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Can We Fill the Holes in Barack’s Story?

By Larry Johnson on April 15, 2008 at 12:50 PM in Current Affairs

It just does not make sense.  Why does Barack move to Chicago after law school?  He has hidden this part of his past and frankly, if you are hiding something there is usually a reason and the reason ain’t good.  You have a reason to move to a particular city or state.  Let me illustrate what I mean.  I was raised in Independence, Missouri.  I left home to attend the University of Missouri.  After getting my Master’s degree I returned to Independence briefly then wound up in Honduras working on a community development project.  I came back from Honduras and decided to pursue a Ph.D.  I was accepted at American University in Washington, D.C.  I moved to Washington and have been in the Washington metro area, off and on, since 1979.

So I return to the question.  Why does Barack wind up in Chicago?  Here’s a guy who is at the top of the heap at Harvard’s Law School as the head of the Law Review, who could reasonably be expected to earn huge dollars in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or Boston and he spurns all of these to go to work in Chicago?  Why?

There is no family tie that we know of.  How about a college roommate?  His two books do not explain this.  Why my interest?  I find it odd that this guy goes to Chicago and becomes part of a circle of folks who are known for politics best described as radical left.  Any thoughts?

  • dark1p

    I’ve read about this somewhere online, Larry. I don’t remember it exactly, but Rezko or someone connected to him offered Barry a job right out of school related to some community organization he ran. It went on from there. Maybe Barry thought ‘community service’ would look good on his resume, or maybe he discovered or was told that Rezko and Co. could do more for him down the line if he took the job.

    Now, as to why these guys singled out Obama, I really don’t know if that was adequately covered.

    • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

      Rezko offered him a job.

      • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

        Why Him IS an interesting question.

      • http://NoQuarterUSA.net Larry Johnson

        Which begs the question. How does someone like Rezko find out about someone like Obama? And why does Rezko, who is not a lawyer and does not head up a community organization, offer Obama a “job”? It does not make sense.

        • Salo

          Oh Larry don’t be coy. Obama got the job. No contract was signed.

        • Patrick Henry

          Larry…

          I think Obamas reason for going to “CHICAGO:” and all its mixture of Activist Groups, Radicals, and connections to Terrorist groups and foreign Nationals, was because of
          “COALITION POLITICS”..and that He fully Intended to go there after Harvard..to become a Chicago “Activist”..like his Childhood Mentor in Hawaii was…

          That being The Black Labor Activist, Journalist and Poet, FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS, 1905-1987..Who moved to Hawaii in 1948…Frank was a very well know activist in Chicago..

          Obama even refers to him in his Book..and visited with frank in hawaii again, just before he left for college..Perrhaps opbama went on to chicago on the advice of frank, and Was Connected with franks associates and friends in chicago..and through them…Thier brand of “Coalition Politics’..”

          Any Google search of Frank marshall Davis..will provide much more information on his relationship with Senator Obama..and on the Political Activism of Frank Marshall Davis..
          Obamas mentor in Hawaii..

          • TeakwoodKite

            Patrick Henry is correct. Frank marshall Davis was well connected and gave Barry a leg up. I don’t have my notes, but the company that Rowe is Ceo of, was run by the father of Ayers…and who was friends with Frank marshall…

            Generational Crib stuff.

            Obama does not like being alone. Some folks like solitude, that is not Bo. Windy or naked, if you don’t know anyone, it is a difficult slog in those cities.

        • alikat

          When elected to his position at the Harvar d Law Review he got some publicity as the first black. One of Rezko’s top assistants saw the article and brought it to his attention. Rezko was always looking out for future stars. Obama was offered a job with Rezko. He turned the job down. The reason he selected Chicago was that the church there was the only response he received to his letter seeking a job. Did Rezko who was already very connected politically, help get the community organizing job? Possibly.
          My personal feeling is that Obama knew he needed street cred and he needed a place where he would have a good platform to launch a political career. This is why he joined Rev. Wright’s church…6,000 members is a lot of votes. I have my own question about his conversion. Did Rev. Wright baptize Obama? I doubt if his aethist mother and Muslim father would have done so.

          • norrismorris

            Go further…dig into archives at chicago sun times. http://www.suntimes.com

            A lot of his “grooming for great stuff” instigated by Rezko and Allison Davis. sr partner at Obama’s law firm, was the beginning. rezko was the ultimate insider and fixer in chicago politics.

            BO would never had gotten to US Senate without Rezko’s advice,fundraising, and cluing him on to power politics in Chicago. No black can survive in liberal politics in Chi without getting 6 to 8,000 insider votes [Wright], plus more [quietly] from friend Farrakhan.

            Obama quickly learned how to work the rich democrat donors, the afrocentric black power elite,and get $$$ from all sides. It took 7 years at Ill senate [actual time per year 75 days] while still at Harvard.

            There is a lot to learn in chicago if you have the time and skill to get it out.Street cred was the stage needed for future bio.

          • fooj

            I thought his wife was a member of the church and that’s how he made his way there. Hell, he openly admits that joining a church was a “benefit” (and I’m not talking spiritually) for him.

        • norrismorris

          Read the whole backstory at Chicago SunTimes articles written by Tim Novak and team about Obama’s first job offer [which he turned down] at law firm he wound up at which was a “connected” real estate rehab specialist firm dealing with AA community and Rezko was part of it…as a client of firm. Allison Davis, sr partner ultimately left firm and became Rezko partner.

          Obama presumably worked there part time, but if you go to Obama archives at http://www.suntimes.com you can dig up a lot on his bio.

          Obama’s rise in local Chi politics came through Rezko and his left Afrocentric ties to Wright,and the entire atmosphere in Chi politics is a study in black power all unto itself. See Farrakhan’s positions in Chicago and you have a great deal of Black Power Muslim movement.

          Some really savvy net surfers can dig this up but it’s all in Chicago Sun Times. His history in Ill Senate and Rezko dealings along with his initial “recruitment”. Obama was being “groomed”.

          • fooj

            Remember how he claimed in the beginning that he hardly knew the guy? The man just keeps shoveling bullshit, doesn’t he?

            • CAE

              What’s really breath-taking is the sheer number of lies (regardless of whether they involve big or trivial issues). Just stunning.

      • simon, too

        Rezko offered him a job

        Barry was the editor of the Harvard Law Review.

        He could have gone to Wall Street or Washington DC, really, had his pick, and with enough work, line himself up as Supreme Court justice barring any other irregularities.

        For him to go to Chicago, and Rezko, Allison Davis, is just plain weird.

        Others might make the point he wanted to devote his life to community service (haha) but given how he ripped off the AA poor in Chicago, in conjunction with Rezko, and given Allison Davis is a part of the combine, representing Rezko, well, it stinks.

        As an aside, would a criminal arrest dissuade a top flight law firm from hiring you?

        I know a conviction can bring disbarment, but what about an arrest?

        • Salo

          Normally a year clerking, and them community work.

          Simon, churches are the political force in the AA community.

          obama happens to have realized this very early on and he’s allowed himself to be used by them…and in turn he’s used them for his own aspirations.

          Think about how the mormons function as a theo/political entity.

          • simon, too

            I understand Salo, but I also know a Harvard degree opens doors not available to others.

            Am editor of the Harvard Law Review has even more doors open for him, and would NOT have to through the churches for a political career.

            And if it were anyone but Wright, and Rezko, and Farrakhan, I might agree, if Obama were even a spiritual man, I would accept the explanation.

            He’s not, he’s connected to men who are DIRECTLY connected to terrorist groups, through those churches.

            Why?

            • simon, too

              As editor, and NOT have to go through, sorry

            • Salo

              au contraire.

              you couldn’t be a black politico without the churches pulling for you. No Bishop No King.

              Obama is a product of Post-reverend political strategy.

              it makes him the figure head of a very particular theological agenda. But his credentials are mainly secular, for good reason.

              • simon, too

                I have to disagree, Obama did not have to go through the churches.

                In addition, the churches he choose to go through were not Dr King’s, they were Louis Farrakhan’s.

                Maybe the answer lies with Davis, and Hawaii.

                Or maybe with New York, and Columbia.

                • Mary

                  Correct. Columbia it is.

                  After his degree at Columbia, Obama found a want-ad looking for a “community organizer” in Chicago. He applied, got the job, moved there (no connections yet), spent 2-3 years working on the Southside of Chicago. Got disillusioned with that job, but decided to go to law school at Harvard (he’s a legacy) to burnish his resume (I think his undergrad degree is in International Relations—Columbia is very liberal, as I recall).

                  Atteded Harvard Law, Editor of Law Review, returned to Chicago…..Michelle was his supervisor at his first job….they dated, married (her family is there), stayed in Chicago.

                  But you’re right, above: REZKO searched him out as Editor of Law Review & offered him a job in Chicago when he graduated.

                  Whether Obama had known Rezko already, while there in his “community organizer” job before law school, I’m not sure.

        • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

          Yes a crime could lead to disbarment but it would have to be committed after the Bar was passed I would think. In that case, there would be no praciticing actual law.

          • simon, too

            OK, thank you, uppity.

            • FLVoter

              a crime can also keep you from getting admitted to a state’s bar.

    • Fleaflicker

      as to why these guys singled out Obama

      I wonder if it had anything to do with his trip to Pakistan?

      • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

        Stop reading my mind.

        • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

          He said he went home to visit his mother when he was in college and took a side trip to Pakistan. I think it was for three weeks where he spent time with an unnamed “friend”.

          • http://Supergram.blogspot.com Melissa

            How long fo the Jihadist camps last?

          • Salo

            A doe eyed bashi bazook, or a mean lookin’ honey glazed lotus eater.

            • WRY

              OK now you’ve lost me guys. I’m an uneducated typical white person. what does this mean?

        • BernieO

          Why did he go to Pakistan? That is an odd choice for a student trip. Anyone know?

          • Salo

            No. His mom was there doing Banking micro loans.

            Look, I’d love to tour India and Pakistan. it’s a major Grand Tour thing to do.

            i’d concentrate on Why Obama keeps tying himself in political knots over theological issues in his church life.

          • it’snotme

            He first visited his mom in Indonesia and then took the side trip to Pakistan with his “friend” and stayed for 3 weeks. I would LOVE to know the name of that “friend” and just how they spent their 3 weeks there. Supposedly they were visiting his “Friend’s” family.

            NAMES, I want NAMES of this “friend” and the “friend’s” family.

    • tzada

      My first visit here and I have been impressed.

      Has anyone explored the thought that Barack Obama is an Arab? He has three Arabic names and his father was classified as Arab African.

      It has puzzled me the level of support from blacks, either they don’t know the history of slavery, don’t know Obama is Arab or don’t care.

      His cousin Raila Ordinga in Kenya needs to be explained by Obama too.

      Maybe this is all old news to you, since I am new here I don’t know all what you have written on.

      Has any one questioned Obama 12 second ad in Texas?

      I post on aol election news blogs. Come on over we need some help. :)

    • Donna

      Frank Davis
      (Member Communist Party USA, Early mentor to Obama)

      Was an activist in Hawaii and had many connections in Chicago. Shows a story from conception. A plan long in the making.

  • barbh

    An interesting article about their opinion of why, apparently Chicago is a good place for an AA with political aspirations.

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/01/14/obama/

    Article says that Chicago leads the country in black political empowerment. It’s an interesting read.

    • BernieO

      Really? Not Atlanta?

      • barbh

        Bernie, I just found an interesting connection, if you read the article I referenced above, it refers to Mayor Harold Washington, on his second campaign his adviser was one David Axelrod…interesting no…??

        Is David Axelrod the Dem version of Karl Rove, I’m beginning to think so..

        http://pmbryant.typepad.com/b_and_b/2008/02/obama-chicago-a.html

        • WRY

          YES David Axelrod is the democrat Karl Rove.

      • OBSP

        Two words, Jesse Jackson!

    • jwrjr

      The answer seems obvious. Obama has been running for president ever since he first ran for public office. But who says it started then? Why not start right out of Harvard? As for Rezko, maybe he made Obama a political offer that he couldn’t refuse?

      • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

        …and why does judicial watch say there is absolutely NO paper trail for his time as state senator. No records. Gone. Either he kept none, which would be odd, or he destroyed them, which is even more odd.

        • fooj

          Can you imagine anyone else getting away with this crap? I can’t.

          I heard Bob Casey talk about Obama’s long record…I almost threw my glass at the TV. What f*cking long record? He doesn’t HAVE a record. He made certain of that.

      • mimi

        “Obama has been running for president ever since he first ran for public office. But who says it started then? Why not start right out of Harvard?”

        I’m convinced that it started long before then.

        • fooj

          I’m thinking the same thing.

  • Fleaflicker

    REZKO

  • http://donnadarko.wordpress.com donna darko

    Chicago is place for aspiring black males to gain political capital.

    • simon, too

      Aspiring black males with Harvard degrees who appear Anglo are not the same as Jesse Jackson, Jr.

      He could have walked into any white firm, and for the most part, been accepted and mentored by the Kennedys and Kerrys.

      Obama speaks as an Anglo, and has Anglo mannerisms, (sorry, I mentioned before I’m half Hispanic, I would watch how the Anglos react to the Spanish, or the AA’s, even the ethnic Polish, being a Chicagoan, just something I saw a lot of, not making me an expert, and I could be wrong, the color of skin, just the phenotype, could determine how you were treated, looks DO determine treatment, sad to say)anyway, he would have met some racism, but overall, he would have been treated well.

      Even in Boston, he must have faired well.

      • Northwest rain

        AH — I consider “Anglo” as a racist term.

        Please refrain from using that word to refer to all white folk.

        Thank you.

  • http://donnadarko.wordpress.com donna darko

    Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson and Carol Moseley Braun are the best examples.

  • http://Supergram.blogspot.com Melissa

    Rezko, AYERS, FARRAKHAN- Pakistan! Oh that part of the world where fanatics blow things up? That Pakistan??? Where playing both ends against the middle is par for the course????

  • spega

    Two issues. He went to Chicago after Columbia (I think) because essentially that’s where you go if you want to rise to national prominence as an AA politician. He listened to Wright’s speeches at Harvard. Here’s the New York Times, in an April 2007 article about Obama and Wright –
    “Services at Trinity were a weekly master class in how to move an audience. When Mr. Obama arrived at Harvard Law School later that year (1988), where he fortified himself with recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons, he was delivering stirring speeches as a student leader in the classic oratorical style of the black church.”

    So despite Obama’s patently false assertion at the Compassion Forum Sunday night that Wright was “just his Pastor”–Wright was very much his POLTICAL mentor as well as friend and counselor.

    Why does the media not INSIST on him addressing these contradictions? I didn’t see that Campbell Brown had any follow-up…

    • Salo

      wierd thing that. Joined the church because the guy was the best orator he’d ever heard…and once he joins he’s hardly ever there or dismisses the mad old bugger.

      • simon, too

        When did he go to Chicago, then, before or after law school?

        Is Wright that famous in the AA community?

        What about early connections to the Nation of Islam?

        • Salo

          I wouldn’t worry about the NOI stuff.

          But it seems abundently clear wright was a major reaons that obama made headway in Chicago.

          I’d guess that Wright has a stable of proteges that he groomed for political office. Some prolly went mad some ran away. Some like Obama rose to the top of Democratic Party politics.

          • simon, too

            Actually, the NOI stuff is the most interesting, to me.

            Farrakhan has connections with Wright, Auhci, and Qadaffi, and Auchi with Osama, through the banks, at the very least.

            This is the crux of the issue, all these components form one ring, such as it is, all having to do with fraud, money laundering, and terrorism.

            And all connect back to Obama.

            NOI appears up to it’s ears in this crap, and then it goes into the ME, and Hamas, through Wright.

            You mentioned earlier, Salo, Auchi might be connected to Chabali? (I think it was you, if not, I apologize).

            Chabali told the Iranians the NSA had broken their codes, that’s a BIG deal, I wonder if he got money for that?

            • Salo

              Auchi is a part of the Knightbridge Mafia. So was Chalabi. Feringee ferari drivers.

              • simon, too

                And for whatever strange reason, I think of that poor Russian spy, murdered in London.

        • BernieO

          I heard an African American ministeron television during the dust up over Wright. The man was not from Chicago. I think he was from Boston. Anyway, he said Wright was very well know in the AA community and that he was notorious for saying inflammatory things (with which this man strongly disagreed.)

        • TeakwoodKite

          After a year or so of New York, I think one would have to find out who he met while in NYC /Harlem (Nation of Islam) who had connections in Chicago.

          He certainly was not going back to Hawaii to the typical white person.

          • mimi

            I’ve always been curious about his time at Columbia. Although he was a transfer student and didn’t live on campus, where in fact did he live???? It’s inconceiveable to me that a person of Obama’s background would not be curious about Harlem and it’s never touched upon in his book.

            I do know this, Columbia University is located in Morningside Heights which sits on a hill, elevated above Harlem at 116th Street & Broadway. Morningside Park separates Harlem. When you descend the hill into Harlem, at 116th Street below, if you walk east across town there is a major NOI Mosque and private school on Lenox Ave. Heading southeast at 96th Street & Third Avenue there is a traditional Mosque, an Islamic Cultural Center. All of these venues are within reach of Columbia U. even walking distance is not out of the question.

            • TeakWoodKite

              There was a western union on 120 and Lenox that was a challenge.

              I have found an artical that BO had a room mate but the artical did not mention the persons name.

              Where Obama Lived in 1980s New York

              While no residents, current or past, who were contacted by The Times remembered Mr. Obama, they shared tales of a building with low rents and dicey circumstances during the early 1980s, when Mr. Obama apparently lived there, before and after he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. (“B. Obama” was listed in telephone directories at 339 East 94th Street in the early 1980s. Mr. Obama did not specify the building number in his memoir, and his campaign has said that he has forgotten specifics of his youth.)

              http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/where-obama-lived-in-1980s-new-york/

              • fooj

                his campaign has said that he has forgotten specifics of his youth

                Youth? We’re talking 20 years. WTF?

                He wrote TWO books about himself and suddenly he has memory issues, eh? Hmmmmm…

              • mimi

                That address is definitely within walking distance to the traditional Mosque/Islamic Cultural Center. I would say practically around the corner.

                Sorry, but I find that very interesting. Most Columbia students stay on the west side because it can be a hassle getting across town when traffic is bad during rush hour. He had other options beside this location, which included Harlem and Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, locations that usually welcome Columbia students and this was before the gentrification push so rents were affordable, and roommates certainly available. I know this area well. At that time, there were always postings on B’way and at the Westside Copiers looking for roomamates and sublets. It makes no sense to be so far east.

                Also, east 96th Street at Lexington, Park, etc., is like a border that separates Spanish Harlem. That East 94th Street address puts him exactly 2 blocks south of that border. Spanish Harlem can be a tough area for those unfamiliar with urban living. Often tougher than Harlem, especially during the 80s. A lot of crack and drugs in the area. I have never had a problem, but for some it could be.

                But being on the other side, the south side, there is an almost remarkable transition in real estate, going from tenements to better kept buildings. I wouldn’t call any of the buildings south of East 96th street dicey. I know this because whenever I take the Lexington Ave bus I always marvel at the almost radical transformation in apt buildings. And at that time it was very radical. That area also tends to be exclusively white as it is the very beginning of NYC’s posh Upper East Side. Of course it gets ritzier the farther south you go.

                That address is just so close to that Center. It really leaves an opening to more speculation.

                • mimi

                  Okay I just looked at that photo of the building and what I will say is if that building looks rough to the unfamiliar eye, I can promise you that the buildings on the other side, the Spanish Harlem side are worse. Also, if there were Puerto Rican tenants, I would make book that they were the Superintendents and their families. These buildings tend to attract white immigrants, single white women from the mid-west or men or other immigrants. I’ll also go out on a limb to explain that NYC can be and certainly even more so at that time, very discriminating when renting to AAs and even latinos in certain areas. I’m thinking someone else got that apt and he moved in with them. As far as mice, a lot of old NYC buildings and some new ones too have mice. Rodents are out of control here.

                  The real intrigue is it’s proximity to that Center and how far it was away from Columbia. This native New Yorker won’t buy that the rents were cheaper. There are comparable buildings on the west side with cheaper rents. The Upper East Side always charged more. And certainly that was the case in the time period he was there. As a transfer student, I’m sure Student Affairs would guide him in his housing search and I doubt that they would have guided him to the east side, not with all the apts on the west side and especially because Columbia owns a lot of that real estate, which is a huge controversy. I can’t believe this was housing that he was referred to by the school.

                  And let’s say this is all as innocent as pie for the sake of argument. Then that points to a person who is a loner and prefers to be isolated from social venues and interaction. I would label him a misanthrope. Do we really need a personality like that as POTUS?

        • Mary

          Went to Chicago BEFORE law school, right after Columbia graduation. Worked as “community organizer” for 2-3 years.

      • PMS

        wierd thing that. Joined the church because the guy was the best orator he’d ever heard…and once he joins he’s hardly ever there or dismisses the mad old bugger.

        …or ever heard him preach anything “controversial” (at least not controversial to Obama, perhaps?).

        • Salo

          wierd indeed. You study the master of the masterclasses and you miss the ugly bits. Not the most convincing excuse really.

          No worries i’m sure the GOP will conect those dots right after Obama accepts the nomination and right before the GOP convention.

          dios mios.

        • SensibleWoman

          Hmmm…interesting to note that during the forum the other night he was questioned about how he came to UCC. He pointed out that his Mother wasn’t religious so he wasn’t exposed as a child to religion that much.

          Then he said that while he was doing community work in southside Chicago some of the people he worked with said if he was going to do this type of work he needed to go to or be involved in a church. And, according to him anyway, so it goes…he visited some churches and decided to join UCC.

          I don’t remember if he mentioned listening to Wright’s tapes while at Harvard.

    • zozosmom

      He went to Chicgo to learn how to be black.

      • OBSP

        zozosmom, you are exactly right. He came here to learn about the AA experience, he had no exposure to it. And, he was schooled by some of the best here. Also, Rev Wright is very popular here. He does not have the largest church, but one of the largest on the Southside. Black fokes here got really angry here when he ran against Bobby Rush, but they got over it in 2003. Dirty Tony was responsible for his acceptance in politics here along with his wife’s friends.
        Tony was the major King Maker here and when he got behind you the money followed. Check out the major fund raisers for Gov Rod and the County Board President the late John Stroger.

      • Fred C. Dobbs

        Good barbecue ribs, year-round. And really stupid crackers from downstate, Tenn, KY, ARK and MS.

      • mimi

        But he could have done that easily at Columbia too. Harlem is a stone’s throw from campus. There are black people all around the Columbia U community and at the school too. Plus there’s a college bound Academic program for inner city high school kids on campus. He could have done that at Columbia too.

  • beebop

    Jake Tapper put up a story at 9:00 AM http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/auchi-ouch.html and the comments are so negative that I am wondering if the Obama supporters all slept in late?

  • DisenfranchisedVoter

    I’ve been wondering the same thing Larry. There are waaaay too many holes in Obama’s life story that his books don’t seem to explain. Little things that usually matter in a person’s life like a roommate or co-workers or people he associated with in law school and as a community organizer in Chicago. I would love to learn more about these people and their influence on him, why he chose to hang out with some of these people, what brought him to Chicago, etc. I really cannot answer any of these questions. He seems like a guy who has over exaggerated parts of his biography in order to create a bestseller and build this good guy/superhero/messiah image his followers have bought into. I would love for someone to do more research and write an unauthorized biography on him that also takes on a more psychological point of view in analyzing his relationships with his grandparents, parents, adoring fans, friends, co-workers, Rev. Wright, and Michelle. Now THAT would be a controversial bestseller.

    • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

      I saw an article a few months ago about how there is NO paper trail for a guy who was in charge of the Review. No papers published. Nothing.

    • mimi

      “Little things that usually matter in a person’s life like a roommate or co-workers or people he associated with in law school and as a community organizer in Chicago.”

      This bothers me too. It could mean:

      1. He’s a total narcissist and people don’t register his radar.
      2.That he’s a loner, in which case he’s a misanthrope and would certainly make a bad president.
      3. He’s a Manchurian Candidate. (Might as well put it out there)

  • Hope

    When did he meet his wife? In what year?

    • Mary

      Michelle was his supervisor at the first law firm job he took right after graduation from Harvard Law. I believe she specialized in copyright law.

      Then she left for a job with the Daley machine….stayed there for several years until moved to the high-paying hospital vice president in charge of community affairs. (essentially meant counseling the non-insured or under-insured to find a charity hospital instead, since the hospital she worked for was a for-profit, uninsured not covered).

      • Lyn

        Don’t forget the best part, AFTER she had the interview but before she accepted the job Obama her FIANCE had to meet with the boss and decide if Michelle should/could work there (the daley job) WHO does that?

  • yttik

    It was a politcal move Larry, as barbh’s link points out. It was deliberate, calculated, a path into politics.

    But if you’re asking for gut reactions, every bit of me suspects something is wrong with this picture. Obama was recruited, selected, groomed by somebody with an agenda. This whole things feels so scripted, like a bad TV movie.

    I wouldn’t feel so nervous if I had some idea of what that agenda was. Empty words about hope and change don’t reassure me, they make me feel even more concerned. Selling yourself as a blank slate that people can project their hopes and dreams on just creeps me out even more.

    • Salo

      Wright.

      That’s who groomed him Wright and the AA churches. Thus Chicago and the community organizing for the churches and the title of his book.

      For every Obama that these guys have groomed I’d guess they have 10 that self destructed or failed.
      There is a whole lot of Theology going with Obama and his core backers.

      • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

        Don’t discount Ayers. He showed him around Hyde Park. They were together on the Woods Fund board. Ayers and his wife Bernardine, as Weather Underground, are “legends” in the AA community.

    • zozosmom

      Yes. He was selected. Look at the people who surround him, now. There is your answer.

    • fooj

      Very much like the last eight years, isn’t it? You’re spot on, imo. He was recruited.

      Where the hell does a person who is 46 years old get this kind of financial and political “capital”? He’s a fricking JUNIOR senator. How did he become a member of the “old boys” club so easily? That just doesn’t happen in American politics, does it? I’ve never seen anything like it.

  • alibe

    Well, I think he was encouraged to go to law school by Rev Wright. Remember he had been in Chicago working for the churches organizing these same churches. I think this is why he says Wright is his mentor. Look at the time line. He was in Chicago after he graduated from Columbia for about 3 years. Just why he went there I am not sure but I think I read he put out a lot of resumes and this place was the only place that offered him a job. He was not a lawyer at that time. And remember, he must have got into Harvard because of a legacy slot, because his father went there. This point I have not heard mentioned yet. I don’t think his grades were good enough for Harvard. But maybe Wright figured out he could apply as a legacy, hence the devotion to Wright. Wright thinks he could use a guy with a Harvard law degree.

    • simon, too

      Weren’t there significant questions about his time as a “community organizer,” though?

      The official story just doesn’t add up.

      • alibe

        Remember, he was an organizer, not a labor organizer and not a community organizer. He was hired through a church (?) and organized churches. He may have organized things in the churches that were community related BUT he was a church organizer!

        • Salo

          Absolutely.

          This is a point i have been making over and over–No Bishop No King.

          Obama is likely to be one of the proteges of AA church politics.

          These churches have tried to run reverends, and that didn’t quite work. So they groomed anywhere up to a dozen well educated young men to be secular versions of the same agenda.

          Obama happens to0 have been a very successful representative of that process.

          • simon, too

            But, again, if he was a product of the curches, who recruited him to Chicago?

            WHEN did he first meet Wright, or Farrakhan, WHO were his early influences?

            • Salo

              Wright, was the main pull. In th eAA community you don’t get too many Atheist Politicos. Wright was suitably radical and hip and quite powerful.

              • zozosmom

                Yes, but who told him to go to Wright?

                • barbh

                  Rezko!

                  • TeakwoodKite

                    Ayers. via FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS, 1905-1987 who knew his dad.

                    • TeakwoodKite

                      Ayers dad..who intro’ed him to the rest of the Gang, Rev Wright and Farrakan etc. Rexko was involved with bilking Ali out of funds back then so all of them had similar orbits.

  • jes

    I never gave it much thought or read any of his books. But, you’re right that it is an odd place for someone with his credentials to go.

    I don’t know much about Rezko other than he is a slum-lord with some shady connections.

    Also, I would think that not many Harvard lawyers, especially one that was the head of the Law Review, want to be community activists in the inner city. I would assume that’s a pretty low-level job.

  • Salo

    He may have gone there to join Wright’s church. A sense of community.

    A deeply spiritual journey into the godhead.

  • Bessie

    While Obama was at Harvard, Rezko approached him and offered him a job,Obama said, he declined. HOWEVER, the job he did take w/Davis,Miner, Barnhill & Galland, their biggest and most lucrative client was Rezmar. The owner and President was Tony Rezko. Obama helped his client with his real estate business, it has been reported. The properties Rezmar ‘a.k.a. Rezko the slumlord’, were in Obamas’ district, they have been forclosed on and boarded-up. Rezko was also sued by the city of Chicago for not turning on the heat in one of his buildings, that same month making a $1000. contribution to Obama. It sounds to me that Obama took Rezkos job offer after all.

  • BernieO

    Speaking of filling in the holes, I just heard Barack on CNN speaking in Pa. He was going over his family background to emphasize his working class roots. He mentioned his mother once, saying she was born on an Army base, then went on about his grandfather’s military service, education and work. As for his grandmother, the VP of a large bank, not even a mention.
    I keep emailing CNN and MSNBC to complain every time I hear them mention Obama’s “humble origins” or working class upbringing. Bet those clowns think that Bush really is a rancher…..

    • TeakwoodKite

      Herding Shubbry NI!

      You would think he would be proud of of his mom and wanto mention he met her in Packistan on vacation..or something…just saying.

    • fooj

      Did you hear him say that early on in his life he was even on food stamps? I wonder if that was BEFORE or AFTER his education at one of the most exclusive, private, prep schools in the country? I find it hard to believe that he attended Punahou and was a recipient of food stamps.

  • Jsilverheels

    The weather underground?

    • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

      Absolutely critical here.

  • Jill H

    I find it peculiar that some posts here have indicated that Obama immersed himself in Wright’s speeches while still at Columbia, but at the Compassion Forum, I forget what the question was, but his response was that someone in Chicago casually mentioned to him that he might want to get involved in a church and he was like oh, uh, yeah, I guess I should. If he was that enamored with Wright from afar, would he not eagerly seek out that man’s church upon arrival in Chicago?

    I agree. There are lots holes in this timeline and things don’t add up.

    I am also just learning about this trip to Pakistan. What in the world was that all about??

  • jes

    Has anyone put together a chronology of the sequence of these events? Something more visual?

    What year did he graduate? When did he move to Chicago? When was the trip to Pakistan? etc;

  • Jsilverheels

    Is anyone wondering whether or not BO actually joined the NoI?

    I doubt it, but inquiring minds want to know!!

    • Lyn

      I think he decided to go to Wright’s church, Christian, rather than NOI, since he thought he would get a head better in Politics as a Christain

  • JoeySky

    Interesting question Larry. I never thought about that before.
    hmmmmm….why Chicago?

  • miriam

    Is Obama’s Columbia Univ. transcript available? We know very little about his time there. I think it’s odd that people who knew him then have been so silent. Did he have any close friends there or at Harvard Law? You’re right, there are significant gaps in his biographical record.

    • beebop

      No …. like the missing tax returns, papers from his “service” to Chicago residents and anything else that can’t be ” ‘splained,” no transcripts. Not from Occidental where he went (apparently) for two years before Columbia, Columbia, or Hahvahd.

  • jes

    There’s a couple of interesting articles about Obama’s father and his past history that are just hitting the net.

    BARACK OBAMA HID HIS FATHER’S SOCIALIST AND ANTI-WESTERN CONVICTIONS FROM HIS READERS
    http://gregransom.com/prestopundit/2008/04/gregs-guide-to-barack-obamas-d.html

    Long-lost article by Obama’s dad surfaces
    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9610_Page2.html

  • Sugapea

    I suspect that Obama’s been groomed and strategically placed…from the get-go.

    He’d be a terrific VP and that would undoubtedly put the Dems in the White House for the next 16-years!

  • Patrick Henry

    I suggested eralier that all of You look up Obamas childhood Mentor..FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS…The Black activist who moved to Hawaii from chicago..

  • Jeff

    “Why does Barack move to Chicago after law school?”

    Well, he was a community organizer in Chicago for the 3 years prior to going to law school at Harvard. People have been known to move back to the places they lived before they went off to school. Especially if they enjoyed their experiences there.

    Or maybe you’re right, and this whole thing is the latest sequel to “The Omen”.

  • Jeff

    “Why does Barack move to Chicago after law school?”

    Well, he was a community organizer in Chicago for the 3 years prior to going to law school at Harvard. People have been known to move back to the places they lived before they went off to school. Especially if they enjoyed their experiences there.

    Or maybe you’re right, and this whole thing is the latest sequel to “The Omen”.

  • ebonyscrews

    Good question, Larry! I saw we found out now what it is that draws Snobama to such controversial and radically leftist figures…or we can leave that up to Brent Bozell & Co.

  • simon, too

    As a side point, to give this a little context, (for myself, anyway), what was the influence of the USSR, in Africa, in the 60′s?

    • Salo

      Aswan Dam. Angola. The Ethiopians were Communist.

      The Russians had a field day for a while in Africa.

      What are you mulling over?

      • simon, too

        I’m not sure, yet, but it’s something Russian.

        Maybe I just have a taste for borscht…

  • beebop

    He had a political professor at Occidental named Roger Boesche who has published a book entitled “Theories Of Tyranny” with some really sweet guys pictured on the cover. Boesche has also written about Alexis de Tocqueville — whose theories I could read about — in simple sentences four or five times over and still not grasp.

    Boesche taught Barry two subjects and has been described as Barry’s “intellectual mentor.”

    http://www.observer.com/2008/expert-opinions-meet-roger-boesche-who-knew-barry-obama-passing-occidental

    I sure hope that the observer doesn’t offend any of the more faint of heart here as a source of information ….. yeah, right ….

  • Mel

    After graduating Columbia, Obama worked in NYC for about 1.5 yrs. lastly as an organizer in Harlem, prior, for Business International. Moved to NYC in 1985 went to work as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

    Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 for 3 weeks.

    Apparently, according to the Obama campaign, In 1981 — the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University — Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend’s family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India.

    and

    During his years at Occidental College, Mr. Obama also befriended Wahid Hamid, a fellow student who was an immigrant from Pakistan and traveled with Mr. Obama there, the Obama campaign said. Mr. Hamid is now a vice president at Pepsico in New York, and according to public records, has donated the maximum $2,300 to the Obama campaign and is listed as a fund-raiser for it.

    and

    What, you didn’t know his only friend in New York City was an Pakistani living in this country illegally? What’s wrong with that?

    Living with an illegal alien Muslim should be a resume enhancer for any future President.

    and
    In 1986, Dunham(obama mommy) did a one-year development project in Pakistan. That year, mother and daughter took a two-week journey along the old Silk Route to China.

    Dunham’s work for the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan was followed by stints at People’s Bank of Indonesia and Women’s World Banking in New York. She also did consulting work for the World Bank and USAID.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOOwMgWY_VIA&refer=home

    • Salo

      wait a moment.

      Max Cleland wounded Vietnam veteran is morphed into Osama.

      grrrrrrrrr.

      It’s gonna be soooo easy.

      In a way you don’t want to directly delve into this stuff, it’s a bit stupid in a sense. OTOH a decorated veteran like Kerry is called French–He wasn’t even remotely French.

      Gephardt managed to morph Dean into Osama.

      Dean, an MD from Vermont.

      only my tears for the Democratic party are BITTER.

      Full Disclosure–some of my best freinds in my English highschool were Pakistani. BUT this is gonna be all too easy for the GOP.

    • beebop

      Uh … I worked for PepsiCo. There’s no way he’s in this country “illegally.”

      There is no bigger group of Republicans than that company. Indra Noohy — its current CEO — is very close with Kissinger. She is as buttoned up as they come and as a native of India wouldn’t have any reason to break any rules for someone who hails from Pakistan — at least not by political tradition.

      • Mel

        Just pointing out none of the storys are consistance, but then again, this is Obama we are talking about isn’t it, so it is the game of mystery!

    • Mel

      After graduating Columbia, Obama worked in NYC for about 1.5 yrs. lastly as an organizer in Harlem, prior, for Business International. Moved to NYC in 1985 went to work as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

      Slum areas of which Rezko had a hand in getting money!

  • Mercedes

    I think if he were undergoing a top secret security clearance for the federal government, someone would or should have checked that out. And I would think that being President of the US, or even a Senator, would require an Above Top Secret Clearance. So somebody must know, hopefully his friends and sponsors in the US Senate, Mr Kerry, Mr Kennedy, Mr Leahy, Mr Dodd, know. Nobody is telling us, the voters, so all we can do is guess.

    My guess is that his move and his Chicago job offer are related to some association he developed either at Columbia or Harvard. I came across an interesting Columbia-Chicago connection with Obama’s patroness, Oprah. She promotes a “A Course in Miracles”. According to Wikipedia and other sources, The Course was channeled by a professor of medical psychology at Columbia named Helen Schucman. The final Course was published in collaboration with a Columbian colleague of hers named William Thetford, who is described as some kind of boy genius from Chicago who may even have graduated from Un of Chicago, if I remember correctly. Mr Thetford, deceased in the early 1980s, is identified as a CIA employee who worked on the MKULTRA program…that is, the notorious mind control program. Mr Obama’s campaign is very adept at stringing along a crowd and his assorted supporters. What else does a community organizer do? And as far as Reverend Wright is concerned, someone (ie Obama) interested in mind control may not consider his (ie Wright’s) rantings as hate speech, but just a jolting way to get people to sign on to the program…the program being clearly of the leftist variety.

    I’m not really one of those crazy conspiracy theorists, but what can you do when you don’t have the facts.

    • zozosmom

      Interesting. Very interesting.

    • jes

      Why would you have to have a government clearance to run for office? I don’t believe that’s a correct assumption. Do you think anyone has run a clearance on that looney Cheney? Or Bush for that matter? Or any of these other powerful Senators and Representatives?

      I think that you have to be a US citizen and reside in the state you’re running from. And, obviously, persuade the voters to vote for you (or as an alternative have the Supreme Court rig the election).

      • simon, too

        Do you think anyone has run a clearance on that looney Cheney? Or Bush for that matter? Or any of these other powerful Senators and Representatives?

        Do you think they haven’t?

        I’m not speaking MKULTRA, or anything like that, I always thought that was just a little too Timothy Leary, but security clearance?

        Logically, arent somethings too important to be left to a compromised, corrupt, stupid run of the mill politician, taking illegal monies from North Korean nationals, say?

        Do you think security in the US is that lax?

  • Kefa

    He moves to Chitown because of the active Arab-Political machine there. The Arab-Middle Eastern connection.

  • Tom

    Larry,

    Jeremiah Wright! He is the reason. Obama listened to tapes of his speeches when he was in Harvard. The rest is all story. The real reason is Jeremiah Wright. He was attracted to his black liberation theology,

    • Jill H

      But Tom, at the Compassion Forum on Sunday night, Obama never said Rev Wright was even why he chose that church, let alone, why he moved to Chicago. I posted this question earlier. Why, if he was immersed in his sermons at Columbia, did he not seek this church out after moving to Chicago? Attending church was just something he ho-hummingly agreed that he might consider doing when someone posed the question to him in Chicago?

    • alibe

      Obama knew Wright before he went to Harvard. I still believe it was Wright who got Obama to enroll in Harvard. Why else does Obama view Wright as his mentor? Why is ther no information about his college years? Has he ever dated anyone besides Michele? Who baptized Obama?

      • Lyn

        I can’t remember where I found it but from what I read, Obama was engaged to a white woman before he met Michelle, when he started getting to involved with black power type people, they broke it off, I’m not sure who left who and I’ve been looking to see where I read that but haven’t found it. did anyone else hear this?

  • Kefa

    aaah and to learn how to be black…..very good.

  • zozosmom

    Don Corleone: I never wanted this for you. I work my whole life – I don’t apologize – to take care of my family, and I refused to be a fool, dancing on the string held by all those bigshots. I don’t apologize – that’s my life – but I thought that, that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the string. Senator Corleone; Governor Corleone. Well, it wasn’t enough time, Michael. It wasn’t enough time.

    Michael: We’ll get there, pop. We’ll get there.

  • OldCoastie

    did BO have a love interest he may have followed to Chicago? I’m trying to get the timing straight – did he go to Chicago after Columbia? or after law school? (or just return to Chicago after Harvard?)

    it is very strange to go someplace you have absolutely no connection to, but then both his parents seemed to go frequently to new destinations except that they were both purposeful in their moves.

  • Jeff

    “did BO have a love interest he may have followed to Chicago? I’m trying to get the timing straight – did he go to Chicago after Columbia? or after law school? (or just return to Chicago after Harvard?)”

    He went to Chicago after Columbia–for a job as a community organizer. This is a not a “mystery”–it’s well-documented. He returned to Chicago again after going to Harvard Law School.

    “it is very strange to go someplace you have absolutely no connection to, but then both his parents seemed to go frequently to new destinations except that they were both purposeful in their moves.”

    Except when you actually do have a connection, and you were purposeful in your move. Like Barack.

  • jim aaron

    I believe Obama moved to Chicago after getting out of school because he wanted to learn how to be a black man in America, Chicago being the center of radical black politics in the country at the time. Obama was black but never lived in a black community. He was working there for a about 5 years before going to Law School, he then returned to Chicago to get involved in politics.

  • Anna Belle

    I’m reiterating, I’m sure, but it is in his first book. He went there after Columbia, trained as a community organizer, then returned after Harvard. I’m no Obama fan, but this isn’t much of a mystery.

    • Jeff

      Agreed.

      • simon, too

        Ok, if you want to believe you’re effective, OK.

      • mimi

        Disagreed!

        He’s missing details, definition, things that make up a person’s character. Compare his bio pound for pound with Hillary’s. We know exactly where she was and with whom during each segment of her life. And her past is traceable. Her life has trails.

        I’m familiar with Columbia U. It has a very vibrant student life. Multi-ethnic and liberal. Lots going on. International students, culture. And, you’re in NY for God’s sake! Harlem, mid-town, Greenwhich Village, Soho, Chelsea. Yet, Obama has no anecdotes from those years that bring him into focus.

        Sorry, but it’s a mystery.

  • dugan

    Hey, I’ve been with you on Obama for the most part, but what have you got against Chicago? A lot of people think it’s the greatest city in the United States, and it has a very thriving black political scene, much more so than some of the other cities you’ve mentioned. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree on this one.

    • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

      I think he is more referring to Chicago Politics rather than the City of Chicago. Most people aren’t involved with politics, it’s an animal all by itself.

  • http://vbonnaire.wordpress.com vbonnaire

    Alinsky? Wright? or was it a “bundler-quest?”

    Larry & Susan — I have links to press on bundling and Flineo’s newest!

  • lillianjane

    I thought this article, written last year, explained it well.
    http://www.pickensdemocrats.org/info/TheAgitator_070319.htm

  • TeakwoodKite

    The same question has crossed my mind.

    He had already met Rezko and Rev Wright prior to going to Harvard.

    What was the nature of his “scholarship”?
    Rezko finds Obama in the web of his scams and turns him into an apprentice. Rezko has friends in a law firm and say to BO I have a job waiting for you when you get a law degree. Community organizing was a cover.

    There is only one or two articals I have found with first hand accounts of BO’s time in NYC. Crack was rampent in Harlem at that time. Why so Scrubbed?

    • Jeff

      “There is only one or two articals I have found with first hand accounts of BO’s time in NYC. Crack was rampent in Harlem at that time. Why so Scrubbed?”
      Nope, no racist innuendo at No Quarter.

      • TeakwoodKite

        Nope, no racist innuendo at No Quarter.

        I am sorry you took it that way. I meant no innuendo or disrespect. It is a fact, that it effected every race color creed …F**k you name it. It was BAD.

        BO has admitted to using cocaine. The most common method of using, was smoking it back then. Or do you think I have not seen it first had?…

        It even caught on in the burbs of Long Island too.
        And again I ask why so scrubbed?

      • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

        When I stop seeing sexist remarks to Hillary and her supporters, I will care if somebody sounds racist, accidentally or otherwise. Till then, pffffffffft.

  • raymo

    Hell, I always thought Occidental College in L.A. was a weird choice for him. It’s a tiny private college in a downscale (primarily Hispanic) residential section of Los Angeles known as “Eagle Rock” between downtown L.A. and Pasadena, about ten miles from where I live.

    It’s a good school, I guess (for English majors or liberal arts is my guess), but it quite small and hidden and quiet. Definitely off the beaten path in Southern California. It just doesn’t get much notice, especially when you compare it to USC and UCLA and the numerous Cal State campuses that most locals attend.

    I had forgotten all about it until he started talking about it. And I was surprised that it was his choice. It seems more like a place to hide than a school where one go to begin a career that was aiming for the political spotlight.

    • Salo

      I lived in Eagle Rock. It’s not down scale. The college certainly isn’t for downscale students.

    • Jeff

      “Hell, I always thought Occidental College in L.A. was a weird choice for him.”

      Where else would Satan hide his evil spawn?

  • westxn

    Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was born in Palestine in 1941.
    The USSR invasion of Afghanistan began in 1979. In Peshawar, Pakistan Abdullah Azzam set up the office of services of the Holy Warriors (Mujahideen), from there Sheikh Abdullah Azzam would call for jihad against the invading USSR.
    By the mid 1980s Azzam’s call for jihad was answered throughout the Arab world and eventually from around the globe with thousands of young Muslim men volunteering. Azzam was a new type of Muslim leader.
    According to the Obama campaign in 1981, the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University, Obama visited his mother and sister in Indonesia. After visiting his mother and sister, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. Obama’s campaign says Obama stayed in Pakistan for three weeks.
    People are asking why Obama had never mentioned this trip to Pakistan before now. He did not Mention the Pakistan trip until after the flap of someone viewing his passport(s). McCain’s passport was also looked at as was Hillary Clinton’s. Could it be that Obama wanted to mention his visit to Pakistan before someone else would? As some have stated, Pakistan is an odd sort of place for an American college kid to visit while on Spring Break. Especially a Pakistan in turmoil.
    Sheikh Abdullah Azzam established the Al Kifah Center for jihad recruiting around the world. With officers in the United States. Al Kafih had centers throughout the United States., mosques and Islamic community centers in Chicago, brooklyn, Jersy City, etc etc.
    There is more but too long to place here. I just thought it interesting that others are wondering about Obama’s Pakistan trip and how it coincides with some other events of that time. There came to be violent in-fighting for control of Al Kifah.
    The man who was supposed to take over the Al Kahif offices in Brooklyn was Wadih El Hage. El Hage left the United States in 1992 or 93 for Sudan where in 1995 he set up the Help Africa Foundation in KENYA, which served as a cover for Bin Laden. Kenya where Obama’s family lives and his cousin, Raili Odinga, shares presidential powers with another Kenyan (after several hundred people have been murdered).

  • westxn

    When and why Obama went to Chicago? Maybe this link will help.
    http://tinyurl.com/preview.php?num=4k2hps

    That may tell when and why Obama moved to Chicago, but it seems there is another reason behind the reason.

  • http://hyper-educated-uppity-woman.blogspot.com Uppity

    I think it’s all much simpler. I think Rezko groomed him. He did the organizer schtick. Great way to meet plenty of folks, in and out of politics. Great way to meet radicals like Ayers too. (He met Ayers in 95, so I don’t know if the dates fit or not). Great way to meet preachers and church leaders, networks of ministers and their congregations, including Wright. He caught Rezko’s eye in any event. He left for law school, probably well encouraged to do so by all or any of them he may have met there. When he graduated from Harvard, Rezko was right there to offer him a job or arrange for his work, suggesting a very good previous relationship. I just think he was groomed by these people over time.

  • delmont

    Somewhat off-topic, but I’ve seen very, very little info about his time working/living in NYC. I take i a good bit of info, but nobody sees everything. Anyone seen much about this?

    • Lyn

      I don’t know how real this guy is but thei guy says he worked with Obama in NYC and surprise Obama’s descriptions of his job there were lies (also read the comments a few other coworkers of barry’s say the same things http://www.analyzethis.net/blog/2005/07/09/barack-obama-embellishes-his-resume/

      I too have been wonderring WHY he ended up going to CHi from NYC, I read somewhere he saw an add for a community organizer so moved to CHi which doesn’t just ring true to me either. I really belive ialot of this as people said above links back to his mentor in Hawii Frank(altho that was before he went to Law School) also I think it is odd noone seems to know mauch about his years at Columbia.

      • Northwest rain

        Interesting story —

        I was wondering why Buzzflash was pushing Obama’s books.

        How do the so called progressive blogs fit into the whole Obama myth?

        Why Obama given the prime speaking slot at the 2004 convention?

        Who all has been pulling strings for this guy?

        • fooj

          A very dear friend of mine was a 2004 delegate at the Dem Convention. She told me she happed on a party that was quite extravagant. She claimed it was about as “posh” as one could imagine. Guess whose party it was? Little Lord Obama’s. She was stunned. She wondered how a young state senator running for US Senate could afford something so extreme and lavish.

          Just thought I would throw this little tidbit out there…

          • Lyn

            That’s interesting, because I heard/read somewhere that when he went to one of the conventions (I thought it was 04) he was so poor he couldn’t afford to hire a car

        • Mel

          Put 2 & 2 together, Alexrod was on both Edwards and Obama’s 2004 campaigns, so who do you think managed to get Obama as the speaker at the DNP convention in 2004?

          • fooj

            Thanks. I thought it was the nominee who did the inviting.

      • mimi

        Lyn,

        Thanks for the link. Very informative!

      • JM

        I guess Barack Obama wasn’t expecting that any of his former co-workers would read his book.

        Just another reason to not trust him.

  • ybnormal

    “Why does Barack move to Chicago after law school?”

    Common news bios cite community organizing as what he went there to do; but of course one doesn’t have to move to Chicago to find a community that needs organizing, does one?

    Maybe (like the movie of the same name) he wanted to ‘break like the wind’.

  • Lyn

    Here is another interesting article ablout Obama and frank http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/ in Obama’s own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about “a poet named Frank,” who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of “hard-earned knowledge” and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had “some modest notoriety once,” was “a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago…” but was now “pushing eighty.” He writes about “Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self” giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.

    • FLVoter

      Frank Marshall Davis

  • Lyn

    The question also could be why did he decide to go to law school,Does anyone know who gave him scholarships/grants ect to go to Harvard?

  • RJL

    Chicago is the center of power for AA politics. He chose the Trinity Church for the same reason.

  • hillarysmygirl

    Larry, you were in the CIA, I think you know more than you’re letting on…Come on, spill the beans! I feel like you’re our professor, trying to lead us to the answer. After I graduated from college, I vowed I would never take another class…tell us the answer! Pleeeeaaase? (With doe-eyed Barack Obambi head tile, eyelashes fluttering, cellphone vibrating…)

    • hillarysmygirl

      TILT…not tile.

      Doh!

      Pleeaaase….

  • FLVoter

    Chicago is in the dictionary under “machine politics”. It’s a great place for anyone with connections to start a political career. It is one place where it doesn’t seem to matter where you’re from as long as you know the right alderman. Just try to get the simplest thing done there without political connections and you’ll know what I mean.

  • Mercedes

    Just in the spirit of brainstorming, I would like to suggest a possibility that may sound farfetched to some people. Perhaps Obama was recruited during his undergraduate days by a professor or other associate connected with some government program to become either an operative or informant related to race issues. Given the riots of the 60s, the presence of major black activists, and the large number of blacks in the city, Chicago would be the ideal place to locate someone like that. Of course, such a person would have to be under deep cover and the sponsoring politicians and bureaucrats would have to come up with a title and job description to make it all legal, if that is possible. No matter how offensive and outlandish this suggestion may strike some people, it is the only scenario that explains to me how senior Democratic members of the US Senate can support this unqualified person for President of the United States. Maybe they know his true background and loyalties (however true and loyal a person like that can be).

    If the supporting insiders know, they will never divulge that information to the voters. If Hillary knows, she probably cannot divulge to the voters because it would probably be classified. It certainly explains to me also these Senators irrational attitude toward Hillary. She is interfering with their devious little plans. I have never followed politics very closely until this election, so I don’t know all the fine little nuances of their rivalries, but I have always had the distinct impression that Hillary has some serious misgivings with some of the intelligence agencies and operations.

    So, in a nutshell, Obama as an intelligence operative or informant? Otherwise, I see Mr Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, Dodd, etc as total idiots.

    • mimi

      “Otherwise, I see Mr Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, Dodd, etc as total idiots.”

      You’re definitely right about the last part.

      But when Obama went to Chicago, that would have been at a time when the AA community was being decimated by the Reagan Years. Crack was a major epidemic in most AA communities. The riots and the militant activism popular in the 60s was history. If this had been the late 60s or early 70’s, I could buy into your theory. But not during this time period. No need for him to go undercover with regard to black people, anyway.

  • http://thehorizontalworld.blogspot.com/ Mary Jo Kopechne

    Wow. I just got in from work and read this whole string of comments. Impressive amount of information that seems to lead somewhere, and a great read too. someone should print this out and work follow up all the suggestions.

    I only know Chicago politics from its reputation but the thought that keeps going through my mind, and has through this whole time, is that Obama is too good to be true. I mean, his bio covers the gambit , a piece of him fits something for everyone.

    Now I know that’s how politicians talk, but his whole public bio is just too convenient in a way. His white mom, black dad, poor (right?), well-off, muslim, christian, private school, connected to radicals, invokes Reagan, harvard, white girl friend, black wife, community organizer, did drugs, clean as a whistle…If his story was a novel, it would take several characters to cover all this.

  • http://thehorizontalworld.blogspot.com/ Mary Jo Kopechne

    Larry et al,
    One more thing.
    I live in Denver and have heard from several reliable sources that the police are gearing up big time for riots during the DNC. I continue to think that it’s only worrisome to me because I live here but then some troll posted something here the other day about the plan to riot if Obama isn’t the nominee and I decided that maybe it wasn’t just self interest that had me concerned.

    Then yesterday I came across this on HuffPo (which I can barely read) about attorneys from the Midnight Special Law Collective training people who will be “demonstrating” during the DNC. According to HuffPo and their source, the training is happening this week here in Denver. It’s odd that none of my many Hillary supporting friends, some of whom will be delegates at the convention, have heard nothing about this.

    Maybe it’s nothing, but it seems fishy to me.

    Be sure and look at the groups supporting this.

    Here’s the link.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colorado-confidential/-attorneys-hold-know-your_b_96741.html

    • lifelong dem leaving party

      i’m just picturing today’s spoiled kids running and crying the first time one drop of blood is spilled. they have no clue that riots often lead to billy clubs. or arrests that they then have to explain away every time they apply for a job the rest of their lives.

      there’s a price to pay for everything, but today’s kids don’t know that. in the 60s, we knew it, but there were important issues that demanded our attention and merited the price. having your guy not get a nomination he doesn’t deserve hardly qualifies.

  • Lyn

    OT but another background question. What does anyone know about all of Obama’s siblings? I know his brother Roy is supposed to be a radical muslim in Kenya (i belive he was on dear cousins side) but does anyone know anything about any of the others beside the sister from his Mom? I wonder how they may play in the big world picture of all Obama’s friends

  • http://thehorizontalworld.blogspot.com/ Mary Jo Kopechne

    Okay, this is the last one (my poor fevered brain). I just read the comments under the article in the Colorado Confidential, the source for the HuffPo piece I mentioned above.

    Here’s a link to a booklet being created called “Recreate 68,” a reference to the Chicago 7 riots. Check this out!!!

    Recreate ’68
    Course it would help if Recreate ’68 w/its “Diversity of Tactics, ” dodge, didn’t publish such Weather Underground’esque “Days of Rage, ” tactical manuals as this, http://www.recreate68.org/
    hhttp://www.recreate68.org/shieldbook.pdf

  • http://1950democrat.livejournal.com 1950democrat

    I think he’s been used and passed from hand to hand. How connected those hands are with each other, dunno.

    But if anyone had been grooming him for years for national white politics, they ought to have distanced him from Wright long ago.

    • Lyn

      THAT is the one thing that makes NO sense to me, when he was even considerring running for POTUS why he didn’t find another church, unless he was afraid of the backlash. I’ve heard alot of the people were really angry that Oprah left. Since in the beginning there were questions about is he black enough, maybe he was afraid of the damage it would do to leave the church? altho I think he should of left years ago

  • amy

    Christian by convenience, maybe faking it.

    there are lots of churches in Chicago beside Rev. Wright’s church and which are African American. Wright was a muslim before, re some.

    Obama came here before law school, Saul Alinsky lore perhaps? And so he returned with the Law Degree. did he put legacy on the application to Harvard? get in on Daddy’s coattails?

    Obama is very ambitious. Axelrod worked for Harold but was quickly converted to Daley. and brought his more liberal friends with him. Marilyn Katz who was an SDS type and who is getting big contracts now.

    Daley dropped the charges on Bernardine Dohrn in the 80s.

    Buzzflash site is superlib who lives on the North Shore.

    Davis Miner Barnhill a very liberal but connected law firm. After Harold died, the money train arrived big time. Alison Davis partners with indicted and convicted developer Vince Lane who had been the head of Chicago Housing Authority.

    Obama has one year where he did anything in the State Senate, the year after the Dems took over that chamber. His mentor, Emil Jones, handed him everything. who rewarded Jones to do this?

    everyone knew Rezko was some kind of bad news waiting to happen in the early 90s.

    my world is not the Pakistan intrigue world, but I wonder about a 3 wk trip while the Afghan war is raging.

    my world is chicago. i can answer those questions.

  • amy

    very measured pace to his work
    1984 Chicago
    1988 law school
    1991 Chicago
    1995 run for office
    1999 try to win another move up, lose

    it’s as if 3 years is his desired pace, like
    that’s what he is required to do at every level.
    machine like, programmed.

    Harvard legacy of the communist from Kenya.

  • Ellen

    Obama graduated from Columbia and took a job at a consulting firm in NY – didn’t like it and realized he wanted to do community work – saw a job ad for a position in chicago as a community organizer – he got the job. After working for a few years, he realized a law degree would prove beneficial with the work he was doing. went to harvard, graduated with honors, PASSED the bar exam and went back to work in Chicago at a law firm, which concentrated on civil rights, discrimination suits and voting rights.
    No rezko connection until later….he didn’t go to chicago to be with rezko.

  • mimi

    This has been a great thread. We should all agree to do a week of sleuthing and then meet back here again next Tuesday with more info and to create some kind of chronology schematic, putting bits and pieces of info together.

  • tnjen

    Obama went to Chicago because it has a history of empowering black politicians. He was a great admirer of Harold Washington who had just become the city’s first black mayor and tried to get a job working with him. That’s how Obama first met David Axelrod who advised Washington and worked on Mayor Washington’s reelection bid. Obama went there because he knew it was a place from which he could launch a political career. Hillary was right about the kindergarten writings — Obama’s always held big political ambitions.

    From an article at Salon:

    “In New York, Obama read about Washington’s victory and wrote to City Hall, asking for a job. He never heard back, but he made it to Chicago just months after Washington took office. In his memoir “Dreams From My Father,” he wrote about walking into a barbershop and seeing the new mayor’s picture on the wall. (It’s probably still there. To this day, Washington’s image is as revered by South Side blacks as St. Anthony of Padua’s is by Italian Catholics.)”

    http://tinyurl.com/5a8hrt

    And here’s even more on Axelrod-Washington-Obama:
    http://tinyurl.com/55d2x7

    The other connection that’s worth looking into is the NOI (Nation of Islam) and black power movement. Chicago is and was a hotbed for black nationalism and religious syncretism. It wouldn’t surprise me if that weren’t part of the draw.

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  • westxn

    Just had to check back and read what is going on. LOL!. So far it seems Obama is either American Muslim or American Christian or somewhere in between. Is that a fence straddler or is this the preview of what is to come in American politics? Frankly I do not know what Obama is and hope we never have to find out[the hard way]. But it seems to me that there are more indicaters pointing to a Muslim Barack Obama than there are indicaters pointing to a Christian Barack Obama, even though he professes to be Christian. I have never heard such radical language coming out of the Christian churches that I have known all my life compared to what I have heard coming from Obama’s church.
    I hate to see this topic closed without some better understanding of what this man is all about that is running for the presidency of our Nation.

  • Lyn

    Larry are you going to try and put these various things in an order then we can go from there?

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