Has this artical by Hollrah been rebutted by Obama? If so, please clarify the misperceptions.



Obama Offers Wild Revision of His Own History
by Paul R. Hollrah

Posted: 03/27/2007
Tuning in to C-SPAN recently, I found myself listening to a speech by Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. He was standing at the pulpit of a black church in Selma, Ala., and as I studied the body language of the dozen or so black ministers standing behind the senator, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the little head-bobbing dolls that people used to place in the rear windows of their 1957 Chevrolets. If their reactions are any indication, the new Schlickmeister of the Democratic Party is actually a pretty accomplished public speaker.

However, as he spoke, I found my B.S. alarm going off repeatedly. But I couldn’t quite figure out why until I actually read excerpts of his speech several days later. Here’s part of what he said:

“Something happened back here in Selma, Ala. Something happened in Birmingham that sent out what Bobby Kennedy called ‘ripples of hope all around the world.’ Something happened when a bunch of women decided they were going to walk instead of ride the bus after a long day of doing somebody else’s laundry, looking after somebody else’s children.

“When [black] men who had Ph.D.s decided ‘that’s enough’ and ‘we’re going to stand up for our dignity,’ that sent a shout across oceans so that my grandfather began to imagine something different for his son. His son, who grew up herding goats in a small village in Africa, could suddenly set his sights a little higher and believe that maybe a black man in this world had a chance. . . .

“So the Kennedys decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that, [in] the world as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama, Jr., was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Ala. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Ala.”

Okay, so what’s wrong with that? It all sounds good—but is it?

Obama told his audience that because some folks had the courage to “march across a bridge” in Selma, Ala., his mother, a white woman from Kansas, and his father, a black Muslim from Africa, took heart. It gave them the courage to get married and have a child. The problem with that characterization is that Barack Obama, Jr., was born Aug. 4, 1961, while the first of three marches across that bridge in Selma didn’t occur until March 7, 1965, almost four years after Obama was born.

Obama went on to tell his audience that the Kennedys—Jack and Bobby—decided to do an airlift. They would bring some young Africans over so that they could be educated and learn all about America. His grandfather heard that call and sent his son, Barack Obama, Sr., to America.

The problem with that scenario is that, having been born in August 1961, the future senator was not conceived until sometime in November 1960. So, if his African grandfather heard words that “sent a shout across oceans,” inspiring him to send his goat-herder son to America, it was not Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Obama’s speech is reminiscent of Al Gore’s claim of having invented the Internet, Hillary Clinton’s claim of having been named after the first man to climb Mt. Everest (even though she was born five years and seven months before Sir Edmund climbed the mountain), and John Kerry’s imaginary trip to Cambodia.

As one of my black friends, Eddie Huff, has said, “We need to ask some very serious questions of the senator from Illinois. It’s not enough to be black, it’s not enough to be articulate, and it’s not enough to be eloquent and a media darling. . . . The only question will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye, will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince.”

It appears that Sen. Barrack Hussein Obama is not the “fresh face” media sycophants like to describe him as. He’s just another in a long line of Democratic snake-oil salesmen.

Rightwing hit piece?

As one of my black friends, Eddie Huff, has said, “We need to ask some very serious questions of the senator from Illinois. It’s not enough to be black, it’s not enough to be articulate, and it’s not enough to be eloquent and a media darling. . . . The only question will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye, will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince.”

It's been rebutted.

It's so stupid when politicians get caught up in this kind of puffery. Gore inventing the Internet is not a good example of this, but Gore telling Teamsters that his mom used to sing him the "Look for the Union Label" song as a lullaby when the song wasn't written until 1975 is a good example. Nothing more than shameless pandering.

A politician lying? No.

....Right Wing Hit Piece? Yes...
"I couldn’t help but be reminded of the little head-bobbing dolls that people used to place in the rear windows of their 1957 Chevrolets"

Flowery rhetoric is not intended to be taken literally, IMO...

Poppa, you sound like those ardent Bush supporters who support Bush no matter what the facts indicate.

Did Obama in fact say these things in the indicated speech?

If so, are the facts cited correct that indicates that he is lying?

If he did lie, what does it say about him?

Ok, so three responses and all of them sarcastically attacking the source. Did he make this speech or not?

Poppa, you sound like those ardent Bush supporters who support Bush no matter what the facts indicate.

Did Obama in fact say these things in the indicated speech?

If so, are the facts cited correct that indicates that he is lying?

If he did lie, what does it say about him?

What it says is that politicians pander, and it's not restricted to one side of the asile.

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that, [in] the world as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama, Jr., was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Ala. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Ala.”

That's cool, foos. So, it is accurate to say that Obama does display some characteristic traits of a run-of-the-mill politician?

Yeha, I'd like to read it too.


I don't think anyone will care anyway.

JFK Really Did Bring Obama’s Dad to America
by Paul Hogarth, 2007-03-06

At his March 4th speech in Alabama to commemorate the Anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, Barack Obama confronted the allegation that he is “not black” by connecting his family history to the civil rights movement. Some of what he said in the speech was technically untrue, but Obama was not trying to mislead the audience. While he implied that the 1965 Selma March – which occurred when he was four years old – caused his parents to first meet, Obama later explained that he meant to say “the civil rights movement as a whole.”

But a more puzzling part of the speech was Obama’s assertion that President John F. Kennedy – egged on by the civil rights movement – helped pay for his father’s trip to America through a scholarship. Barack Obama Senior emigrated from Kenya in 1959 and Kennedy was not President until 1961 – but it was JFK the presidential candidate who helped pay for the airfare, as a means of shoring up his credentials in the black community. Now that black voters have rallied behind Obama’s candidacy, the media should put to rest the ridiculous notion that the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother is somehow “not black” enough to become the first black President.

Of all the unfair attacks being hurled against Obama – that his last name sounds like Osama, that his middle name is Hussein, that he went to school in Indonesia, and that he (gasp!) smokes cigarettes – the allegation that he is “not black” is probably the most politically damaging. Obama’s ancestors may not have been brought on slave ships from West Africa in the 1500’s, but his family has suffered the same type of racism that all black people have encountered in their lives.

“My Grandfather was a cook to the British in Kenya,” he said in his March 4th speech. “Grew up in a small village and all his life, that's all he was – a cook and a house boy. And that's what they called him, even when he was 60 years old. They called him a house boy. They wouldn't call him by his last name. Sound familiar?”

Obama then explained that the civil rights movement embarrassed America’s leaders, because Jim Crow segregation was hurting our image abroad. “So the Kennedy's decided we're going to do an air lift,” he said. “We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.” One of those men, said Obama, was his father – who came from Kenya on a scholarship and enrolled at the University of Hawaii.

But the Kennedy's weren't in the White House at the time – Obama’s father came to America in 1959, two years before Kennedy became President. But the story is true – although it technically happened when Senator John F. Kennedy was still running for President.

In 1958, Tom Mboya, a cabinet minister in Kenya and a prominent trade unionist, launched a program called “Education Overseas” that organized a series of airlifts for Kenyan students who were seeking to get educated in the United States. One of the students who had received a scholarship was Barack Obama’s father.

But according to a 1960 article in Time Magazine, Mboya suddenly found himself stranded. “Education Overseas” needed $100,000 to airlift 250 students from Kenya, but the State Department refused to help because Kenya was a British colony. So Mboya actively lobbied presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy to make it happen. For the same reason that he later got Martin Luther King out of jail, Kennedy helped secure the necessary funding from his father to get the students to America.

It may have been misleading for Obama to say that his parents were brought together by the 1965 Selma March – or slightly inaccurate to say that President Kennedy brought his Dad to America. But he was right. Barack Obama is a product of the civil rights movement, and it should lay to rest the continuing nonsense that he is “not black.”

For reasons that this white author has never completely understood, African-Americans have a strong affinity for Bill Clinton – and there’s no question that it has helped Hillary’s presidential campaign. Eighty percent of blacks have a favorable impression of her, and she kicked off the 2008 nomination as the clear favorite of African-American voters. But now that Obama has launched his campaign and is building high name-recognition, blacks are deserting Clinton in droves and supporting Obama.

In a February 27th poll, 44% of black voters supported Obama – compared with 33% for Hillary Clinton. In contrast, Clinton led Obama among blacks in a December poll by a 40-point margin. As the Washington Post noted, the shift of black voters to Obama has cut Hillary Clinton’s leading margin in half – putting her front-runner status in question.

But what about statements from other African-Americans that Obama is “not black” because he isn’t descended from slaves? On the February 10th edition of the Colbert Report, columnist Debra Dickerson argued this point – but her logic was not convincing. She argued that Obama is “African-African-American,” or, to put it another way, he’s an “adopted brother.”

If the latest Washington Post poll confirms the trend, black people don’t seem to care about such semantics. Hillary Clinton still has much higher name-recognition, but as more black voters get to know Obama, I expect that they will fully embrace him as one of their own.

In recent weeks, reporters have mentioned that Obama’s white ancestors owned slaves – which has further fueled the “Obama-is-not-black” myth. The recent discovery that Al Sharpton’s great-grandfather was owned by a relative of Strom Thurmond has further propelled the media narrative that Obama is not a “black” presidential candidate the way that Sharpton or the Reverend Jesse Jackson were.

But Obama confronted that part of his family history head-on in his March 4th speech. “When my father came over to this country,” he said, “he met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants.”

When Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, he said that one day the “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners” would be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood. Just because Obama’s white ancestors owned slaves doesn’t mean that he isn’t black. What it means is that his mother was willing to marry a black man – despite her own family history.

And that's what Dr. King's dream was all about.

Poppa, you sound like those ardent Bush supporters who support Bush no matter what the facts indicate.

Did Obama in fact say these things in the indicated speech?

If so, are the facts cited correct that indicates that he is lying?

If he did lie, what does it say about him?

Of all the unfair attacks being hurled against Obama – that his last name sounds like Osama, that his middle name is Hussein, that he went to school in Indonesia, and that he (gasp!) smokes cigarettes –

I think so, but then again I'm not some Democratic or Republican flunky who blindly follows their party and proclaims the other party as the devil incarnate.

Show of hands: who here actually thinks Obamas folks got together and made a baby because of the Selma bridge march? Honestly.

Did Obama in fact say these things in the indicated speech?

Did you listen to his speech or read the transcript? I read the transcript then listened to the speech, and got a different impression from each.

Listening clearly gives you the impression that he was saying he was a product of the movement that culminated in the Selma bridge crossing, not that he was there because of selma. He was there because people like those who marched, were willing to march. The climate in America, that of human rights, racial equality, etc, everything that lead up to the selma march, allowed the conditions to exist where someone like Obama could be born.

This was clearly his point, and while he used a few phrases that weren't completely accurate, listening to the entire speech shows that his message was that those who marched at Selma paved the way for Obama and many other black americans like him, and as such, he has just as much a claim to Selma as anyone else.

He goes on to make many more good points about the "Joshua Generation" and how it's Obama's generation that has to pick up where the older generation left off, and bring everyone over into the promised land. It was an extremely good speech, full of good meaning, hope, calling people to be responsible, but people only look at it to attack obama. It's rather ridiculous.

You totally missed the meaning of his speech. Sure, focus on a few lines, and try to paint him into someone who is lying if that floats your boat.

Or, you could be reasonable and listen to the speech, and try to understand what he's saying. If you do that, you might see his point.

I don't think that matters to some people.

But see, saying that it was the Civil Rights movement that brought his parents together wouldn't allow him to use the "don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma" tagline. Again, it's all about pumping up the rhetoric.

More like you are needed, foos. And I totally agree.

This alone would not stop me from voting for Obama. My take is that he just pandering also, just like all politicians do. However, this also indicates to me that aside from the slick packaging, he has not brought anything special to the American political landscape. I would vote for him over Hillary(that is not saying much), McCain(his position on torture as a former POW is appalling to me), and Romney(also nothing special, without the packaging).

At this time, I would vote for Guilliani over him, and would give the edge to Edwards over Obama.

It does, after a while, get a little frustrating to hear how someone is SO different and SO unique, and when the point is pressed as exactly how, the answers come in generalities and quite strong, often too strong of a defense. Then, an incident like this occurrs and it shows how normal of a politician he is, it is a little satisfying to take a little shine of the idolatry.

But see, saying that it was the Civil Rights movement that brought his parents together wouldn't allow him to use the "don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma" tagline. Again, it's all about pumping up the rhetoric.

Poppa, you sound like those ardent Bush supporters who support Bush no matter what the facts indicate.

like i said... all politicians try and connect to people. this is a method they all use.

Did you listen to his speech or read the transcript? I read the transcript then listened to the speech, and got a different impression from each.

Listening clearly gives you the impression that he was saying he was a product of the movement that culminated in the Selma bridge crossing, not that he was there because of selma. He was there because people like those who marched, were willing to march. The climate in America, that of human rights, racial equality, etc, everything that lead up to the selma march, allowed the conditions to exist where someone like Obama could be born.

This was clearly his point, and while he used a few phrases that weren't completely accurate, listening to the entire speech shows that his message was that those who marched at Selma paved the way for Obama and many other black americans like him, and as such, he has just as much a claim to Selma as anyone else.

He goes on to make many more good points about the "Joshua Generation" and how it's Obama's generation that has to pick up where the older generation left off, and bring everyone over into the promised land. It was an extremely good speech, full of good meaning, hope, calling people to be responsible, but people only look at it to attack obama. It's rather ridiculous.

But see, saying that it was the Civil Rights movement that brought his parents together wouldn't allow him to use the "don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma" tagline. Again, it's all about pumping up the rhetoric.

Oh It is flowery rhetoric and flowery rhetoric is not intended to be taken literally.
Pieces like this are intended to rouse the fringes.
Did MLK actually seeeeeee the mountaintop?

More like you are needed, foos. And I totally agree.

This alone would not stop me from voting for Obama. My take is that he just pandering also, just like all politicians do. However, this also indicates to me that aside from the slick packaging, he has not brought anything special to the American political landscape. I would vote for him over Hillary(that is not saying much), McCain(his position on torture as a former POW is appalling to me), and Romney(also nothing special, without the packaging).

At this time, I would vote for Guilliani over him, and would give the edge to Edwards over Obama.

It does, after a while, get a little frustrating to hear how someone is SO different and SO unique, and when the point is pressed as exactly how, the answers come in generalities and quite strong, often too strong of a defense. Then, an incident like this occurrs and it shows how normal of a politician he is, it is a little satisfying to take a little shine of the idolatry.