Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President
Page 31
210 “White folks’ greed”: Obama, Dreams, p. 293.
210 “Obama, without fail”: Mendell, p. 77.
210 “as much more of a political document”: Kakutani, “Obama’s Foursquare Politics.”
211 “He procrastinated”: Remnick, p. 444.
211 “committee markups, votes”: Obama, Audacity, p. 383.
211 “Like a traditional pol”: Remnick, p. 445.
212 “There was another inkblot”: Mendell, p. 308.
212 “His best writing time”: Jay Newton-Small, “How Obama Writes His Speeches,” Time, August 28, 2008.
213 “He was punching the clock”: Remnick, p. 444.
213 “read the manuscript”: Obama, Audacity, p. 430.
214 “In crafting a speech”: Mendell, p. 315.
214 “those who work”: Barack Obama, “Teaching Our Kids in a 21st Century Economy,” speech delivered at the Center for American Progress, October 25, 2005.
214 “And in fact”: Obama, Audacity, p. 191.
215 “Indeed, the single biggest ‘gap’”: Barack Obama, Call to Renewal conference, June 28, 2006.
215 “The single biggest gap”: Obama, Audacity, p. 238.
215 “a joint Obama/Favreau production”: Raban, January 24, 2009.
216 Although not one word: For these comparisons, I used as sources only two Ayers books: Fugitive Days and Teaching Toward Freedom. For “tolerant” I also searched To Teach and Kind and Just Parent.
218 “But travel a few blocks”: Obama, Audacity, p. 297.
218 “during my very first days”: Obama, Dreams, p. 252.
218 “Here a knot”: Ayers, A Kind and Just Parent, p. 82.
218 “Knots of men”: Ayers and Dohrn, Race Course, p. 10.
219 “A steady attack”: Obama, Dreams, p. 198.
219 “one is tempted”: Obama, Audacity, p. 247.
219 “Hey, I understand”: Sean Hannity, “Cable Exclusive With ‘Courage and Consequence’ Author Karl Rove,” FOXNews.com, March 10, 2010.
THE PLAN
PAGE
221 “unabashed liberal”: Mendell, p. 308.
221 “the most liberal”: “2007 Vote Ratings,” National Journal, March 7, 2008.
221 “a healer, not a divider”: Mendell, p. 313.
221 The maneuver left: Remnick, p. 207.
221 “white man in blackface”: Ibid., p. 328.
221 “politically calculating chameleon”: Ibid., p. 516.
221 “generally adoring press coverage”: Ibid., p. 449.
221 “The Color Purple”: Newsweek, December 27/January 3, 2005.
222 “The chapters boil down”: Michael Tomasky, “The Phenomenon,” New York Review of Books, November 30, 2006.
222 In his otherwise flattering: Klein, “The Fresh Face.”
222 “a shrewd candidate’s book”: Remnick, p. 456.
222 “Reagan spoke”: Obama, Audacity, p. 38.
222 His appeal: Ibid., p. 39.
223 The call reminded him: Ibid., p. 264.
224 “an internal conceit”: Mendell, p. 354.
224 “a tool of the white liberals”: Remnick, p. 328.
224 “He was so bored”: Ibid., p. 444.
224 “The job was too small”: Ibid.
224 “He’s just too talented”: Ibid., p. 274.
224 Jonathan Alter openly marvels: Alter, pp. 64–65.
224 College friend John Drew: Ronald Kessler, “Obama Espoused Radical Views in College,” Newsmax, February 8, 2010.
225 “I think he’s an arrogant”: Remnick, p. 404.
225 The Alice Palmer drama: Ibid., pp. 279–82.
226 “one of the great speeches”: “‘Hardball’ with Chris Matthews’ for March 18,” MSNBC.com, March 18, 2008.
226 “the most remarkable utterance”: Frank Rich, “The Republican Resurrection,” New York Times, March 23, 2008.
226 “If Senator Obama did not say”: “Obama strongly denounces former pastor,” MSNBC.com, April 29, 2008.
227 “divisive and destructive”: Ibid.
227 “the cheap rhetorical tricks”: Charles Krauthammer, “The ‘Race’ Speech Revisited,” Washington Post, May 2, 2008.
227 “And what I think”: “Obama strongly denounces former pastor,” MSNBC.com, April 29, 2008.
228 “We’ve seen this happen before”: “Alan Colmes Highlights Bill Ayers Exclusive,” FOXNews.com, February 24, 2009.
228 “The Pentagon was ground zero”: Ayers, Fugitive Days, p. 265.
229 An informed observer: Hanspeter Born, “Der Präsident und sein Bombenlerger,” weltwoche.ch, October 14, 2009.
230 To prove the encounter: Anne Leary, “Bill Ayers No Dream,” Backyard-Conservative, October 6, 2009.
231 “Here’s what I’m going to say”: Jonah Goldberg, “Ayers’s ‘Confession,’” National Review Online, October 7, 2009.
231 “Ayers is messing with conservatives”: David Weigel, “Yes, Bill Ayers Is Messing With People,” Washington Independent, October 7, 2009.
NOBEL LAUREATE
PAGE
232 “Clearly, the award”: “Bill Ayers speaks to Naresh Vissa about Obama’s Nobel prize and Afghanistan,” Student Voice, December 3, 2009.
233 That honor falls to one Rigoberta Menchú: For a more in-depth look at Menchú’s fraud, see Cashill, Hoodwinked, pp. 141–49.
233 Menchú describes: Rigoberta Menchú, I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Verso, 1984).
233 “I just wanted to do something”: Ibid., p. 179.
234 In 1989, Stoll found himself: David Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1999), p. 69.
234 “We have an unfortunate tendency”: Ibid., p. 247.
234 “mythologies of purity”: Ibid.
234 “protected revolutionary sympathizers”: Ibid., p. 246.
235 “Rigoberta’s story of oppression”: Ibid., p. 245.
235 “They say it doesn’t matter”: Robin Wilson, “Anthropologist Challenges Veracity of Multicultural Icon,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 15, 1999.
235 “All autobiographies embellish”: “Quote of the Day,” New York Times, December 15, 1998.
235 Said Bill Maher: Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO, October 9, 2009.
235 “Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter”: Eric Erickson, “Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize: He’s Becoming Jimmy Carter Faster Than Jimmy Carter Did,” Redstate.com, October 9, 2009.
236 “His speech in Strasbourg went further”: Toby Harnden, “Barack Obama: ‘Arrogant US has been dismissive’ to allies,” Telegraph, April 3, 2009.
GOING ROGUE
PAGE
237 “her indispensable help”: Sarah Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), p. 410.
237 “I love meat”: Ibid., p. 18.
237 “Sarah Palin—now don’t laugh”: Chris Matthews, Hardball, MSNBC, May 12, 2009.
238 David Brooks would call Palin: This Week, ABC, November 15, 2009.
238 “know-nothing”: Dick Cavett, News Live, MSNBC, November 20, 2009.
238 “a dangerous person”: Martha Stewart, Showbiz Tonight, HLN, November 22, 2009.
239 “marginal report cards”: Obama, Dreams, p. 74.
239 “life truly began”: Palin, p. 51.
240 “Can you get the back end”: Ibid., p. 188.
GRAMPS
PAGE
244 “Turning down the Tribune’s request”: Mendell, pp. 20–21.
244 “He and others”: Toby Harnden, “Barack Obama’s true colours: The making of the man who would be US president,” Telegraph, August 21, 2008.
245 Occidental student writer: Kevin Batton, “Ode to Obama,” Occidental Weekly, March 2007.
246 “vivid if obscurely symbolic”: Rebecca Mead, “Obama, Poet,” New Yorker, July 2, 2007.
248 As the Seattle Times reported: Jonathan Martin, “Obama’s Mother Known Here as ‘Uncommon,’�
�� Seattle Times, April 8, 2008.
248 “rush home that same day”: Obama, Dreams, p. 16.
249 “loving if slightly jaded”: Mead, “Obama, Poet.”
249 Remnick makes the same point: Remnick, p. 106.
250 “You know”: Nancy Benac, “Obama’s grandfather Stanley Dunham,” Associated Press, May 30, 2009.
BARACK SR.
PAGE
251 “He was a son of the Luo tribe”: Jonathan Freedland, “The Obama story,” Guardian, November 6, 2008.
252 Yes, Barack Sr. had: Obama, Dreams, p. 126.
252 “I get it”: “Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama: Back to School Event,” Arlington, Virginia, September 8, 2009, whitehouse.gov.
252 “He had left Hawaii”: Obama, Dreams, p. 5.
253 “The story did not mention”: David Maraniss, “Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible,” Washington Post, August 22, 2008.
253 “folded away among my birth certificate”: Obama, Dreams, p. 26.
254 “wreaked havoc among co-eds”: Davis, Livin’ the Blues, p. 318.
254 An innocent post-election article: Will Hoover, “Obama’s Hawaii boyhood homes drawing gawkers,” Honolulu Advertiser, November 9, 2008.
254 “Stanley Ann Dunham Obama”: Jerome Corsi, “Obama ‘mama’: 15 days from birth to Seattle class,” WorldNetDaily, August 4, 2009.
255 “extension courses”: Remnick, p. 56.
255 “it was sad to me”: Ibid.
256 posted on the Internet: Jerome Corsi, “Official Obama nativity story continues to unravel,” WorldNetDaily, September 1, 2009.
256 “She left [Hawaii] just as soon”: Michael Patrick Leahy, “What Does Obama Believe,” unpublished manuscript, p. 48.
256 “Ann was only a year”: Ibid., p. 49.
257 “Then you were born”: Obama, Dreams, p. 126.
257 “Barack Sr.’s father”: Remnick, p. 56.
259 “an intellectual in every sense”: “Father’s Abandonment Molded Obama,” Washington Post, December 14, 2007.
259 “Little Barry”: Mary Ann Akers, “Aloha, Little Barry Obama for President,” Washington Post, October 18, 2007.
260 According to divorce papers: available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/18130289/Obama-1964-Divorce-Papers-13-Pages-Missing-Pg-11.
260 “In fact, how and when”: Obama, Dreams, p. 22.
260 “Mother’s Peace Rally”: “Barack Obama Sr.” (with photo), Keywiki.org.
261 “It’s the exotic name”: Leahy, private correspondence.
261 “Madelyn did appear”: Mendell, p. 23.
261 “the children who claim”: Obama, Dreams, p. 439.
262 “Unlike my mum”: Ibid., p. 345.
UNKNOWN BLACK MALE
PAGE
264 “the crew-cut white boys”: Janny Scott, “Obama’s Mother—An Unconventional Life,” New York Times, March 14, 2008.
265 A group photo: Jerome Corsi, “Photo challenges Obama nativity story,” WorldNetDaily, January 5, 2010.
267 “I recall her being melancholy”: Leahy, “The Myth of Barack Obama’s Early Life,” Scribd.com, October 31, 2008.
267 “So if you thought the paranoid theories”: Alex Koppelman, “October Surprise: Who’s Obama’s Real Father,” Salon, October 31, 2008.
268 “Jimi Hendrix performed at Monterey”: Obama, Dreams, p. 11.
268 “They talk about me like a dog”: Charles Johnson, “President Obama quotes Jimi Hendrix,” LittleGreenFootballs, September 6, 2010.
FRANK
PAGE
270 “There’s a humanity in the poem”: Ian McMillan, “The Lyrical Democrat,” Guardian, March 29, 2007.
270 “aimed directly at the Soviets”: Davis, p. 297.
270 “suggested we investigate”: Ibid., p. 311.
270 “enthusiastically supported”: Ibid.
271 When Robeson first visited: Tim Tzouliadis, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia (New York: Penguin, 2008), pp. 267–69.
272 “launched his invasion”: Davis, p. 311.
272 “The 178-day strike gnawed”: Richard Borreca, “Political, Economic Clout Carried ILWU to Power,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October 18, 1999.
272 “I do not recommend”: Davis, p. 321.
273 “on Communist Party matters”: Davis’s FBI files are posted at usasurvival.org.
273 Investigator Cliff Kincaid: Jerome Corsi, “FBI destroyed file on Obama’s grandfather,” WorldNetDaily, April 12, 2010.
273 There is a variety of evidence: Interview available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C422SbiYHoU.
273 “a book of poetry in his lap”: Obama, Dreams, p. 89.
273 “I was intrigued by old Frank”: Ibid., p. 77.
274 “a poet named Frank”: Ibid., p. 78.
274 Toby Harnden of the Telegraph: Toby Harnden, “Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist, was early influence on Barack Obama,” Telegraph, August 22, 2008.
274 “point of connection”: Ibid.
274 “He stoked the political embers”: Washington Post, May 25, 2004.
275 Figuring their authenticity: “Photographs show Barack Obama’s mother posing in the nude?,” Snopes.com.
275 “no discernible pattern of bias”: truthorfiction.com.
276 “I was hooked”: Davis, Livin’ the Blues, p. 230.
277 “I could not then truthfully deny”: Ibid., p. 346.
277 In Sex Rebel, the Davis persona: Frank Marshall Davis alias “Bob Greene,” Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gash Gourmet) (San Diego: Greenleaf Classics, 1968), p. 14.
277 his seduction of a thirteen-year-old girl: Ibid., p. 71.
277 In a more telling encounter: Ibid., p. 116.
278 In both the memoir: Davis, Sex Rebel, p. 119; Livin’ the Blues, p. 333.
278 In this particular vignette: Obama, Dreams, p. 123.
279 “He’s obviously read the Beat poets”: McMillan, “The Lyrical Democrat.”
280 “by far the more powerful and complex”: Warwick Collins, “Barack Obama’s early poems,” publicpoems.com, February 8, 2008.
280 In the way of support: Frank Marshall Davis, “To A Young Man,” 1975, from Black Moods—Uncollected and Unpublished Poems (Champagne: University of Illinois Press, 2007), p. 186.
283 “outright sexual abuse”: “Obama and the disturbing influence of Frank Marshall Davis,” NeoNeocon.com, April 3, 2009.
283 “under certain circumstances”: Davis, Sex Rebel, p. 13.
283 “When Bob Greene”: Ibid., p. 8.
284 “I am unalterably opposed”: Davis, Livin’ the Blues, p. 206.
284 If what Sinclair says: Larry Sinclair, Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder? (Chicago: Sinclair Publishing, 2009).
285 “one of the more thoughtful”: Remnick, p. 94.
AX
PAGE
286 Known for his aggressive: Mendell, p. 171.
286 “worked aggressively behind the scenes”: Mendell, “Obama Lets Opponent Do Talking,” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2004.
287 “Axelrod has worked through”: Ben Wallace-Wells, “Obama’s Narrator,” New York Times Magazine, April 1, 2007.
288 “The trip served to remind”: Robert Barnes, “Obama Visits Grandma Who Was His ‘Rock,’” Washington Post, October 25, 2008.
288 new depths of self-deception: Maureen Dowd, “A Storyteller Loses the Story Line,” New York Times, June 1, 2010.
HUBRIS
PAGE
290 In 1872, amateur archeologist: Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Knopf, 2005), pp. 168–71.