Barack Obama Will Never Be President

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

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Obama: Let's Remake America
By Daniel Politi
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009, at 6:35 AM ET

Barack Hussein Obama took office as the 44th president of the United States yesterday and immediately vowed to "begin again the work of remaking America." It was a day of celebration in Washington and across the country as the son of a black immigrant and a white woman from Kansas moved into a White House that was partly built by slaves. USA Today says that around 1.8 million people packed Washington's National Mall to witness the nation's first nonwhite president take the oath of office. While everyone around him seemingly couldn't stop talking about the historical nature of the day, the New York Times points out that Obama made "only passing reference to his own barrier-breaking role in his 18-minute Inaugural Address," by pointing out that "a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."

For a man who catapulted into political royalty in large part thanks to his powerful speeches, Obama's inaugural address was "notable for its sober tone as much as its soaring rhetoric," observes the Washington Post. Indeed, throughout the address, Obama "leavened idealism with realism," as the Wall Street Journal puts it, and outlined the challenges that the country faces in what he called "this winter of our hardship." The Los Angeles Times notes that while there was lots of talk of the troubles ahead, "the heart of Obama's first address to the nation as its president was a rejection of the policies and values of his immediate predecessors."

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Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.

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Posted by Zephaniah Holwell at 4:10 AM  

In August 2004, with less than three months to go before election day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan. Obama's mother died of ovarian cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.

I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge. After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama said: No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from 5th grade until his graduation in 1979. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, with whom she had one daughter, Maya. Beginning in 2005, he co-sponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). " Film critic David Ehrenstein, writing in a March 2007 Los Angeles Times article, compares the cultural sources of candidate Obama's favorable polling among whites to those of "magical negro" roles played by black actors in Hollywood movies. He entered Harvard Law School in 1988. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. " Obama writes: "It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized.

In September 2006, he was the featured speaker at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, an event traditionally attended by presidential hopefuls in the lead-up to the Iowa caucus.

Obama has divested US$180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and he has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran.

He hired former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle's ex-chief of staff for the same position, and Karen Kornbluh, an economist who was deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, as his policy adviser.

" In December 2006, Obama joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren. " During his first two and a half years in the Senate, Obama received Honorary Doctorates of Law from Knox College, University of Massachusetts Boston, Northwestern University, Xavier University of Louisiana, and Southern New Hampshire University.

Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 from the state's 13th District in the south-side Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park.



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