The New Obama Book

The David Maraniss bio of Obama has hit the bookshelves. It ends with Obama heading off to Harvard Law School, so my secret hope was that it wold shed some light on Obama's first fling with education reform, as described in 'Dreams' just before he left Chicago:

"The months passed at a breathless pace, with constant reminders of all the things left undone.  We worked with a citywide coalition in support of school reform."

The timing is opaque but eventually Obama's little non-profit ended up in a city-wide alliance that was eventually led by Bill Ayers. That might explain how Obama came to chair the Chicago Annenberg Challenge organized by Bill Ayers years later.

Or not. The name "Ayers"does not appear in the Maraniss index, so my hopes seem to be quashed. Or at best, hanging by a thread.

Comments

[Clarice]

Obama and Ayers' role in public education may well explain why you shouldn't send your kids to govt schools. (See Althouse today for more on the subject generally) and note where Ayers is today--playing a significant role in determining school curricula.

[Jim Eagle]

It will choom to the top of the Slimes list of best sellers with a glowing but impotently silly reveiw by Janet Maslin of the subject and not the book, replacing "The Amatuer" so the West Side can put it on their "beach reads".

[Captain Hate]

Our classy Preznit http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/surrounded-by-20-world-leaders-obama-was-chewing-gum-the-whole-time/

[Ignatz]

Nicotine gum no doubt, CH.
Gotta give even a lightworker with a monkey, and a wookie, on his back a little slack.

[narciso]

Miko, already dubbed it a lovely Tristam Shandy lark, with a touch of Joyce, which means he didn't read it either.

[narciso]

From the last thread, a link that is more illuminating, on who really runs the show;

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/04/vladimir-putin-mikhail-khodorkovsky-russia

[Captain Hate]

By "a touch of Joyce" I hope he meant "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and not "Finnegan's Wake".

[narciso]

Yes, that was as much as I read, before gagging, Maraniss makes it hard, without the scolopamine, he credits Obama with self inventing himself, he starts the narrative
in Kansas, going back around 1857, and it gets thick from there on,

[NK]

Definitely nicotine gum; no Choom, no Kools, 'Bam's fingernails must be chewed down to the nubs. Like GHWB in '92, 'Bam will be looking at hi wristwatch during the debates.

[NK]

Narc-- many thanks for the VF link. I will read it tonight. BTW the photo of Vlad the Impaler in that article is frightening-- he's Napoleon without the sense of humor, and Hitler without the Panzers or Luftwaffe.

[matt]

but he looks so good wrestling tigers topless and hunting kulaks and free diving 30 meters to find ancient shipwrecks....

[Porchlight]

He could get a patch. He doesn't have to use the gum.

[narciso]

From the index, there is one reference to Baron and the political science department,
one to 'Breaking the War Mentality'

[Clarice]

MOTUS walks us thru Lies and Liars:http://www.michellesmirror.com/2012/06/making-world-more-dangerous-place-one.html

[Captain Hate]

He could get a patch. He doesn't have to use the gum.

I'm sure that somebody as psychotically self-centered as the JEF wouldn't want to have a weakness possibly on display.

[Ignatz]

Thanks for finding the VF link narc.
The draw station was uncommonly efficient in finding a good vein and wifey wasn't in there long enough for me to read the whole thing so I had to skip a good portion of the center of the story.

[Jane]

I've got MSNBC on to report on the mea culpa for CC. They are now going over F&F. Sam stein calls the investigation a "black helicopter" moment - then admits is wife works at DOJ on F&F.

Accd to MSNBC: F&F is neither a political blockbuster or a hollywood blockbuster and the WH can handle it just fine.

[sdferr]

"It ends with Obama heading off to Harvard Law School . . ."

My first thought is to wonder whether Maraniss will treat of the questions of the mechanisms of Obama's motions through higher education, wherefrom the funding, for instance, what was the recruiting or where were the recommendations thereto and from whom, and so on. All these I take as minor questions or merely heretofore unaddressed matters in themselves, but who knows (and how would they know?) whether they may prove somehow significant before they've been addressed?

[matt]

.50 Cal Barrett sniper rifles crossing the border, shooting down Mexican military helicopters. Gangland style mass murders. Casino firebombings. Women and children gunned down in the street.Border Patrol agents gunned down by assault weapons.

Moles inside ATF passing grand jury testimony and internal DOJ files to congressional staffers in anonymous parking lots.

And the Prsidente of Mexico is ecstatic with El Jefe's DREAM scam as he emasculates the Constitution even further and his AG takes the 5th.

35 years ago, and with much less blood and drama Redford and Hoffman won awards all over the world and the film made millions.Hmmmm... I wonder how long it will take Hollywood to put this package together?

Denzel Washington as Holder? Joe Mantegna as Issa? Andy Garcia as a Mexican Drug Lord? Will Smith as Obama?

nah.......

[narciso]

Maraniss points out some details, like for example, Obama took no courses with former
Kennedy NSC staffer Hilsman or Brezinski, just
that survey paper with Baron, which there isn't a single quote available. He flesh out
that Larry Caldwell, was one of his other professors, and he wrote a team paper for his class, representing the more left wing Team Y,
which held a more skeptical view of the Camp David Accords, understanding that the US is not the largest player in the conflict.

[narciso]

OTOH, he treads to gingerly on Frank Marshall Davis's leftwing background, insists on 'debunking the second myth' of SD SEsuki, the school that he attended. by pointing out their
Pancasila teaching method, which if true, suggests Obama was fibbing the whole aspect about the Moslem prayer, being the most wonderful sound.

[Steve Diamond]

Maraniss' account creates the impression that Obama had no ambition or real direction in life. This Chauncey Gardiner-like vacuum where a personality ought to be is hard to square with someone who had the ability to become president of the United States.

When one links that construction of this vacuum by Maraniss together with the all too convenient timing of the end of the volume (just prior to the unavoidable question of the role of Ayers in Obama's life) one is left with the impression that this was done purposefully.

[Janet]

Just to link these on this thread...
Cc's link - 9 Tall Tales From Barack Obama's Memoir
#5 the anthropologist from Chicago is interesting. Any name? other info?

and TK's link to the discovery of more porn pictures of Stanley Ann Dunham.

[Stephanie]

This Chauncey Gardiner-like vacuum where a personality ought to be is hard to square with someone who had the ability to become president of the United States.

Why? Didn't Axelpoot describe Obama as a mirror or something that reflected prog's desires? Seems to me Obama didn't fill that vacuum, they did. And the media was complicit in drawing it in disappearing ink.

I believe Palin called this fool an empty vessel. Right again? You betcha!

[Janet]

The recent kicker should have been the discovery that Obama listed himself as born in Kenya on his bio. It showed he was trying to sell himself as something he was not....just like Elizabeth Warren.
After the years of mocking Americans that asked questions, it is unbelievable that the Kenya bio story wasn't bigger.

[Sara]

BREAKING: Mubarek considered "legally" dead after a stroke.

[East Bay Jay]

Steve Diamond,

I haven't read the new book but I did read Dreams (or rather I listened to O reading it) and my takeaway from that book was pretty close to "Obama had no ambition or real direction in life". At every junction in his life somebody else opened a door and Obama walked thru. Just read the descriptions re. going from Occidental to Columbia and quitting the NY job for the Chicago community organizer position. This is from memory but did you read a rigorous analytical assessment of these major decisions? Heck no, in description it seemed like the decisions were impetuous at best, accidental at worse. We now know more about his stoner high school days (or at least I do) and it fits in so well with what comes after. He didn't just bake his brain, he baked his ambition. Later, probably at Harvard, he got it back.

I see this part of Obama's past as evidence of personal weakness. I walked some of this path myself so I don't sit in judgment, to the contrary I think it's great that Obama overcame this start to be a success. And Bush had his own problems in this regard. But where Bush clearly eschewed this past, Obama still coddles it, simply because he's never been called out. He's lazy not because he's black or because he's from Hawaii. He's lazy because he's deep down lazy, and has never had to outgrow it because someone always came along and kicked in the door that needed kicking (because O wasn't going to do it) to keep him on a steady upward path. He is Chauncey Gardner and in my view it comes out in Dreams.

[Steve Diamond]

East bay and Stephanie, I remain sceptical of the idea that Obama somehow led an aimless life until he was taken over by mystical external forces and made to do their bidding.

He has and has always had an agenda. As a friend said of his team in the White House: despite the apparent chaos don't be fooled they are acting with purpose.

I think Maraniss like Scott Shane before him knew when and how to avert his eyes. We can assume for example when, well after the election, Maraniss must confront the Ayers issue in Volume 2 he will deal with it in the same minimalist manner as he dealt with Frank M. Davis.

[Philips Carter]

Obama always writes the book in a way to keep the people active.I always buy that books and read it.Fernley drug lawyer

[maryrose]

East Bay Jay:
You have summed up Obama's life exactly.What a shame he was able to conceal all this from the American people. Popularity is not the way to elect a president.