Washington Post, Chicago Tribune: Is Obama really African-American?

I have updated this article at:

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/08/update-on-barak-obamas-and-everybody.html

Please take time to read it AFTER you read this so you will understand the relationships discussed in the follow-up.

To get the full list of articles concerning Sen. Obama, go to my main web entry page:

Reading Between the Lines by Kenneth E. Lamb

http://kenenthelamb.blogspot.com/

THANKS!

Kenneth

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The following article with preface may be distributed. If used, please contact the author before editing and publication. The author has written and researched for the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Jewish Information Network, among others.

Synopsis: The author opens citing the work of Mr. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. Mr. Cohen’s columns about the “composites,” rearranged timelines, and complete fabrication of events in Sen. Obama’s autobiography are the basis for a further investigation into Mr. Obama’s claim to be “African-American.”

(NOTE: This IS NOT a rehash of the discredited discussion of either his education in Islamic schools, or any other ties to Islam. His religion, and education, outside of citing his Harvard attendance, play no role whatsoever in this article. THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS NEW, PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED documentation concerning his ethnic identity claims. It is based upon original research that the author openly invites for further inquiry and academic verification in his preface to Mr. Cohen.)

Documentation of his actual ethnic background demonstrates Mr. Obama is not an “African-American” as defined in United States law. This research was initiated by a request from a daily news publication of international reputation in New York City.

The story then moves to documenting his father’s genealogy. This study indicates Sen. Obama is actually Arab-American. The significance of this is that “the soul and substance of Mr. Obama’s claim to fame” rest entirely on his being “the first” African-American to achieve whatever it is that Mr. Obama is claiming at the time. If Mr. Obama is not legally an African-American, then his claims collapse. While there may still be historic firsts, for example, being the first Arab-American to be the president of the Harvard Law Review, those claims are not the star-appeal of his entire political life, and the basis of his current celebrity star status. If he is not African-American, then he is not what has propelled him up the political ladder; he is not, as described by one journalist riding Mr. Obama’s campaign plane, what is currently capturing America’s “cult” attention.

The author includes a section that notes the double-standard Oprah Winfrey applied in her handling of Mr. Obama’s autobiographical fabrications vis a vis her reaction to much less in a book by another author she promoted. It calls upon her to explain her double-standards, and asks, reasonably under the circumstances, if her double-standards are racist.

The article concludes by citing the importance of recognizing that Mr. Obama’s image of himself is built on lies. It challenges the reader to ask if his or her own racist presumptions of ethnic identity tied to physical appearance are at play.

The encapsulation of the final question put to the reader is to ask, “If we elect a person whose entire image is based on lies, and citing again the documentation of Mr. Cohen and the Washington Post to show he continues to lie without conscience as a matter of habit, should the burden fall upon him when we feel the anger of being lied to, or in fact, is it we who should be the object of our anger when it is we who first lied to ourselves when we decided to accept his lies, knowing all along that he was lying to us?”


Monday, Feb. 11, 2008

To: Richard Cohen, Columnist, the Washington Post

From: Kenneth E. Lamb
kenneth@kennthelamb.com


Dear Mr. Cohen:Earlier today, I sent you an email about Sen. Obama. In the course of reviewing it for final draft, I made some changes; for one thing, I upped the number of references to your columns. What follows below is the final draft – it varies significantly from the prior draft by placing more responsibility upon “us” of the American body politic for lying to ourselves, and using racist presumptions to allow Mr. Obama to lie to us as well.

With this amendment, I send to you what I hope will be the first read of the article, and hopefully it may provoke all of us to reexamine ourselves in light of the Obama mania sweeping America.

That said, the rest of the email and article follows with the introduction I sent below for the sake of continuity with my previous communication to you. While similar at first, it is now much more pointed in its condemnation of us for lying to ourselves, again, about whom we elect, and why.


Dear Mr. Cohen:

I’m using my real name for this, even though I’m not a celebrity so you won’t recognize it; I’m doing it because what will follow is a matter I’m serious about, and I believe you are serious about it too.

There is a professional reason that I am emailing this to you as well. I use your name in it and cite your columns in five different places in this article, and so I owe you the professional respect of making you aware of it.

I’ve written for the NY Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Jewish Information Network. I add this upfront for credibility. I know you are flooded with crackpots, so I admit that as someone whose name you don’t know, I’m trying to establish my credibility at the top of this email to you.

That said, I would be happy to discuss the contents of the article below with you. It was a News Corp. publication that I refer to it in stating the genesis of the research that follows, although I don’t name it for general circulation.

Again, everything in this article is documented, and I can get with your choice of researchers to have them document my documentation.

Let me close this preface with the close I use for my article below:

“Why am I writing this? Maybe I just want a clear conscience, clear that the research I did didn’t get buried because the people who received it are afraid to tell the truth in the face of Sen. Obama’s frenzied celebrity status. I’ve been in the business since 1972 - 35 years - writing and researching for people like the NY Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, The Jewish Information Network, so I know what it’s like on the newsroom floor right now. Nobody can dare speak against Sen. Obama without generating at least a flickering flame of doubt about his or her own sanity – not to mention the knee-jerk reaction that questioning him is indicative of some deep, dark, racist agenda spurring those questions on.

“And truth? I ask as Pilate asked, ‘What is truth?’ Who cares about truth? This is history; this is the first time ever in America – why let truth get in the way of chronicling history? (. . . I wrote facetiously.)

“Maybe I just want to know that if he gets the presidency, he will get it honestly – if this is general knowledge, and he overcomes it. Maybe I’m just tired of presidents who lie to us; and in this case, I already know Mr. Obama will lie to us, just as he lied in his autobiography, and on so many other occasions documented by Mr. Cohen, by the Washington Post’s fact checker, and so many others.

“And maybe I’m tired of us lying to ourselves. Mr. Obama is what we’ve lied ourselves into believing he is.

“Maybe by saying that I know he lied, and saying that we lied to ourselves, I will say after he is elected that nobody has any right to complain about him lying after he takes the oath of office, when everybody knew he lied about so many other things – when we lied to ourselves about so many other things, so very long before that.”
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Here goes:

By Kenneth E. Lamb

Sen. Obama's autobiography is filled with "composite" characters, rearranged timelines, and fantasy events that never occurred. I read that twice in the Washington Post - read Richard Cohen's columns of Jan. 1, 2008, and March 27, 2007, for yourself.

There are more articles than that, by more authors than just Mr. Cohen, but I wanted to get started by saying that what follows isn't just something I'm pulling out of thin air. What follows is serious, documented, and not at all what those who want to write history about the election of the first so-called "African-American" president, want in the least to admit is true - and why its truth matters more than their desire to ignore the truth for the sake of their desire to write history.

While his shrill wife objects, the truth is that Sen. Obama's life, as he wrote about himself in his autobiography, is, in fact, nothing but a fairy tale. Again, don't take my word for it - read Mr. Cohen's, and others, articles about it.

If what Mr. Cohen writes are truths, then what Mr. Obama wrote are lies. It's just as simple as that.

Yet there is not one word from the "Last Bastions of Accuracy" that comprise our first-tier information enterprises about the complete lack of integrity Sen. Obama shows with his fictional life history. He lies, but his lies are swept under the rug by a groupthink mentality that is so desperate to regain leadership positions - as opposed to actual leadership programs to earn those leadership positions - that it ignores the truth that Sen. Obama lies - about himself, about his life, about his actions - and even about his racial composition.

I researched what follows for a NY daily of international reputation. It wasn't what I thought I'd find. I documented it, presented it to the Washington Bureau Chief, but was hardly surprised that it never saw ink. As you'll see for yourself, this is the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

I must pause very briefly to note usage of the word Negro in what follows: In all academic studies of race, the proper scientific word for the ethnic composition I discuss is Negro. For any who scream racist at its mention, I say take it up with the scientific community. It's not my word, it's theirs. I am using it in its proper scientific context.

Why is the fact that Mr. Obama is only 6.25% African Negro not reported?

Because to acknowledge it is to report this devastating truth about him: Mr. Obama is not legally African-American. It is impossible for him to be, in truth, America's first African-American president.

Federal law requires that to claim a minority status, you must be at least 1/8 of the descriptor, but for the sake of this article, I've converted it to a decimal fraction for easier comprehension. You must be at least 12.5% of the racial component you claim for minority status. Mr. Obama, claiming to be African-American, is half the legal threshold.

Again, to let it sink in: Mr. Obama is not legally African-American. It is impossible for him to be, in truth, America's first African-American president.

Yet claiming to be African-American is the soul and substance of his claim to fame. It is what he has used throughout his adult life to distinguish himself from other competitors. It is the ethnic identity he proclaims, and it is the ethnic identity he craves. Without it, he is just another mixed race Caucasian Arab with an African influence playing on his skin’s pigmentation.

But no matter what he craves, no matter what he has used to propel himself through life, no matter the racist presumption of seeing his skin and without question calling him black, the hard, cold, genetically inarguable reality remains: he is not an African-American.

Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian, that from his mother. What those who want Mr. Obama to write history by becoming "America's first African-American president" ignore is that his father was ethnically Arabic, with only 1 relative ethnically African Negro - a maternal great-grandparent (Sen. Obama's great-great grandparent, thus the 6.25% ethnic contribution to the senator's ethnic composition.).

That means that Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side. He is 43.75% Arabic, and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side.

Put another way, his father could honestly claim African-American ethnic classification. He was the last generation able to do so.

Sen. Obama could honestly say, "My father was African-American." Racist presumptions led an Ivy League admissions committee, and lazy "newspapers of record" fact checkers, to presume that if his father is African-American, then Sen. Obama must be African-American also.

But it doesn't work that way. Racist presumptions coupled with sloppy vetting don't turn a lie into the truth.

Sen. Obama is one generation too far removed from the ethnic African Negro input to make the same claim as his father, Harvard's Admission's stamp of approval notwithstanding.

As you can see for yourself, Sen. Obama's African-American ethnic claim, when properly researched and documented, is a lie.

The question no one wants to answer - particularly Mr. Obama and his supporters, is, "Why do you think he has an Arabic name? Why does his father have an Arabic name? Why does every ancestor on his father's side have an Arabic name?"

The answer is obvious: They have Arabic names because his father's side of the family tree is Arabic.

Need proof? Research the Kenyan records for yourself. You will find that his father was officially classified as "Arab African" by the Kenyan government.

But in America's current political climate, that truth is heresy; that truth is "an inconvenient truth." It is the political equivalent in our time to what Galileo's scientific pronouncements were in his time: it is true, but nobody wants to know the truth because the lie is so much more comforting.

That is why detractors of this truth will do everything to denounce it, except submit to the discipline of actually researching it.

There's a reason for that: it proves he is not sufficiently Negro to earn classification under American law as an African-American.

For Sen. Obama, telling the truth means he will give up all the accolades about being the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, an accolade that relies on a sleight-of-hand in job titling that changed the name of the top job from Editor to President.

If stated in its absolute truth, Mr. Obama was the second person of color to run the Review. He was beat to the Review's top spot by a true African-American about 60 years before Mr. Obama showed up for classes.

Again, a very inconvenient truth.

That is devastating in itself. The further effect is that Mr. Obama would have to convince Americans still reeling from 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, that now is the time for America's first Arab-American president.

We all know what chance that has of succeeding.

Of course, that would only happen if Mr. Obama told the truth about his racial composition. To tell the truth means Mr. Obama will have to admit that which he has never been forced to admit before, even in the face of the massive lies of his autobiography: Mr. Obama's entire projection of who he is, and what he is, is a lie.

Mr. Obama would have to say to the world: "I am not what I've told you I am. I lied to you in my autobiography when I told you I am black. I lied to the Admission Committee at Harvard so I could get in. I lied to my constituents in Chicago so I could get elected to the State Senate. I lied to my constituents in Illinois so I could get elected to the US Senate. I lied to my supporters across America so I could be President.

"I have lied all during my life to play the race card, and use it, cynically, to advance myself by playing upon the racist presumption of Americans to accept, without question, that anyone of color is African-American. I lied to you, and you blindly accepted it, because of your own racist presumptions about color, and ethnic identity. I looked African-American, and your racist presumptions told you to believe it."

Even as you read this, the overwhelming majority of you will continue to believe it. Even as you know the truth, you will block the truth out of your mind, because you are bred to accept the racist presumption of color, and ethnic identity.

And so many of you reading this will create incredible mental gymnastics, telling yourself why the truth doesn't matter. You will lie to yourself because you want to believe the lie, and then curse the American body politic for being built on lies.

You will do this all while failing to tell yourself the truth that it is your lies, as much as any other lies, that are killing the body. You will commit the very action that you curse as the cause of America's demise, because you are jaded beyond recognizing in yourself the very same disease you so freely condemn in others.

Here is the truth about Mr. Obama's name, and his father's ancestors:

True Negro tribal members of western Kenya where his father was born have Christian names, not Arabic. His father's decision to name him with an Arabic name is a matter of his father establishing his ethnic identity in Africa - it is done deliberately to separate him from the African tribes. He may live among them, but he is not one of them. His father's message is that he is Arabic, not Negro.

Many will find these truths unsettling. I'm often asked, "But I thought his father was Kenyan. How could Mr. Obama not be African-American, how could his ethnic composition be so Arabic?"

The definitive clue to that answer is to look at his name, his father's name, and the names of all his ancestors on his father's side. They are all Arabic.

Researching his roots reveal that on his father's side, he is descended from Arab slave traders. They operated under an extended grant from Queen Victoria, who gave them the right to continue the slave trade in exchange for helping the British defeat the Madhi Army in southern Sudan and the Upper Nile region. Funny how circular is history; now the British again face the Madhi Army, albeit this time Shiite, not Sunni, as in nineteenth century Sudan.

But telling America's black community that while their ancestors were breaking the shackles of slavery, Mr. Obama's ancestors were placing those shackles upon their wrists would hardly play as an Oprah Winfrey best-seller.

Being the son of a poor Kenyan goat-herder plays much better than being the son of a highly placed Arab-African who operated at the top of the Kenyan government following his education at Columbia. You see, even the way he portrays his father is a lie.

We need to linger for a moment on Ms. Winfrey, and her support for Mr. Obama. A very serious problem arises with Ms. Winfrey because of her double-standards: Does everyone remember how she went ballistic when a person whose book she endorsed turned out to be dishonest about what he said about his life in his book?

Of course you do. She pulled the plug on him and forced him into a highly publicized "Mea Culpa" of near groveling for her forgiveness. She publicly humiliated him, and would actually twist-up into contorted faces, visibly hot with anger.

Why then does Ms. Winfrey operate with a double standard for Mr. Obama? She knows his so-called autobiography is replete with "composites" - an Orwellian word for fictional characters that never existed but in Mr. Obama's imagination, even though he addresses them in his autobiography as if they are real people. They aren't; they are lies.

So are his timelines, chopped up and rearranged for Mr. Obama's aggrandizement. And there are the complete lies about events he said specifically impacted his life - events that never occurred despite his writing that they did. They too are lies.

As I said, don’t take my word for it; read Mr. Cohen’s columns in the Washington Post for the details.

Why then does she not hold him to the same standards she held another author?

She doesn't say, but the possibility that the reason is race-based is fair to ask. What Mr. Obama did is far beyond what the other author did. Why then, public humiliation for one, but campaign whistle-stops for the other?

Ms. Winfrey needs to tell us why. Her integrity is on the line.

Mr. Obama has struggled all his life trying to prove that he is black enough to be called black.

The truth is that if Mr. Obama is elected, his primary ethnic composition is Caucasian, but of course, that carries no cachet.

So if we look at his next predominant ethnic component, Mr. Obama would be America's first Arab-American president. The truth is that his name says it all.

What amazes me more than anything else about Mr. Obama's heritage is the unwillingness of anyone in the journalism profession to want to know the truth. While all this is easily documentable, it is so radioactive that no one wants to be on the receiving end of the racist charges that will bombard whoever broaches the truth.

It is another example of how America's political system is further degenerating into fairy tales and lies. Torpedo boat attacks in Viet Nam, WMD's in Iraq, Sen. Obama is African-American; we shamelessly lie to ourselves to rationalize whatever we want to believe.

But I wrote this tonight because I'm tired of reading about "integrity" written by those who have none themselves. They know Mr. Obama's autobiography is filled with lies from start to finish, they know he lies about what his operatives do (the Apple advertisement knock-off against Hills immediately comes to mind), and for those who circulated my research, they know he is not legally black.

But for those longing for Camelot, for those who feel a good story trumps the truth, for those who are so jaded about others that they now live as those they profess to hate, for those who are terrorized by the racist attacks these truths bring, the integrity of Sen. Obama doesn't matter.

Because their own integrity doesn't matter to them either.

Why am I writing this? Maybe I just want a clear conscience, clear that the research I did didn’t get buried because the people who received it are afraid to tell the truth in the face of Sen. Obama’s frenzied celebrity status. I’ve been in the business since 1972 - 35 years - writing and researching for people like the NY Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, The Jewish Information Network, so I know what it’s like on the newsroom floor right now. Nobody can dare speak against Sen. Obama without generating at least a flickering flame of doubt about his or her own sanity – not to mention the knee-jerk reaction that questioning him is indicative of some deep, dark, racist agenda spurring those questions on.

And truth? I ask as Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Who cares about truth? This is history; this is the first time ever in America – why let truth get in the way of chronicling history? (. . . I wrote facetiously.)

Maybe I just want to know that if he gets the presidency, he will get it honestly – if this is general knowledge, and he overcomes it. Maybe I’m just tired of presidents who lie to us; and in this case, I already know Mr. Obama will lie to us, just as he lied in his autobiography, and on so many other occasions documented by Mr. Cohen, by Michael Dobbs, the Washington Post’s factchecker, and so many others.

And maybe I’m tired of us lying to ourselves. Mr. Obama is what we’ve lied ourselves into believing he is.

Maybe by saying that I know he lied, and saying that we lied to ourselves, I will say after he is elected that nobody has any right to complain about him lying after he takes the oath of office, when everybody knew he lied about so many other things – when we lied to ourselves about so many other things, so very long before that.
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