Rightwing Conspiracy’s Secret Source
Who leaked? Obama. Times of London:
The trail that led to “Aunt Zeituni”, the relative of Barack Obama who was traced by The Times last week, started with Mr Obama’s memoir, one of the most widely read political autobiographies of all time.
The Democrat campaign has implied that the story might have come from Republican sources – “the American people are … pretty suspicious of things that are dumped in the marketplace 72 hours before a campaign,” said Mr Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod yesterday.
In fact, the story came from a book that has been read by millions, including just about everyone connected to the Obama campaign.
Dreams From My Father was first published in 1995, and the story of how Mr Obama returned to Kenya in 1988 to trace his roots has become the cornerstone of his political biography. Yet the US media appears to have overlooked the passage indicating that at least one relative of Mr Obama’s had moved to America and might still be there.
Two thirds of the way through the book Mr Obama’s half-sister talked about Africans who had emigrated to the West and were never heard of again, “like our Uncle Omar, in Boston . . . They’ve been lost, you see”.
A few pages later Mr Obama meets his step-grandmother, Sarah, for the first time in the village of Kogelo. On the walls of her hut are photographs of Omar, “the uncle who had left for America 25 years ago and never came back”. Touchingly, she asks the future presidential candidate if he has any news of Omar, her son and Mr Obama’s half-uncle.
“She asked if I had seen him, and I had to say no,” Mr Obama wrote. “She grunted something in Luo, then started to gather up our cups. ‘She says when you see him, you should tell him she wants nothing from him,’ Auma [Mr Obama’s half-sister] whispered. ‘Only that he should come visit his mother’.”
Damn. A lot of tragic abandonment issues in that family. Not to mention the tragic under-the-bus-throwing issues. Anyway, the story details a public records search, and Auntie Z’s thrice denial of who she is. That sounds kind of familiar, too. Anyway, it turns out the dirty trickster who raised all these awkward questions was Auntie Z’s beloved nephew.
Still an open question is who is behind the leak of Auntie Z’s immigration difficulties to AP, the suspected dirty trick which has been the burning issue for anyone who cares about the persecution of this impoverished document-challenged American. Newspapers are full of reports of the DHS inquiry into whether Auntie Z’s right to privacy was violated by revelations of her status as a fugitive alien living in public housing. I haven’t had that much involvement with immigration proceedings. Is it possible asylum hearings and deportation orders are sealed records? Hardly sounds like the way a free society operates. And the last thing we want anyone to know is that there are people illegally attached to the tit of state. Makes me wonder how many illegal aliens and fugitive aliens there are sharing in America’s wealth.
Malkin: “Throw Aunti from the bus,” details Auntie Z’s beloved nephew’s solidarity with the document-deprived. I know they’ve been spelling Auntie that way, without the “e,” by the way. I know we must be accepting of other people’s ways here in multi-cultural America. But Kenyan semi-literacy doesn’t seem like something that wortwhile to import or celebrate.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:00 am Comments (1) on Monday, November 3, 2008
One Response to “Rightwing Conspiracy’s Secret Source”
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November 3rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
“Obama’s memoir, one of the most widely read political autobiographies of all time.”
You gotta be kidding me. That guy’s life isn’t even interesting. Sounds about as exciting as daytime television.