Did you miss the next sentence which started with: That
tale quintessentially remains the American strive-and-succeed story since Washington was first born poor and lowly in a kind-of log cabin.
Surely you understand that John Ransom was being sarcastic.
I guess I didn't read far enough into the article to catch the sarcasm.
My disgust for Obama is so great that I have a knee jerk negative reaction whenever I hear his name.