BARACK OBAMA: JOSHUA GENERATION—OR, JUST JOSHIN’?

OBAMA GOES INTO OVERDRIVE LYING ABOUT HIS FAMILY HISTORY TO AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN SELMA

(CHICAGO)(March 6, 2007) Barack Obama went to Selma, Alabama last week to honor the heroes of the civil rights era. He called them the “Moses generation.” That was all true. Few people have demonstrated more bravery than the civil rights workers of the 50’s and 60’s who put their lives on the line to free America from the oppressive yoke of segregation.

But Obama went further, and placed himself in a “Joshua Generation,” who are the heirs of the Moses contingent.

Unfortunately, Obama was no Joshua; he was just joshin’.

Obama demonstrated that he holds African-Americans in contempt, that he holds the media in contempt and, ultimately, that he holds the American people in contempt.

[I am indebted for the source text in this column to a copy of Obama’s speech posted by Lynn Sweet on the Chicago Sun-Times web site. Although I often disagree with Ms. Sweet on Obama, she has occasionally reflected genuine integrity in the way she has addressed his flaws.]

To put it bluntly, Obama is a congenital liar. Obama grew up lying to himself. When he went to Kenya and discovered that his mother had painted a fantasy world concerning his father Obama paused, and then just resumed and kept on lying. He is still lying.

I recently reread “Dreams From My Father,” Obama’s “biography” of his early years. Afterwards, I notified Random House, the current publishers (Obama dumped his original publishers when he became famous) that Obama’s book is not biography or autobiography. Much of it is complete fiction and fabrication.

In “Dreams,” when Obama visits Africa he discovers his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama.

Onyango is an incredibly powerful figure and an absolutely impressive human being. During the colonial era Onyango educated himself, ingratiated himself with the British, went on to adopt western ways, traveled with British officers across Europe and Mesopotamia during World War I and ended up making a fortune in farming and real estate. Decades after his death, Onyango’s legacy endures. In 2004 the Kenyan Newspaper The Nation of Nairobi stated Onyango’s descendents lived in a “vast well-kept compound with [Onyango’s last wife’s] brick house sitting imposingly at end far end.”

Yet Saturday in Selma Obama defamed both his grandfather Onyango and his father Barack, Sr. He lied about his very impressive family history in order to pander to African-Americans in the audience and to appeal to their basest instincts and most unfortunate prejudices.

FACT: Grandfather Onyango was educated, wealthy and owned property. Yes, Onyango did begin working for the British, and he lived a British life. He adopted British ways. He insisted on scrupulous cleanliness in his home at a time when rural Africans were not aware of western standards of hygiene.

Onyango converted to Islam during this period. As The Nation story stated “The Obama family are among the few Muslims in the locality.” Onyango was a proud man, an imperious man and a “founding father” to a successful dynasty. He would be disgusted at the way Obama has tap danced to avoid admitting his Muslim family heritage.

LIE: Obama told Selmans that to his death Onyango was a “boy” for the British, who called him by his first name, not his last.

I grew up in a restaurant, worked in a restaurant and eat out several times a week. In places where I am known, I am called “Andy” and I respond by telling servers “Hello, George” or “Hello Angelo” or “hello” whomever is taking care of me. There is nothing sinister about referring to staff by their first names. We do it all the time.

I don’t know anyone, anywhere who eats in a restaurant regularly who would walk in and refer to the maitre d’hotel as “Mr. so-and so.” Obama degrades Onyango by telling his audience his grandfather was called by his first name. For shame. He took a man who was incredibly impressive and a giant for his time in Kenya, and ultimately deprecates and diminishes his grandfather.

Obama’s disgrace of his grandfather is a telling insight into his unstable personality. He will lie about anything and everything to pander to his audience and to stimulate base and hostile instincts in his listeners.

FACT: Obama’s father, Barack, Sr. came to America in 1959. He married Obama’s mother in 1960 and Barry was worn in 1961. Onyango opposed Barack, Sr. going to America because his son had a wife and child in Kenya.

LIE: Seeking to hijack the civil rights movement and to attach the suffering of civil rights workers to his own personal aggrandizement, Obama told his audience in Selma “[M]y grandfather began to imagine something different…His son, who grew up herding goats…So the Kennedy’s decided we’re going to do an air lift..This young man Barack Obama got one of those tickets…”

Barack, Sr. arrived in Hawaii two years before Kennedy even ran for the presidency, three years before Kennedy took office. There was no Kennedy “air lift” and no Kennedy “ticket” which brought his father to America. Obama’s speech was all a lie.

Obama also repeated the lie that his father was “herding goats.” I am sure Onyango insisted that his son help care for the large amount of livestock on his wealthy farm, no doubt because Barack, Sr. was a bit of a wise guy and his dad wanted to make him toe the line. But Barack, Sr. was a bright student, indeed a brilliant one, who initially went into commercial work and had no part of any career "herding goats.” The “goat herd” lie is one which Obama has constantly repeated over the past three years.

FACT: Obama was born in 1961. The riot in Selma, Alabama took place in 1965. By 1965, Barack, Sr. had abandoned his second wife (Obama's mother) and moved back to Kenya after going to Harvard University, where he cavorted with the woman who would become his third wife and bear his third family. Barack’s father and mother had no relationship at the time of Selma.

In “Dreams” Obama never mentions at any time any connection between his parents and civil rights, or any support that his grandfather had for his son Barack, Sr. going to college in America. All of these lies have arisen recently, as Obama has expanded his pandering and false family history.

LIE: Obama told the audience in Selma, “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma,…so [my parents] got together and Barack Obama, Jr. was born.” Among the nation’s media, only the Chicago Tribune, to its credit, even bothered to inquire about this bald-faced lie. Obama’s spokesman said Obama was “speaking metaphorically” about his birth date. (Chicago Tribune, March 5, 2007). How can someone speak “metaphorically” when stating the facts about one’s conception?

Over and over again Obama lied to the Selma audience. By 1965, Obama, Sr. had returned to Kenya and joined the Kenya government. The civil rights movement and Selma had absolutely no impact on him and his “wife” in Hawaii in 1960. None.

There was nothing “metaphorical” in Obama’s lies Sunday about his grandfather and father. Nothing metaphorical about the lies concerning the date when Obama’s father came to America. Nothing “metaphorical” about misrepresenting the relationship of his parents in 1965. How can someone lie about basic, objective facts about himself and then, when challenged, claim that he was being “metaphorical?” Still, only the Chicago Tribune even bothered to challenge this torrent of lies.

Syndicated columnist Linda Chavez recently wrote of Obama that his pain comes not from the racism Obama claims as its source but rather from his parental abandonment. It is absolutely true that children who are abandoned bear those scars into adulthood. Obama was abandoned and in flashes of candor he returns to the lingering pain of that abandonment. Abandoned children usually create fantasy worlds, in which the absent parent is a fantasy figure. These fantasies can linger into adulthood.

In Obama’s case he went to Kenya and got the shock of his life as a young adult when he confronted the reality of who his father was and what he had done. Obama, Sr. was having children simultaneously with different wives. He had four wives and was a polygamist. But instead of accepting the pain and trying to deal with it, Obama retreated back into his “fantasy family” world.

How can Obama lie this way, over and over, year after year?

In childhood, compensation for an absent parent begins as fantasy and “pretend” to comfort the child. Gradually, as a child becomes an adult the fantasies and pretenses morph into self-deception and then outright lies. A disconnect persists and grows between the real world and the inner child-life fantasy refuge that offers comfort and solace.

In “High Risk: Children Without a Conscience,” the authors described children who suffer from incomplete bonding. Obama is such a person. He can lie about the facts because reality is meaningless to him. His fantasy world is what controls. And because of the hope, and guilt, that have surrounded his political climb his supporters and his audiences have failed to confront Obama over his confusion of fantasy and reality. Obama’s supporters have been his enablers. The more he lies; the more he gets away with. The bigger the lie, the less he is called on it.

I want to emphasize that this column is not concerned with family history per se. This column is focused on an adult individual who can’t keep himself from lying about facts, who fabricates a fantasy family history and who spends his public life in a pretend world. This column is about Barack Obama’s personality disorder. On February 10th as Obama was announcing his candidacy we issued a psychological profile of Obama. It should be read and reread by anyone concerned about Obama’s unstable personality.

A few weeks ago, when the Los Angeles Times was reporting on Obama’s fabrications involving his role in the Altgeld Gardens asbestos removal program, Obama’s staff members had to go to outside sources because Barry himself had no recollection of the lies he had told in his book, and the fabricated characters he had inserted in his “autobiography.” That is why I think I have a fair chance of wining a lawsuit against Random House if that company continues to enable Obama’s fabrications.

After the controversy over Altgeld Gardens exploded, Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times reposted her August, 2004 article in which she expressed frustration and exasperation at Obama’s deceptions in “Dreams.”

The media do not want to admit that Obama is disordered, because that would prick the balloon they have created around him. They have a vested interest in his survival. If there is a Democratic Party slugfest for the presidential nomination due to Obama, the media will make hundreds of millions of dollars in extra advertising as Edwards, Clinton and Obama raise huge amounts of money and spend it on ads. If Obama implodes, media stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising. I am not suggesting that reporters covering the election are controlled by management. But reporters can’t be oblivious to the fact that newspapers and television organizations are shrinking, and hundreds of millions of dollars in political advertising will extend the life of these organizations into 2009. You be the judge if there is a subconscious conflict of interest.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Someone who lies habitually about objective facts, someone who fabricates a family history, someone who trashes his ancestors and diminishes them with false claims, is not someone that most of us would trust to be in the Oval office.

The truth about Obama is there in plain view. It is there for all of us, and especially the media, to see. But there are “none so blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not hear.” And none so stupid as those who consciously avoid the truth because they want to keep on reporting Obama’s lies.

Both Mr. Obama and the mainstream media owe the American people an explanation and an apology. But don’t hold your breath. Obama’s too busy making up new lies to even know what the truth is any more.

Obama is not part of any “Joshua Generation.” He has been “joshin’” us all along, and we keep taking it. He may be a Kool-Aid salesman. But we keep buying and keep drinking.

Two and a half years ago I held a news conference in Chicago to denounce Obama as a fraud. Events since then have all corroborated my facts and confirmed my conclusions. I told you so. In 2004.

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Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2007. Martin covers national and world politics with forty years of personal experience. Columns also posted at politicalgateway.com; ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639.