Here’s what Obama said, ” So the Kennedy’s decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.”

There’s no interpretation there.

From Time Aug 29, 1960
“Visiting the U.S. in July, Mboya wanted to meet both candidates. Nixon was busy in Chicago at the G.O.P. convention; Mboya sought out Jack Kennedy at his Hyannisport retreat. Concerned about the wavering U.S. Negro vote,

Kennedy offered to contribute part of the airlift expenses from his family’s Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation (named after the brother killed in World War II) and to look around for other private funds to help the grounded students. Sargent Shriver, Kennedy’s brother-in-law and managing director of the family foundation, found no uncommitted funds in other charitable foundations, in the end recommended that the Kennedy Foundation put up the entire $100,000, and provide unstipulated help for students during their stay in the U.S.”

From Sept 11, 2006 WorldPress.org
“Why has he been so successful? His deceased Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama, had benefited from the famous airlift of Kenyans in the 1960’s, and won a scholarship to further his education in Hawaii — spearheaded by a former Kenyan cabinet minister, the late Tom Mboya.”
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2488.cfm

From Nov 1, 2004 The East African
“Like Obama Senior, I too went to the US on the famous Tom Mboya Airlift of 1959 [when hundreds of Kenyan students were given scholarships to American universities]. I first met Obama Senior in Tom Mboya’s Nairobi office [Mboya was then the secretary general of the Kenya Federation of Labour]. Obama and I met up again on returning to Nairobi and remained drinking buddies for many years.”
http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/01112004/Features/PA2-11.html

While it is a historical given that Kennedy didn’t take office until January of 1961 (the same year that Barack, Jr. was born), it is entirely possible that the Kennedy clan was instrumental in his father’s stateside arrival some years earlier.

In 1958, Tom Mboya, politician/activist/unionist from Kenya, launched a movement called Education Overseas, leading to the first educational airlift to the United States.*

Add to this a paragraph from a 1961 TIME magazine article:

Until now, African students have mostly got to the U.S. on their own and with enough disorganization to damage their studies. Kenya’s passion, for example, led to the pell-mell “African Airlift” originated by Politician Tom Mboya that got so much publicity in the U.S. presidential campaign when the Kennedy Foundation beat the Eisenhower State Department to the punch with $100,000 air fare.*

So it is possible that early in the Kennedy campaign, Foundation money funded an airlift that brought Barack, Sr. stateside.

Is this a perfect explanation? No. But it makes the reference seem less like a bold-faced fabrication and more like a broad interpretation.

If Mr. Obama’s message gets results, he’s a leader.

Heres what I see as the point. OW is saying Obama will bring in the black vote. Technically true, but my point is that Democrats already own the black vote – around 90%. Its theirs/yours now – pre Obama. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. So maybe Obama brings a little better turnout of those voters already owned by the Democrats.

And I don’t know what “authentic” means when applied to race. Itself, it sounds a little nasty – racist like. Can a black who is conservative be ‘authentic”? Does it mean blacks who vote Democratic? Are liberal? Don’t like whites? I don’t care about skin color. An idiot or a genius can be any color. I’ll take Thomas Sowell over Ward Churchill every day of the week.

I’m just sayin’.

Very well chosen points Oliver. Same thing Bill Cosby has been saying for the last couple of years, but I don’t think Obama will get near the pushback that Cos did.

Maybe with “Joshua” Obama saying it, it will finally get some real traction in “the community.”

OK, he says his father came here under a Kennedy administration program — in 1959. And he says his parents were inspired by the Selma marches of 1965 — but were married in 1961, had Obama, Jr. in 1963, and separated in 1965 (later divorcing).

It was a pretty good speech, and he really did connect with the crowd. Too bad he had to fudge the hell out of the truth (much like Hillary being named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the climber of Mt. Everest, despite being born six years before he achieved the summit).

But it’s “truthy,” so I guess that makes it all right.

J.

It’s content vs. character. Regressives got nuthin’.

A. I have never seen anybody’s talking points.

B. Your childish taunting doesn’t warrant even my ‘C’ game

C. How typical of the ‘progressives’, when confronted with debate, to just tell someone to shut up (global warming, anyone?). Many of your idiot posters do it, but now you too.

And one would have thought that Congressional majority would have lessened the paranoia.

Obama said his father got here due to Kennedy. Um. He got here two years prior to Kennedy’s inauguration.

And he never bloviates or throws out gratuitous lines.. he is serious and serene and respects the intelligence of his audience.

I truly believe that he is unique, special and destined for greatness.

I don’t think that it’s a double standard, but it is an asymmetry.

That said, when reading Obama’s first book, I liked what he said about the appeal of the Nation of Islam to black Americans – namely, that it was a way to criticize black culture by claiming that all the bad things about black culture were due to evil whites. It’s one of the things I really liked about his book – that he sees the human needs that drive people to believe ideas that are wrong or counterproductive or sugar-coated. He sees that tendency in himself, in his mother, in his grandparents. He doesn’t seem to feel contempt for those needs, but rather a kind of affection for the human capacity to survive.