08 . If you don't believe me check out the first's wikipedia page.)
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To: wideminded

So why would he hide his Columbia transcripts?


80 posted on 09/03/2008 8:45:23 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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