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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today's papers With a Little Help from My Friends Posted Sunday, May 24, 2009, at 6:14 AM ET The New York Times leads with the U.S. depending on foreign intelligence services to do its dirty work in the war on terror. The current approach, which began under George Bush and continues under Barack Obama, relies on foreign governments "to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan." The Los Angeles Times leads with the story of four French and Belgian al-Qaida recruits who were picked up by police in Europe after they traveled to Pakistan. The seemingly failed recruits "just weren't tough enough," says one of their lawyers. But anti-terrorism officials wonder if they were meant to attack inside Europe. The Washington Post leads with Nancy Pelosi's trip to China, where she will focus on the country's carbon emissions. The Post notes that Pelosi, a staunch critic of Beijing's human rights record, declined to say whether that topic would come up in her talks. Hillary Clinton played down human rights when she visited China earlier in the year, and the paper sees a trend. In it's lead, the NYT notes America is continuing to provide intelligence and logistical support to foreign governments, but it's letting them pick up and detain terror suspects. This has put Barack Obama in a tough spot. He is likely to take heat from the left for continuing a Bush-era approach that has the U.S. relying on regimes that are known to torture prisoners. Yet Obama's own policies--such as closing the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and the CIA's black sites--have left him with few options. For example, one official says the administration is having an "extremely, extremely sensitive" debate over what to do with two al-Qaida suspects in Pakistani custody. "They're both bad dudes," says the official. "The issue is: where do they get parked so they stay parked?" That is something that the president did not address in his speech on Thursday. To continue reading, click here. Roger McShane writes for the Economist online.Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Audio Book Club Debates Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances Electrocutions, Explosions, and Other Hazards of University Science Labs Killer Robots Could Take Over the World. Here's How. | Advertisement  |
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