Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Read Dreams from my Father by Obama


Finished Obama's first book, "Dreams from my Father" 1995, new version edition 2004 which includes his nomination speech for Sen. Kerry at the Democrat convention. After reading Ann Coulter's review of it I decided to read it for myself- she was right!
Overall view: He writes better than I thought he would. He reveals little about himself and less about his white mother and grandmother and a lot about his failed white Grandfather and his equally inept, irresponsible and absentee father. Regardless of his Kenyan Father and Grandfather's failures that part of the book is the best.
He was raised as a white kid in Hawaii for the most part by his white grandparents. His grandmother worked his grandfather mostly laid around the house. His mother divorced his father after he left them in Hawaii after he got his degree. Only later do we discover his father had a wife and family in Kenya. His mom married a man from Indonesia and Obama and mom lived there where he attended a Madras school. She divorced him and dumped Obama with her parents back in Hawaii.
His dad married and deserted two more women and their families- one white, another Kenyan and spent most of his life as a drunk.
The mystery of this book to me is how Obama got into the most prestigious prep school in Hawaii, how his grandparents and mother managed to pay for the tuition at an expensive and tony private school Occidental College in L.A. or how he could afford to attend Harvard Law School later. Never a mention about how this was managed financially. Why?

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