[rockvillem]

So, someone living in an off-campus apartment (as some of the photos with his paki boyfriend suggest), eating off campus, avoiding big parties, popular bars or clubs and staying low-key in classes, could stay pretty anonymous [. . . ] That still leaves the question: how does one get into Harvard Law on crappy grades? Even with affirmative action, it is very tough. Still, I remember well how intense the drive for “diversity” was getting at that time, so someone with mixed-race parentage, overseas experience and other exotica would go a long way.

Good points - it's easy to be relatively anonymous at a large university, although it is rather remarkable just how few people have ever come forward as close friends of Obama during his Columbia years. Definitely very, very odd. As to the getting into Harvard point, don't forget just how much the media buried Perry Sutton (one of the machers of NY politics for a LONG time) saying that he'd made a call on behalf of Obama to Harvard at the behest of Khalid al-Mansour. Sutton suddenly became a senile old man, didn't know what he was talking about, etc.

[cradle of freedom]

Maybe his close friends were all commies. That seems to be the way it goes.

[Cincinna]

Just ask George Stephanopolis. He is Columbia ‘83 and has never said he knew Obama.

As anyone who has ever gone to this kind of school knows, classes are small, sports are big, fraternities are often central, and every student has at least one faculty advisor.

Where is his college yearbook? Should be in the Library or fir sale on eBay.