There is now a newly published report out, that questions some established narratives in the early life of President Obama, suggesting the president’s upbringing was one of privilege and not hardship.
The Washington Examiner published a 10-part report
detailing Obama’s path to the White House. Some of the information appears to conflict with the narratives the Obamas and the Democratic Party have pushed, most recently at the party’s convention in Charlotte.
At the convention, Michelle Obama said they “were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or material possessions.”
Examiner Executive Editor Mark Tapscott questioned that.
“I’m sure he had a difficult childhood given the circumstances with his parents, but from a financial standpoint and social standpoint and so forth , it was not an underprivileged childhood,” Tapscott said. Fox News
For one thing, the Indonesian neighborhood Menteng, where Obama’s mother and step-father raised the young Barry Soetoro was the most exclusive in Jakarta.
He was then sent to live with his grandparents in Hawaii, where his grandmother was a bank vice president, Obama attended the exclusive Punahoe school. He later went on to Columbia University and Harvard Law School. As a first job, the Obamanut was a community organizer, and passed on more better offers. Yet while working in the poor area, he lived in exclusive Hyde Park.
Of his 12 years as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, Time Magazine said in 2008: “Within a few years he had become a rock star professor with hordes of devoted students.” But student evaluations obtained by the Examiner tell a different story. In 2003, only a third of students recommended his courses.
“It went steadily down in the last five or six years that he was there. He was among the lowest-ranked professors,” Tapscott said. Fox News
All he did was show up at class and give his lectures, and he never even left any records of scholarly writings. In “Dreams From My Father,” he wrote: “In my legal practice, I work mostly with churches and community groups, men and women who quietly built grocery stores and health clinics in the inner city, and housing for the poor.” Fox News
But records really show with the Secretary of State of Illionois shows that Obama had some rather well heeled clients.
In one case, he represented a politically connected preacher and real estate developer, Bishop Arthur Brazier, who had failed to provide heating and running water to 15 apartments in the dead of winter. Obama’s client had all the tenants forcibly removed from the building, yet paid only a $50 fine under Obama’s legal counsel. Wonderful man huh?
The late radical journalist Robert Fitch, who specialized in urban politics, said: “What we see is that the Chicago core of the Obama Coalition is made of blacks who’ve moved up by moving poor blacks out.” Fox News
A neighborhood activist, D’Anna Carter spoke out against the president’s closest aid, Valerie Jarrett. Jarrett was CEO of Habitat Co., a low-income real estate firm that made millions of dollars in part by leveraging federal programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit with subprime lending to poor people.
Some argue that President Obama won office on his strength as a reformer – he did vow to “fundamentally transform America.” But the Examiner found as a state senator he rejected overtures to reform the Chicago machine.
“He made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in risk-taking or challenging the Chicago machine’s lock on a lot of mechanics of government in Cook County in Chicago,” said one frustrated former colleague, former state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger.
Obama to Latinos in 2010 during an interview, that that they were gonna punish our enemies and reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” So as a result, according to the Examiner, 31 Obama campaign bundlers received clean-energy loans and grants totaling more than $16 billion. The auto bailout favored the United Auto Workers — over secured creditors — and eight of the 10 states getting the most contracts from the stimulus program were heavily Democratic.
