Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper
RECENT POSTS
- Snowe Dampens President Obama’s Timeline on Health Care Reform
- Study: House Democrats’ Health Care Bill Pushes Top Tax Rates to Over 50% in Most States
- What's the Rush? Asks Moderate GOPer Snowe
- President Obama's Full Court Press on Health Care Reform
- Obama’s Global Reach via Movie Theaters, Bikes Messengers, Text and Mobile Networks
- Today’s Qs for Os WH – 7/15/2009
- POTUS on Health Care Reform: You'll Save Money
- Grassley Says Colleagues 'Beating a Dead Horse to Death' on Sotomayor 'Wise Latina' Comments
- "Thinly-Veiled Threats"? White House Suggests Arizona Republicans Put Up or Shut Up
- POTUS at the All Star Game: No Bailout for the National League? "No, We're Out of Money"
MONTHLY ARCHIVES
« Previous | Main | Next »
The schooling of Barry Obama
January 19, 2007 6:03 PM
There have been some developments today in stories about the education of Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
1) CHOOM GATE
A blogger who attended the same high school as Obama, the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, HAS POSTED HERE the page of "Barry Obama" from his senior class yearbook.
Obama's senior class note includes a reference to the "Choom Gang," which the blogger claims was a reference to marijuana, though his office demurs from exlpaining what it meant. (Obama has admitted marijuana and cocaine use during his teenage years.)
URBAN DICTIONARY.COM has its own definitions, which you are welcome to check out for yourself.
2) OBAMA AND ISLAM
Obama's office did have a little to say about the discussion on morning television's version of the Algonquin Round Table -- by which I am of course referring to "Fox & Friends" -- where this morning it was said that as a child in Indonesia Obama "spent the first decade of his life raised by his Muslim father as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa" (which then is helpfully defined as "financed by Saudis, they teach the religion that pretty much hates us. The big question: was that on the curriculum back then?" )
The Fox & Friends crew was discussing A STORY in Insight Magazine which claims allies of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, were investigating this issue, which the Clinton camp needless to say denies.
Obama's parents, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham, who lived in Hawaii, divorced when Obama was two.
When Obama was six, his mother remarried Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil company manager, and the family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama's sister was born. His office says that from ages six to eight Obama went to a Muslim school in Jakarta -- though "absolutely not a radical Islamic school" -- after which he went to a Catholic school.
When he was 10, Obama moved back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents and attend the Punahou School. Both his father and stepfather were born Muslim, as Obama noted in his heralded June 28, 2006 SPEECH ABOUT FAITH AND POLITICS:
"I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I."
But Obama eventually became a devout Christian and member of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago.
-- jt
January 19, 2007 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (10)
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Why now, would we need such a bill?
H.R. 1503 - To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require proof of citizenship for presidential candidates.
Posted by: WeimMom | Apr 21, 2009 11:19:06 AM
Insight got the info from the Hillary campaign.
Posted by: mb | Oct 10, 2008 3:24:58 PM
Obamaton's wouldn't appreciate this information getting out, especially if you research the black supremacist church he attends.
Posted by: David Ben-Ariel | Feb 16, 2008 1:46:40 PM
as always you have picked you canditade for Prsident Clinton. Please give the public a change to make up their our minds! Tank you
Posted by: Janice Fiorese | Feb 10, 2007 11:24:54 PM
Obama will be president one day, maybe not in 08 but by 2016 st least. He's smart, energetic, honest, simple qualifications that the current president lacks.
Posted by: William Bergmann | Jan 23, 2007 7:20:45 PM
I am an Indonesian and Indonesian journalist already investigated since July 2006 that Barack Obama, formerly known as Barry Soetoro, attended St Franciscus Assisi Elementary School (in Indonesian: SD Asisi), a catholic institution, and Percobaan Elementary school 4 (in Indonesian: SDN Percobaan 04).
The second is not an Islamic school but a public/state school without religious leaning. He was being truthful when saying that he studied in predominantly Moslem School since Indonesia’s population is overwhelmingly Moslem (about 85 percent). It’s like any school in Italy (where I am now) will be predominantly, at least nominally, Catholic.
And what if he went to Islamic school in Indonesia? Do serious research in Indonesia’s Islamic school and you will find that even Thomas Friedman was surprised by the cosmopolitan nature of the Islamic schools when he visited Indonesia. Islam is Indonesia is home-grown, overwhelmingly moderate and eschews violence. Note that we caught the perpetrator of Bali Bomb and put harsh sentence to them.
Put Barry Soetoro in Google and the first few hit will give you the links. Most will be from Detik.com and in Indonesian language but the top hit will be a blog by American Expat in Jakarta with address of laotze dot blogspot dot com that translated some of the news to English....
If ABC is really serious about investigative reporting, you should contact Detik’s editor at redaksi@staff.detik.com. Now go out and do some real reporting.
Posted by: Berly Martawardaya | Jan 22, 2007 1:12:39 PM
And so the`political vetting process of Sen. Obama begins. It will be interesting to see how he answers questions about his Muslim education and how it might hurt him politically.
Posted by: chuck | Jan 20, 2007 9:16:03 PM
One of the great mysteries of modern politics, is how the press has such weak knees when it comes to reporting some very real threats to our nation, brought on by Republican incompetence, blind ideaology and/or corruption, but will pursue to the ends of the Earth nonsense like this.
We don't hear about Bush dumping his Harkin stock, or his juvenile behavior in 2000, when the campaign is supposedly about character. Instead, the election is decided by Gore's wardrobe, and why he can't be trusted because he never said he was the inspiration for Love Story, and never said he invented the Internet. It was obvious thousands of lives had been lost due to lies that made our nation less safe, but the election was decided over the incontrovertible fact that Kerry got shot in Vietnam. Now that the damage to the nation due to mismanagement in Katrina, cronyism and a botched war that may be escalating to multiply the damage done, but save Bush's reputation, the next election appears to be about Obama's name and non-Wahhabism, and Edwards selling of his house for a fair price and being rich, yet still having the gaul to push policy that benefits the other 95 percent.
Fluff, you'll flog to the hills, but that other stuff that appears to actually be going on -- too scary to print.
Posted by: Memekiller | Jan 20, 2007 12:28:05 PM
I think there are real concerns about Spies entering the United States..its obvious on very small paths that the Illegal Alien population will attempt to alter ones "perspective"/literally there is an above the board attempt to stymie the truth..
Aside from "dysfunctional" famlies of long standing in America/there are Crime Famlies of late..and even gangs feel obligated to open "doors of hatred"..
The appearance of Obama as apart of "that" Muslim influence might just be the poorer side of America gone-"influential"-like I've said from the start concernming words spoken by Obama/ain't happening Mister.
Posted by: MarkSM | Jan 20, 2007 5:18:04 AM
How dare you repeat that rightwing crap that Hillary Clinton was behind the smearing of Obama.
The fact is that by falsely stating that Hillary was behind the Obama smear that rightwing rag Insight slimed 2 democrats at the same time.
Posted by: Feba shimansky | Jan 20, 2007 3:30:39 AM
Post a comment
