[john mirse]

Obama’s college and law school experience is not especially controversial or suspect. He had the helping hands that any smart, personable, prep-school educated African American child of a low-income single mother had before him, at the same time as him, and since. Now those helping hands certainly are considerable, but are only objectionable or controversial to the extent that you consider affirmative action objectionable or controversial as a general matter. No conspiracy, that’s for sure.

*****

your explanation seems reasonable.

Just wondering: do you have any explanation---if there is nothing controversial about Obama's high school and college records---why Obama doesn't simply release his high school and Occidental and Columbia undergraduate records?

If Obama's high school and college records have nothing controversial in them, I wonder why Obama puts up such a ferocious fight to keep his records from the public by hiring high-priced lawyers to make sure that his Occidental and Columbia undergraduate records are not released to the public. It looks suspicious to me.

For instance, I heard that some of his Hawaii high school records---even part of his elementary school records---have mysteriously disappeared while none of the records of Obama's classmates are missing.

Obama: Release your Occidental and Columbia undergraduate records. By doing so, you can finally put to rest the hot rumor that you enrolled at Occidental as a foreign student from Indonesia.

[only1percent]

This is really an Occam’s Razor issue.

Is there one person who’d think less of Obama (whether or not they like him now) if he found out that as a 17 year old kid Obama had ticked a “foreign” box in his application to Oxy? I don’t think so: confirms what birthers think they already know, doesn’t mean a thing to lefties who already think that American exceptionalism is bigotry.

But there are a LOT of people who have a lot invested in the idea of Obama being extremely smart and intellectually diligent, and would be shaken up badly to see bad grades and low board scores ... and the simple fact is that standard affirmative action policies, read against his academic path, could have allowed him to have had pretty bad grades and board scores at very points.