T
theloneranger100@aol.com
Guest
Yup........Ain't it Amazing?...........
"A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental hopeful HASN'T said
about his father...
London Daily Mail
27th January 2007
It is a classic story of the American dream made real: an impoverished
Kenyan goatherd rising to become a brilliant Harvard-educated
economist.
On the way he fights racial prejudice at home and corruption at work,
survives the heartbreak of a broken relationship and, despite it all,
leads the fight to rid Africa of its colonial legacy.
This extraordinary story is told by US Presidential hopeful Barack
Obama as he recalls the life of the man who inspired him to political
success - his father.
Mr Obama's book, Dreams From My Father, is flying off the shelves of
US book stores, exciting and astonishing readers in equal measure. It
is a bestseller, and no wonder - because the story just gets better
and better.
Mr Obama is already Democratic Senator for Illinois. Now he is in the
running to be the first black President in the country's history.
"My story is part of the larger American story," he declared in the
electrifying speech that won him his Senate seat just two years ago.
"In no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
Many believe Mr Obama is a serious threat to Hillary Clinton's hopes
of becoming the Democrats' choice for their next Presidential
candidate - and his lovingly written account of the debt he owes his
father, also called Barack Obama, will do no harm at all to his
Presidential hopes.
Indeed, by offering up a conveniently potted account of his personal
history in this way, he might even have made a pre-emptive strike on
those sure to pose the awkward questions that inevitably face a
serious contender for the White House.
Yet an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that, for all
Mr Obama's reputation for straight talking and the compelling
narrative of his recollections, they are largely myth.
We have discovered that his father was not just a deeply flawed
individual but an abusive bigamist and an egomaniac, whose life was
ruined not by racism or corruption but his own weaknesses.
And, devastatingly, the testimony has come from Mr Obama's own
relatives and family friends.
Charismatic and with movie-star looks, Barack Obama Jnr has managed to
steal some of Hillary Clinton's most influential supporters in the two
weeks since he entered the US Presidential race.
The 45-year-old lawyer depicts himself as a fresh voice for voters
tired of the divisive rhetoric and self-serving ambition of
established politicians on each side of the Democrat-Republican
divide.
His campaign to become the first black President is inspired, he says,
by his love of the country that allowed his father to triumph against
astonishing odds.
Barack Obama Snr started life with the advantage of being able to read
and write, but he also felt a profound sense of injustice. His father
was a cook for British settlers in Kenya, who demeaningly called him
their 'personal boy'.
Grandfather Obama sent his son to a missionary school but after
completing his education, the youth could find little work except
goatherding in his remote village of Nyangoma Kogela, in the roadless
hills of Western Kenya.
At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more
interested in politics and economics than his family and his political
leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan
Independence movement.
He was put forward for an American-sponsored scholarship in economics,
with the idea being that he would eventually use his Western-honed
skills in the new Kenya. At the age of 23 he headed for university in
Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.
Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu,
he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-
old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.
Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at
Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the
exclusive east coast university.
At the time, Ann explained to their son that his father had gone
because his meagre stipend would not support the family if they lived
together. But finance was the least of her worries.
Mr Obama Jnr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed
the marriage between his mother and father.
In his book, he says that Ann's mother, who went by the nickname Tut,
did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Snr's father 'didn't want
the Obama blood sullied by a white woman'.
In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous
double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack
and her new husband, an oil company manager.
Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more
children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in
the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.
Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was
an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while
still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to
Africa.
A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would
still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became
pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."
It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into
whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.
Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while
driving under the influence and also lost his job.
However, this was no bar to his womanising: he sired a son, his eighth
child, by yet another woman and continued to come home drunk.
He was about to marry her when he finally died in yet another drunken
crash when Obama was 21.
Mr Obama's 40-year-old cousin Said Hussein Obama told The Mail on
Sunday: "Clearly, Barack has been very deeply affected by what he has
learned about his father, who was my father's older brother.
"You have to remember that his father was an African and in Africa,
polygamy is part of life.
"We have assured Barack that his father was a loving person but at
times it must be difficult for him to reconcile this with his father's
drinking and simultaneous marriages."
Said adds: "His father was a human being and as such you can't say
that he was 100 per cent perfect.
"My cousin found it difficult when he came here to learn of his half-
brothers and sisters born to four different mothers.
"But just as Africans find the Western world strange so Americans
coming here will find Africa strange."
Far from being an inspiration, the father whom Mr Obama was coming to
know seemed like a total stranger.
In his book, he attempts to put the best face on it. His father, he
writes, lost his civil service job after campaigning against corrupt
African politicians who had 'taken the place of the white colonials'.
One of Obama Snr's former drinking partners, Kenyan writer Philip
Ochieng Ochieng says, however, that his friend's downfall was his weak
character.
"Although charming, generous and extraordinarily clever, Obama Snr was
also imperious, cruel and given to boasting about his brain and his
wealth," he said.
"He was excessively fond of Scotch. He had fallen into the habit of
going home drunk every night. His boasting proved his undoing and left
him without a job, plunged him into prolonged poverty and dangerously
wounded his ego."
Ochieng recalls how, after sitting up all night drinking Black Label
whisky at Nairobi's famous Stanley Hotel, Obama Snr would fly into
rages if Ruth asked where he had been.
Ochieng remonstrated with his friend, saying: "You bring a woman from
far away and you reduce her to pulp. That is not our way."
But it was to no avail. Ruth sued for divorce after her husband
administered brutal beatings.
In fact he was a menace to life, said Ochieng. "He had many extremely
serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were
replaced with crude false limbs made from iron.
"He was just like Mr Toad [from Wind In The Willows], very arrogant on
the road, especially when he had whisky inside. I was not surprised
when I learned how he died."
Ruth refused to comment on the abuse charges when we tracked her down
to the Kenyan school where she now works.
She said: "I was married to Barack's father for seven years so, yes,
you could say Barack is my stepson.
"Barack's father was a very difficult man. Although I was married to
him the longest of any of his wives he wasn't an easy person to be
around."
Mr Obama has acknowledged that his father grappled with a drinking
problem. But with a gift for words that makes Mrs Clinton's utterances
seem stiff and stale, he has turned it into another component of the
myth.
Drink, he says, like drugs, are one of "the traps that seem laid in a
black man's soul".
Mr Obama claims that he, too, has been racially abused, even during
his campaign for the White House.
His mother, Ann, decided that he should get an American education and
sent him back from Indonesia to Hawaii, where he was admitted to a
"A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental hopeful HASN'T said
about his father...
London Daily Mail
27th January 2007
It is a classic story of the American dream made real: an impoverished
Kenyan goatherd rising to become a brilliant Harvard-educated
economist.
On the way he fights racial prejudice at home and corruption at work,
survives the heartbreak of a broken relationship and, despite it all,
leads the fight to rid Africa of its colonial legacy.
This extraordinary story is told by US Presidential hopeful Barack
Obama as he recalls the life of the man who inspired him to political
success - his father.
Mr Obama's book, Dreams From My Father, is flying off the shelves of
US book stores, exciting and astonishing readers in equal measure. It
is a bestseller, and no wonder - because the story just gets better
and better.
Mr Obama is already Democratic Senator for Illinois. Now he is in the
running to be the first black President in the country's history.
"My story is part of the larger American story," he declared in the
electrifying speech that won him his Senate seat just two years ago.
"In no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
Many believe Mr Obama is a serious threat to Hillary Clinton's hopes
of becoming the Democrats' choice for their next Presidential
candidate - and his lovingly written account of the debt he owes his
father, also called Barack Obama, will do no harm at all to his
Presidential hopes.
Indeed, by offering up a conveniently potted account of his personal
history in this way, he might even have made a pre-emptive strike on
those sure to pose the awkward questions that inevitably face a
serious contender for the White House.
Yet an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that, for all
Mr Obama's reputation for straight talking and the compelling
narrative of his recollections, they are largely myth.
We have discovered that his father was not just a deeply flawed
individual but an abusive bigamist and an egomaniac, whose life was
ruined not by racism or corruption but his own weaknesses.
And, devastatingly, the testimony has come from Mr Obama's own
relatives and family friends.
Charismatic and with movie-star looks, Barack Obama Jnr has managed to
steal some of Hillary Clinton's most influential supporters in the two
weeks since he entered the US Presidential race.
The 45-year-old lawyer depicts himself as a fresh voice for voters
tired of the divisive rhetoric and self-serving ambition of
established politicians on each side of the Democrat-Republican
divide.
His campaign to become the first black President is inspired, he says,
by his love of the country that allowed his father to triumph against
astonishing odds.
Barack Obama Snr started life with the advantage of being able to read
and write, but he also felt a profound sense of injustice. His father
was a cook for British settlers in Kenya, who demeaningly called him
their 'personal boy'.
Grandfather Obama sent his son to a missionary school but after
completing his education, the youth could find little work except
goatherding in his remote village of Nyangoma Kogela, in the roadless
hills of Western Kenya.
At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more
interested in politics and economics than his family and his political
leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan
Independence movement.
He was put forward for an American-sponsored scholarship in economics,
with the idea being that he would eventually use his Western-honed
skills in the new Kenya. At the age of 23 he headed for university in
Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.
Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu,
he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-
old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.
Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at
Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the
exclusive east coast university.
At the time, Ann explained to their son that his father had gone
because his meagre stipend would not support the family if they lived
together. But finance was the least of her worries.
Mr Obama Jnr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed
the marriage between his mother and father.
In his book, he says that Ann's mother, who went by the nickname Tut,
did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Snr's father 'didn't want
the Obama blood sullied by a white woman'.
In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous
double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack
and her new husband, an oil company manager.
Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more
children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in
the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.
Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was
an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while
still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to
Africa.
A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would
still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became
pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."
It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into
whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.
Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while
driving under the influence and also lost his job.
However, this was no bar to his womanising: he sired a son, his eighth
child, by yet another woman and continued to come home drunk.
He was about to marry her when he finally died in yet another drunken
crash when Obama was 21.
Mr Obama's 40-year-old cousin Said Hussein Obama told The Mail on
Sunday: "Clearly, Barack has been very deeply affected by what he has
learned about his father, who was my father's older brother.
"You have to remember that his father was an African and in Africa,
polygamy is part of life.
"We have assured Barack that his father was a loving person but at
times it must be difficult for him to reconcile this with his father's
drinking and simultaneous marriages."
Said adds: "His father was a human being and as such you can't say
that he was 100 per cent perfect.
"My cousin found it difficult when he came here to learn of his half-
brothers and sisters born to four different mothers.
"But just as Africans find the Western world strange so Americans
coming here will find Africa strange."
Far from being an inspiration, the father whom Mr Obama was coming to
know seemed like a total stranger.
In his book, he attempts to put the best face on it. His father, he
writes, lost his civil service job after campaigning against corrupt
African politicians who had 'taken the place of the white colonials'.
One of Obama Snr's former drinking partners, Kenyan writer Philip
Ochieng Ochieng says, however, that his friend's downfall was his weak
character.
"Although charming, generous and extraordinarily clever, Obama Snr was
also imperious, cruel and given to boasting about his brain and his
wealth," he said.
"He was excessively fond of Scotch. He had fallen into the habit of
going home drunk every night. His boasting proved his undoing and left
him without a job, plunged him into prolonged poverty and dangerously
wounded his ego."
Ochieng recalls how, after sitting up all night drinking Black Label
whisky at Nairobi's famous Stanley Hotel, Obama Snr would fly into
rages if Ruth asked where he had been.
Ochieng remonstrated with his friend, saying: "You bring a woman from
far away and you reduce her to pulp. That is not our way."
But it was to no avail. Ruth sued for divorce after her husband
administered brutal beatings.
In fact he was a menace to life, said Ochieng. "He had many extremely
serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were
replaced with crude false limbs made from iron.
"He was just like Mr Toad [from Wind In The Willows], very arrogant on
the road, especially when he had whisky inside. I was not surprised
when I learned how he died."
Ruth refused to comment on the abuse charges when we tracked her down
to the Kenyan school where she now works.
She said: "I was married to Barack's father for seven years so, yes,
you could say Barack is my stepson.
"Barack's father was a very difficult man. Although I was married to
him the longest of any of his wives he wasn't an easy person to be
around."
Mr Obama has acknowledged that his father grappled with a drinking
problem. But with a gift for words that makes Mrs Clinton's utterances
seem stiff and stale, he has turned it into another component of the
myth.
Drink, he says, like drugs, are one of "the traps that seem laid in a
black man's soul".
Mr Obama claims that he, too, has been racially abused, even during
his campaign for the White House.
His mother, Ann, decided that he should get an American education and
sent him back from Indonesia to Hawaii, where he was admitted to a
