Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Barack Obama, the Illinois freshman senator and hot young Democratic Party star. But after reading his autobiography, I have to say that Barack engages in some serious exaggeration when he describes a job that he held in the mid-1980s. I know because I sat down the hall from him, in the same department, and worked closely with his boss. I can’t say I was particularly close to Barack – he was reserved and distant towards all of his co-workers – but I was probably as close to him as anyone. I certainly know what he did there, and it bears only a loose resemblance to what he wrote in his book.
Here’s Barack’s account:
Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool.
First, it wasn’t a consulting house; it was a small company that published newsletters on international business. Like most newsletter publishers, it was a bit of a sweatshop. I’m sure we all wished that we were high-priced consultants to multinational corporations. But we also enjoyed coming in at ten, wearing jeans to work, flirting with our co-workers, partying when we stayed late, and bonding over the low salaries and heavy workload.
Barack worked on one of the company’s reference publications. Each month customers got a new set of pages on business conditions in a particular country, punched to fit into a three-ring binder. Barack’s job was to get copy from the country correspondents and edit it so that it fit into a standard outline. There was probably some research involved as well, since correspondents usually don’t send exactly what you ask for, and you can’t always decipher their copy. But essentially the job was copyediting.
If the GOP is going to “Swift Boat” Obama, it’s going to be about this sort of thing. Kerry was condemned for his perceived exaggeration. The Dems do not fully understand how the process worked to untrack Kerry. People do not trust people who make stuff up as they go along.
John, you’re the master!
I think Bobby Bowden said “It’s not my job to stop my offense.”
Just like Billary already learned, holding the ball (or spiking it on the 1) won’t stop McCain/Palin. Gore and Kerry never did figure that out either.
#33 “I don’t get it. Somebody please explain…”
Because he had no others jobs listed…
Get it now?
JCD
The committee thing has already bean addressed by his campaign. It was his bill (Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act) that the committee passed and he misspoke when he said his committee instead of his bill. It is an honest and simple mistake.
Here is all you need to know about the two presidential candidates:
One candidate fired missiles at the enemy
The other candidate fired staples into telephone poles.
“People do not trust people who make stuff up as they go along. ”
That’s why McCain is getting my vote! He makes stuff up in advance!
Seriously, politicians are BULLSHIT ARTISTS. Choose your poison.
But if you vote McCain, you’re a fucking dimwit.
Vote for Paris Hilton. She has more corporate experience than Obama does. Seriously even if the old co-worker just has a grudge against him, look at the spew he says about himself. The quotes are real. Right? Maybe you guys quoted wrong book. Right?
#38
You’re calling yourself a dimwit? Nice to see someone who’s not worried about self-image for a change. So, you’re not going to write one (or two) autobiographies?
#8: “I feel sorry for you Americans. What crappy choices you have for this election.”
So do I – and I *am* an American. Our choice boils down to picking the candidate who is likely to take us down the drain a little slower. It’s really not a clear choice.
Sometimes I wish we could just gene-splice the best elements of more than one candidate.
How about someone with (no sexism intended) Palin’s looks, Obama’s rhetorical skills, and McCain’s experience?
(Hitching up my asbestor underwear…)
#15
This is the best you can do John? The McCain-Palin campaign have been lying openly over and over since the convention, and everybody knows it. You give us some hearsay by co-workers from years ago? and to back up your argument you give us Charles “WMDs are in Iraq” Krauthammer?
#33
Sorry, but that still makes no sense. Nobody writing their memoirs lists *all* of the crappy jobs they’ve held. (What a page-turner that would be).
So I have to reiterate my question. How do we know that Obama was referring to the job that this anonymous source is talking about…?
Has anybody here done any real historical research and understands the question I’m asking…?
How come Obama never brags about his presidency of the Harvard Law Review? Is it because eh was an affirmative-action president who wasn’t qualified?
The incessant accusation of “lies,” “lying,” is annoying, tiresome and ineffective. The dems sound like a bunch of Ivy league whiners complaining about something being “unfair.” Maybe the pollsters have test-marketed the lie meme and find it effective. But I doubt it has any traction with independents and swing voters like me.
“As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool.”
“Giggitty, giggitty, giggitty o riiight”
Come on John C. -It was a joke that the dope in office(Bush) was not to try to help the economy. Ha ha, but not funny now.
You are helping the bushies with this type of
media permutation.
Can we just cut to the chase and have this guy elected already?! This 2 year election cycle is killing me.
And yes, despite all the protestations and claims by JCD (I love his bet that it would now be Hillary and McCain running for the finish – where do you get your intel, the Onion?), or anybody else to be honest about it, Obama will be our next president. Get used to it and move on. If you think McCain is actually still in the race you’re obviously lacking the skills needed to function in this thing we call civilization.
BTW, why does anyone actually care about any of this meaningless flotsam about either candidate? Oh, that’s right, the economic collapse of the US/world economy doesn’t compare to a meaningless comment about fish or pigs mentioned by some guy who thinks he’ll actually change things once elected. The minutia that people focus on is laughable.
What a joke! We’re all doomed.
The one who can lie the best wins.
#15 – JCD
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Oh, MikeN, you’re truly a genius.
Let me ask you: In your logic, is there *any* possible scenario where a black person could legitimately hold a position — that is, without being an “affirmative action” case?
That should be impossible, according to your logic. For you, the mere fact of a black person holding any position of authority means that he got there via “affirmative action.”
Therefore, according to you, no black person could ever legitimately hold any position of authority, anywhere. It is a logical impossibility.
You, sir, are brilliant!
#46 – “Oh, that’s right, the economic collapse of the US/world economy doesn’t compare to a meaningless comment about fish or pigs mentioned by some guy who thinks he’ll actually change things once elected. The minutia that people focus on is laughable.”
Truly astonishing that anyone believes that a candidate for POTUS who uses exactly the same rhetoric Jimmy Carter used in 1976 and the most fossilized member of the Senate as a VPOTUS candidate are going to get anywhere near “change.”
“What a joke! We’re all doomed.” – Ya, if those two get elected.
Oh, and to respond to the title of this thread, Obama’s definitely full of himself.
#49, I think it’s likely in this case. He was elected at the same time that Derrick Bell was complaining about not enough blacks on the faculty.
Hey Mustard, read this.
Who’d a thunk it politicians lie. I hear also babys cry and soldiers die. Some things never change.
“People do not trust people who make stuff up as they go along.”
Unless they are the GOP and George Bush, making up bad stuff about the Democrats. Bush’s camp got away with smearing Kerry. And he got chosen by the GOP by smearing his rivals. Very little fact checking seems to hinder the GOP’s scandal machine. And most voters are stupid enough to base their choice on the shakiest of lies, by either side.
But like I’ve said before. It’s not like it’s going to matter who’s in charge. Do you really think trillions of dollars of GDP are put at risk, by what the general public decides? Yeah, sure! The contest is just to keep us believen it does.
If Charles Krauthammer is asking questions Obama has some major problems.
Stick to computers Dvorak
I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..
·If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
·Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you re a quintessential American story.
·If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
·Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
·Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
·Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.
·If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
·If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.
·If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
·If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
·If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
·If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.
·If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
·If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
What I want to know is how JCD ever posted anything negative against Obomba?
8 years as a State Senator, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees,
He’s a real Henry Clay he is!
#57 – qsabe,
Very well said!!
The unfortunate bit is that people in this nation founded on separation of church and state really do care how good a christian their elected officials are. I’d welcome a good god-ignoring nontheist who doesn’t follow a book that says that people should be stoned to death for working on the sabbath or wearing a mix of linen and wool, or any of the many death penalty specifications of the bible, but that’s just me.
Oh well. I guess we need to change rather a lot as a nation before atheists gain the level of respect that the LBGT community has worked admirably to achieve.
I really do not understand why we analyze things along the lines of who can win politically rather than who is in principle trying to follow a constitutional sized government.
Both choices stink. Stink really bad.
MikeN — See, that’s clearly ridiculous because people both within and without Harvard Law have been complaining they don’t take on enough minorities (usually *any* minorities, until fairly recently). Does that mean every minority that has passed through there is really an inferior graduate?