Why Obama's Columbia Years Went AWOL

What did Barack Obama do while at Columbia from 1981 to 1983 and in the year after his graduation?  That part of his life is scarcely mentioned in "Dreams From My Father"; the Wall Street Journal remarked in the mystery a month ago and the NY Times puzzled over it a year ago.

Let me just toss out the outlines of a theory that has just hit my inbox and left me agog.  First, the usual disclaimers - this is speculative, there are gaps and leaps of logic, and nothing can be proven. However, that said... well, see if you are agog as well.

1.  From Dreams From My Father and other sources we know that Obama was interested in South Africa divestment in the early 80's.  For example, he had a moment of awakening at Occidental College when he gave a brief but well-received speech to kick off an anti-apartheid demonstration.  Other sources indicate he maintained that interest while at Columbia.

2.  A major focal point of the anti-apartheid movement in the fall of 1981 was the Springboks rugby tour - they were an integrated South African rugby team on a "goodwill" tour of the US, creating controversy and drawing protests everywhere.  Some of the protests were violent, including one at John F. Kennedy Airport (from whence the team departed, I believe), and bombs were exploded.

3.  Did I say "bombs"?  Yes, and here is the jaw-dropping connection - the Weather Underground was involved in some fashion and the Brinks robbery which left two police officers and a security guard dead was apparently undertaken to finance activities such as the Springboks bombings.  A flavor from the Times:

The police said they had several links between the robbery suspects and other people associated with radical activities in the past. Federal officials said they were looking into possible links between the holdup gang and the Black Liberation Army, which, like the Weather Underground of years ago, has been linked more recently to bombings, attacks on police officers and other violence aimed at toppling ''the establishment.'' Getaway Car Recovered

A yellow Honda used as one of the getaway cars, for example, was recovered and found to have been registered to Eve S. Rosahn, who was a Barnard College student in the late 1960's and was arrested in radical demonstrations at Columbia University then and more recently at a New York City airport demonstration against the Springboks, the South African rugby team.

These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them, but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment.  As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia towards his Masters in Education and Kathy Boudin, one of the Brinks getaway drivers, was working at a progressive Upper West Side School.  Eventually Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn raised Kathy's child while she was in jail, so it seems a fair guess that they were close.

A small, small world in which Obama never met any of these people despite their shared passion for justice in South Africa.  Never heard them speak at a rally, never heard anyone describe the Weather Underground to him, and felt comfortable assuming that Bill Ayers had been rehabilitated by 1995.  In fact, a world so small that Obama won't talk about it now.

For clarity, let me emphasize that I am not alleging that Obama was making bombs with Kathy Boudin. I am wondering how he managed to be active on South African divestment without ever encountering these radicals, I am wondering why he won't talk about his Columbia years, and I am wondering why he and his campaign have consistently provided misinformation when asked about Bill Ayers.

Three more weeks to keep the lid on.

FROM THE TIMES LOOK AT COLUMBIA:

When the Times peered into Obama's Columbia past they found this:

In a long profile of Mr. Obama in a Columbia alumni magazine in 2005, in which his Columbia years occupied just two paragraphs, he called that time “an intense period of study.”

“I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk,” he was quoted as saying.

He said he was somewhat involved with the Black Student Organization and anti-apartheid activities, though, in recent interviews, several prominent student leaders said they did not remember his playing a role.

Odd.  Here was a guy who had spent his life hanging with radicals and seeking out causes.  Now, at what was practically Ground Zero for campus activists, he decides to hide in the library.

MORE:  From this book, Bill and Bernardine surfaced in NYC in December 1980.

And the Ace was quicker to the Columbia/Weather link but did not note the South African connection.

LATE ADDITION:  A heavily researched article just can't prove the link between Obama and the violent anti-apartheid protests,but it is surely suggestive.

Comments

[bad]

From Rocco's link:

Obama's campaign had three areas of focus.

The first is "human capital development". By this he meant public education, welfare reform, and a "workforce preparation strategy". Public education requires equality in funding. It's not that money is the only solution to public education's problems but it's a start toward a solution. The current proposals for welfare reform are intended to eliminate welfare but it's also true that the status quo is not tenable. A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the "social wage" approach used by many social democratic labor parties. By "workforce preparation strategy", Barack Obama simply meant a coordinated, purposeful program of job training instead of the ad hoc, fragmented approach used by the State of Illinois today.

The state government can also play a role in redistribution, the allocation of wages and jobs. As Barack Obama noted, when someone gets paid $10 million to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the voters in his district know this is an issue of power not economics. The government can use as tools labor law reform, public works and contracts.

Finally, Illinois needs an industrial strategy.

[TruthHurts]

Well, let's see....Obama and I happen to be the same age....So, let me think about what was on MY mind during those critical years...OK, between 1981-83, I would have been between 19 and 21...OK, I confess! I confess! I spent quite a bit of time trying to get into bars illegally...I attended quite a few wild college parties...I dabbled in (oh wait! Obama already "admitted" that for us :)....In other words, I was hardly interested in the "world struggle" since I was working on my own "Computer Science" struggle during what is normally the most "selfish" period of any human beings lifespan..But hey, he's certainly gone further than I have (there's still time for me to catch up!) sooooo...Yes, I'm sure he was meeting with various world underlords while contemplating thermo-nuclear devastation with a 45 year old Bill Ayers. By the way, I did not hang out with ANY 45 year olds..None of my peers would have either...Better yet, has ANY 19 year old college student made friends with ANY 45 year old?...That would be beyond weird...No, I would guess that the real explanation would be that he was shacked up with a woman (not named Michelle) and it would have been, uh, personally uncomfortable to include that in his "Dreams"....By the way, this whole topic would be reason number 3,323 why I would NEVER be crazy enough to run for President!

[Major Dump]

Weird thing is Ayers isn't even a nigger. I guess this was during Nobama's "white period." Before he joined that racist church and tried to turn all Chicago's schools into commie indoctrination camps.

[Topsecretk9]

Bad

I hope I am not stepping in and stating the obvious, but one of Obama's first acts as State Senator was to request "effects" of welfare reform study which monies went to the usual suspects.

Kaus if right. Be afraid of Obama welfare reform. Be very, very afraid.

[Topsecretk9]

By that I mean his buddies and wife's groups

welfare reform study which monies went to the usual suspects.

[bad]

Tops

He is very open about his plans to redistribute wealth. The plumber found that out personally on live TV.

[Topsecretk9]

Weird thing is Ayers isn't even a nigger.

but he saw to it a lot were killed.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

In 1981, Ayers would have been approx. 36. And if he was heading up any radical group at the time, it wouldn't be at all unusual for college age students to look up to the more experienced guy, especially one who knew how to manipulate people. And Barack Obama, by his own admission, was looking to be part of just such groups.

Besides, Obama's whole life is being influenced by one father figure after another, from his his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis through to Jeremiah Wright and who knows how many in between. The only thing they all seem to have in common is socialism and hating America.

[Topsecretk9]

There is one account that Ayer's forced his date to be raped by his black friend and if she didn't succumb to the rape she was racist he said.

She is an Obama supporter.

Why would Ayers set up a black man in this situation? She likely could have went to the police and that black man would have went to jail.

Ayers liked the idea of manipulating blacks just like all the evil bad men in our history.

[Topsecretk9]

Black Panther Party -

The Black Panthers ultimately condemned black nationalism as "black racism". They became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity.[6] They instituted a variety of community programs to alleviate poverty and improve health among communities deemed most needful of aid. While the party retained its all-black membership, it recognized that different minority communities (those it deemed oppressed by the American government) needed to organize around their own set of issues and encouraged alliances with such organizations.

Bill Ayer's, Dohrn, Boudine et al wanted to manipulate the blacks in fighting a war. A war that had more blacks killed than white Weatherman

[sylvia]

One thing about the Weather Underground is it seems like a great place to get dates. Ayers first girlfrind got killed in bombmaking, and presto, he picks up another from the group. Match.com for lefty murderous radicals.

[misanthropicus]

The holographic mister Obama - with him, the sky is the limit. I don't find this theory that far-fetched, particularly his two years of scholastic austerity at Columbia (and the inexistent coverage thereof in his autobiographies) are quite suspicious.
And another intriguing element here in Obama's Columbia career - his graduation thesis there, which is unknown/inaccessible, yet was was described by him as dealing with Soviet/nuclear disarmament issues (makes sense, we're in the 80's), yet by NYT as dealing with North/South problems, issue which would nicely dovetail in his South Africa interest.
Two different topics - exactly like his birth hospitals in Honolulu.

[Andy the Red]

I graduated from Columbia in 1983 and like many do not remember Barack Obama. There were few African and African American students in those days, and I knew several of them. The BSA office/meeting room was in Hartley Hall next to the elevator. They were not the most political bunch then, and from memory the anti-apartheid movement was led by white students, and really picked up in 1984, after our graduation, having simmered for a few years. Still many of the black students chanted "Divest, divest" during the ceremony, in the stands off to the right of Low Library. But that was that--it was an apolitical, Reaganesque time, and Columbia was, well, Columbia. A cold institution with a well deserved reputation for alienation and despairing undergrads. BTW the library was a good place to pick up women back then, so I don't blame Obama for hanging out there. As for who was "who" on campus, try Heritage Foundation ranter Ben Wattenberg's son, Danny, the sidekick-writer for neo-con Eliot Abrams. He was a year or so ahead of us, but had to drop out and graduate late. He was also the campus poet maudit in every sense back then--yeah, figure what that means--and front man for a "cool" band, The Casuals along with other DC trustfunders slummin' it in NYC. He probably does not want to be associated with much from those days given his conservative connections of today. One of their songs was "Who stole the family jewels". Indeed!!

[Djools]

What about McCain's home grown terrorist association? Palling around with Gordon Liddy?

[Michael Redbourn]

Looking at the polls one can only assume that the vast majority of the public has not bothered to seek out any real information about Obama.

To say the very least, he's a left wing radical who will most likely reach out to people like Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

There is an article about Obama's missing footprints at ..

http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/2008/10/obama-and-missing-paper-trail.html

Obama will seek to turn the US into exactly the opposite of what the huge majority of all the people that vote for him want and cherish.

There reward for laziness!

Mike

[Pagar]

Good Morning to All!

At American Thinker, an excellent article on:

"Obama's Radical Revolution:Its Alinsky Root and Global Vision
By Kyle-Anne Shiver"

"Enter Barack Obama

Obama was raised on the mother's milk of socialism. Both his parents were fellow travelers, who met at the height of the Cold War in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii. Obama's grandfather was a close friend of Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis, sending young Barry (as he was then known) to him for mentoring, despite (or in ignorance of ) Davis being a pedophile. From the time he returned from 4 years in Indonesia and rejoined his grandparents in Hawaii at the age of 10, he was taken often to be with Frank Marshall Davis.

In Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, there is a strange revelation, perhaps intended as a signal of Davis' stamp on Obama's socialist creds. Obama makes this odd observation:

"The visits to his (Davis') house always left me feeling vaguely uncomfortable, though, as if I were witnessing some complicated, unspoken transaction between the two men, a transaction I couldn't fully understand."

It should convince anyone in America, Obama is not the person America needs as its' President.

LUN

[Jim Ryan]

TM,

You have an n-word troll to ban (above.)

[kim]

There is hot, new, but iffy stuff about Michelle calling an outfit called API, Africa Press International, and suggesting that Obama has Indonesian citizenship. More at Texas Darlin and Hillbuzz.
==========================================

[PeterUK]

"Ayers first girlfrind got killed in bombmaking, and presto, he picks up another from the group."

Yes ,it didn't take Ayers long to pick up the pieces.

[bad]

Bill Burton calls ACORN a distraction. Republicans supress votes.

[Jane Whitman]

Ewwwww

[Jane]

That "ewww" was for PUK.

Always sneaking in bad.....

[Cecil Turner]

They were not the most political bunch then, and from memory the anti-apartheid movement was led by white students, and really picked up in 1984 . . .

Sorry, but this "he wasn't even there" line of defense is silly. If you bother reading that article, he's the one who brings up his anti-apartheid activities at Columbia, and he's remembered giving "a strong speech" at an Occidental campus divestment rally before he transferred. Obviously he was a political, was involved in the movement, and had been long before 1984. In fact, this early involvement makes it more likely he met the weirdos organizing the nutty stuff, back before the cause became widespread.

Moreover, the idea that black students weren't involved, or that it all happened later, is a bit hard to swallow, since it was already a cause célèbre amongst the civil rights crowd in 1981:

Several civil rights leaders have opposed the match and warned that they would stage protests against it. One of these is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has said that protesters will engage in civil disobedience to try to disrupt the match.

[bad]

Bill Burton Makes me go Ewwwwww too. Peter makes me laugh, loudly and often, frequently disturbing the cats.

[Captain Hate]

Geez you sure got a bunch of witless trolls last night that are remarkably without curiosity about the prodigious blank spots in the life of their hero that remarkably weren't explained in his two carp-laden memoirs.

Speaking of witless, the WSJ's in-house skidmark, Thomas Frank, has his weekly delusional exercise in verbal diarrhea entitled "My Friend Bill Ayers" that contains this howler: "..the man has become such a good citizen he ought to be an honorary Eagle Scout". Frank, who must possess pictures of Rupert Murdoch sodomizing nuns and kittens, obviously is confusing the Eagle Scouts with some Soviet offshoot that has merit badges for bomb making, gaming the legal system and sexual deviancy. Maybe that's where he met Billy-bombthrower.

[bad]

In fact, this early involvement makes it more likely he met the weirdos organizing the nutty stuff, back before the cause became widespread.

Another failed leadership venture, eh?

[Rob Crawford]

"What about McCain's home grown terrorist association? Palling around with Gordon Liddy?"

G. Gordon Liddy now qualifies as a terrorist? When did that happen?

[bad]

I read that too Captain. Nearly hurled my Cheerios.

[bad]

This is the first I've heard of this rumor...

[bad]

Oops LUN for the rumor

[Sue]

On Fox & Friends this morning, Brian Wilson was in a restaurant interviewing patrons. One of the responses had me shaking my head. Brian asked her who she was voting for. She was unsure but was leaning Obama. When he asked her why she responded Obama's campaign was more upbeat. Yep. These are the people who are helping decide who leads us. American Idol voters.

[Captain Hate]

bad, that rumor has been up for a few days at AoSHq although he's taken great pains (despite the continued efforts of a witless troll) to hide her identity.

Back to Thomas Frank: I'm really disappointed in the level to which the token leftie WSJ columnist slot has sunk. Back when Alexander Cockburn occupied it, the stuff was delusional claptrap, but at least it was written with some flair and style that made you want to read it. Tommy-boy's witless carp is tedious sludge on the same level of that horrid excuse for poetry that Ozero wrote when his overblown intellect was even less formed than it's current pathetic state.

[Barbara]

I don't know how much credibility this story has, but....

From Gateway Pundit:
African Press: Michelle Obama Lashes Out at "White Racists"

Reportedly, Michelle Obama held a phone conversation with the African Press International and blasted the organization for spreading rumors to to "damage a black man’s name." She also condemned the "white racists" who were bringing up issues on Obama's citizenship. African Press International reported:

Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to call API because of what she termed, API’s help to spread rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man’s name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should identify themselves with.

When API told her that our online news media was only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.”

...When API asked Mrs Obama to comment on why Dr Corsi was arrested by the Kenyan government and whether she thought Kenya’s Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga was involved in Dr Corsi’s arrest, she got irritated and and simply told API not to dig that which will support evil people who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency.

When asked who she was referring to as the evil people, she stated that she was not going to elaborate much on that but that many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of envy.

posted by Gateway Pundit at 10/15/2008 05:12:00 AM

[PeterUK]

"Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband."

Not that there is anything racist in Mrs Obama's words.

[Captain Hate]

Michelle as the October surprise?

[suze]

Correction on the timing: Ayers got his Master in Elem Ed from Columbia U in 1984 (according to his own bio). His work at the Bank St college was prior to the Comubia experience. With BO arriving in NYC n Fall of 81, Bernie Dohrn implicated in providing fake IDs to the Brinks robbery terrorist, then the two gaining custody of the killer's kid, there is no way that Obama did NOT know who these people were in 1981, 1982. The Brinks job was supposed to "free blacks from white suppression", but the white terrorists ended up killing a black police officer. Go figure. The "I know nothing" act that Obama is pulling is simply NOT CREDIBLE!

[bad]

People like Michelle are always a surprise...

[Kristen]

Simplify this down.

Obama could not have worked on anti-apartheid activities at Columbia without knowing Barbara Ransby. She was a co-founder of the group that spearheaded the effort in 1981 at Columbia which was originally part of the Black Student Organization. She worked on that issue (divestment) until it culminated in April, 1985, with the 3-week Hamilton Hall Blockade (Columbia finally did divest short time later). And if you say you were deeply involved, which he has, they had to have worked together and been friends, unless, of course, they didn’t like one another. But either way she’d have information about Obama if she was asked about it by a reporter and she’s not been. There are others, too, like Dan Armstrong, who co-founded CFSA at Columbia in ’81 with her and continued to work on that issue for several years http://www.findatree.com/daniel.html ).

Now, if they said they didn’t know him, then Obama’s statements that he was deeply involved in that would be shown to be false. And if they did know him, they could share what they knew, if asked.

But here’s the problem for Obama…. When people start looking at someone like a Barbara Ransby, guess where that leads? Google her and and check out the groups she’s involved with these days (End the Occupation, Black Radicals for Obama, MDS, and so on-plus look at her fellow members, other Obama supporters). She’s worked since 1996 at UIC where Ayers works and wrote a letter supporting him to our big Chicago paper. Again…. if you’re a candidate trying to convince all Americans, not just the far left who don’t think those associations present any problem, that you’re not a far-left guy, the last thing you going to do is to let people investigate who your friends and associates were in your college years. Not when they’ve simply moved on to other far-left, actually socialistic or authoritarian causes. Not when you’ve already got other people like Rev Wright in your corner.

[bad]

Where is Jerome Corsi? Is he back from Kenya?

[Captain Hate]

bad, I saw a clip yesterday that said Corsi was back but was ill from the trip, particularly from being detained.

[Kristen]

BTW, Obama was in New York past his 81-83 Columbia years. I've seen varying reports, but even wikipedia say 4 years. I think until early to mid-1985. He was at the democratic primary debate with Jesse Jackson, Mondale, and Hart in spring at Columbia, 1984. The BSO actually protested then but I don't know is he was there with them or on his own (he told Jesse Jackson that he saw him there).

On April 4, 1985, the CFSA (Barbara Ransby is actually quoted in the NYTimes about this) staged a 3-week blockade of Hamilton Hall on campus. This was a huge event, alumni attending, too, (mentioned in the Times). Hundreds, and then even thousands at one point when Jesse Jackson showed up, camped out in front of the hall as a means to make the trustees finally follow through and divest from South Africa. This is what I mean about him saying he was deeply involved... if you were deeply involved, then you knew all this stuff and the people associated with the effort.

[bad]

Thanks Captain

[MayBee]

Was this linked here? An interesting article about writing the Michelle Obama book.

I e-mailed an administrator for a group Michelle is on the board of, who responded to say: "I am in London. … Do you want to wait until I get back to Chicago or talk on the phone from here?" I e-mailed back to say either was fine. I got back a message markedly different in tone from the first. "I think I will need to wait on this," it said. "When I get back, I am leaving town again and have much work to do in between." My further e-mails to her went unanswered.

It's about how the campaign kept people from talking to her. She seems to think the press may have a difficult time during the Obama campaign.
I'm sure Jay Rosen will praise Obama's tight messaging.

[PeterUK]

Barbara Ransby and Bill Ayers

[Jane]

Maybee,

Bad was looking for you - inquiring if you guys are all right.

You are, right?

[bad]

Maybee

How are things there? Are you and your family and home out of danger?

[MayBee]

Oh, thanks!
Yes, we're fine and lucky. The winds didn't kick up as much as expected on Monday night, so the fire didn't spread as much as they'd feared. My husband had to go to a charity event Monday night and could see the flames in the distance as he drove downtown.
One first is still burning about 6 miles away, but everyone in the school district has been allowed back home.
The firefighters around here are just amazing. Whenever I step outside and smell the smoke, I think about how hard they are working and how exhausted they must be.

[MayBee]

ps. you are so so sweet

[bad]

blush....Glad everyone is okay. Stay safe.

[clarice]

Sweet has nothing to do with it. We need to know how many plates to set for dinner MayBee. (*wink*) Glad all's well.

[bad]

shhh Clarice

[MayBee]

Ha!
Put the air mattress back in the attic. The MayBee family is not moving in with you quite yet.

[JBean]

Peter --

Good find -- Ransby appeared with Ayers and Obama on one those UC panels arranged by Michelle.

There's some interesting links on that thread, such as this review of Ransby's book by Bernardine Dohrn.

She Challenged the Rules

[patrick in IL]

"Let me just toss out the outlines of a theory that has just hit my inbox and left me agog. First, the usual disclaimers - this is speculative, there are gaps and leaps of logic, and nothing can be proven. However, that said... well, see if you are agog as well."

You folks are certifiable!

And Clinton murdered Vince Foster too! That one sure was "speculative" also.

As opposed to Bush who says that the USA doesn't do torture....except when it does!

http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=522556

This is just ridiculous.

[Dr Zen]

We are going to have a ton of fun for the next four years as you insane fucktards make up ever more outrageous lies about Obama but I think you may have blown your wad early with this one.

But guys, he's just a quite boring centrist pollie. And he doesn't even boff interns. (Although that hasn't stopped you nutters making up a girlfriend story.)

[clarice]

Dr. Zen, My fervent hope is that--should Obama win--you will spend the next four years on some disgusting forced work detail

[Pofarmer]

Yes, because centrists always go to Kenya and campaign with Marxists.

[Major Dump]

nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger FEAR

[Cecil Turner]

As opposed to Bush who says that the USA doesn't do torture....except when it does!

Yeah! Waterboarding is torture! Except when we do it to our own troops . . . then it's "training."

And I must say the invective is very convincing. Stay classy guys, it improves your arguments.

[MountainBabe]

It gets even more creepy. We know that Obama gave a speech to a group of Socialist (SDS) that included Weather Underground members at Occidental. We know that Obama was in New York from 1981 to 1983. We know that Ayers was also in New York during that time. What is interesting is that Kathy Boudin was in New York and actually out on $20k bond for a crime she was accused of in Chicago (all roads lead back to Chicago). One of the drivers of the get-a-way car captured the next day was named Nathanial Burns or aka -Soeku Odinga. I am not sure which name is given and which was chosen but he is doing 40 years in federal prison. He was a member of the black liberation movement. Obama, Ayers, Boudin, Odinga were all living within blocks of each other. Obama's family in Kenya has a surname of Odinga. His cousin is the 'butcher of kenya' Raila Odinga. Raila is an islamic extremist that committed genocide against Kenya earlier this year. I am curious who this seoku Odinga was in 1981 living so close to Obama and involved in the Brinks Robbery.
More interesting is that when Obama left New York, he went to Chicago to be a community organizer. One of his largest funding sources was Chicago United. Owned by Tom Ayers, Bill Ayers' father. Obama received funding from Tom from 1985 to 1988. Bill Ayers returned to Chicago in 1987 no longer underground. He also went into community organizing receiving funding from his father. When Obama left for Harvard. He interned in the summer of 1989 at Sidley Austin in Chicago. There he met Michelle Obama who was working with Bernadine Dohrn. Bill Ayer's wife.

Yet, Obama claims he didn't meet Ayers until 1995.

I find it hard to believe that those paths did not cross while in New York and early Chicago let alone when he interned with Ayer's wife.

[Rob W]

Okay, but there's a few coincdences which you haven't really looked at:

(1) Vince Foster. The second letter of his last name is "O" and Obama has an "O" in his name. Conicidence? I think not. I think Obama MUST turn over his birth certificate NOW to see if there are any other "O"'s in there. Until that happens we can't rule him out in Foster's murder. Its entirely possible.

(2) Jack Ruby-Lee Harvey Oswald: First, Obama was born in 1963. We cannot therefore rule out that an infant Obama was the famed "second gunman" on the Grassy Knoll in Dallas. Obama has to come clean about being alive and in the country at the same time as Jack Ruby. Its entirely possible that a young Obama was in the pay of Castro and the Mob.

(3) the Apollo landings. Apollo Creed was black and O.J. was in Capricorn One the movie about faking a Mars landing. Its entirely possible that a six-year old Obama was involved in a coverup to hide the fact that we never landed on the moon.

[glasater]

Rob W--let me be the first to consider you an unmitigated jerk.

[Mike B]

Rob W--let me be the first, and after reading the trash on this blog certainly not the last, to consider you a brilliant observer of the OBVIOUS. And also don't forget the black dude that was one of the astronauts in Planet of the Apes. Surely that should raise some eyebrows...I'll let you hacks fill in the blanks.

[wooga]

Cathyf's 1:15 post is probably right. He was a coked up loser at Columbia. His friends were probably the same. Divestment crap was just resume padding. Maybe he had a Nelson Mandela poster or something.

There is a secret history between Obama and Ayers, but Columbia isn't it.

[VRM]

What about how he got into Harvard??? Watch the YoTube piece Part I. Scary Stuff here!!!!

[Luciferic Consciousness]

Didn't Osama study explosives at Columbia in 81?
Isn't it true that Obama and Osama have never been seen together?
Could it be Obama and Osama are the same person, but shifted slightly in the 7th dimension!?!

[truthmustcomeout]

Obama got sponsored/groomed while at Columbia in 1981. Bill Ayers was there too, and so was the Weatherman. How odd?

In October 1981, just outside of New York, on Long Island, there was a Brinks robbery, conducted by the idiots of the Black Liberation Army (all twenty or so) and the Weather Underground. Two police officers and a Brinks guard were ambushed and murdered. One of the BLA idiots, Nathan Burns, took the name Sekou Odinga. The Muslim thug president of Kenya and African travel partner of Obama and his first cousin is Raila Odinga. Very odd? What are the chances that Nathan Burns would choose the very unusual surname of Obama’s relative? The name is even unusual in Kenya!

Obama said he lived off campus, spent his time jogging or in the library. He’s not released any of his no doubt stellar academic records, or much of anything from his time at Columbia.

I’m sure the New York Times, but blocks from Columbia, is right on this. Yeah, right!

[shocked]

This blog is the most ridiculously ignorant and Un- American bunch of crap with the saddest bunch of comments I have ever seen.

What is wrong with you people? Seems that your leaders' culture of fear has effectively rubbed off on you. Perfect for a bunch of fascist liars. The future looks so bright under a man like McCain...but mostly if you're one of his fat-cat friends.

When I transferred colleges, I also didn't make many new friends, went to meetings of causes I was interested in, and spent most of my time with schoolwork.
What's wrong with you people?

[clarice]

I'm surprised to hear you had trouble making friendsl chocked..you've such a winning way with words.

[Jim Ryan]

Do what, John?

[Sgt]

Posted by: MountainBabe | October 16, 2008 at 02:03 AM Please re-check your facts.

"Obama's family in Kenya has a surname of Odinga." No they don't. Both Obama Sr and Odinga are from the same tribe. They are related by marriage, not blood (at least not closely).

"His cousin is the 'butcher of kenya' Raila Odinga." Raila Odinga is not his cousin. He falsely claimed to be.

"Raila is an islamic extremist that committed genocide against Kenya earlier this year." Raila is not a Muslim. He made a secret agreement with Muslims. The "genocide" was two-sided, by two tribes tribes, pre-planned and started by Odinga.

Obama received funding from Tom [Ayers] from 1985 to 1988. Where is the proof of that?

[Jack]

You know, I bet the FBI has files on this. Ayers just coming back from being on the run, for sure they watched him back then. What would it take to get them to release them?

Don't you think if this was in any way close to true, the Bush Administration would have dug this up and released it? If the Clinton team couldn't find dirt on him, it doesn't exist.

[sophy]

We all love game, if you want to play it, please cheap hellgate gold and join us.

[Zion]

Good evening. Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.
I am from Japan and also now teach English, give true I wrote the following sentence: "Sell the best selling products on the internet with wholesale distributors and drop shippers."

Thank :p Zion.