"What makes you think it's mine?" is not the worst remark a pregnant woman can hear after telling a man she's pregnant. The worst remark is: "Its not mine."
"Its not mine."
Over the years memories and facts blur. Especially when one or both parents pass away. Reinvention isn't uncommon. Many a person has 'scrubbed' unpleasant details from their past. From the film Imitation of Life to Diana Ross & the Supremes hit single "I'm Living In Shame," reinvention isn't an uncommon plot source in popular culture. "I mean, how do you know who your daddy is? Because your mama told you so?" So asks the Bill Brousard in Oliver Stone's JFK.
Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president. He was born August 4, 1961. Recently his website pushed the notion that they were publishing his birth certificate. They weren't. The Los Angeles Times ran it and claimed they were publishing his birth certificate at their blog Top of The Ticket. They weren't. An official document has a seal on it.
Try remodeling your home (legally) and presenting the inspectors with copies of the plans when they show up on site. If the plans do not have a seal, you'll be "red flagged" and construction will not be allowed to continue until you produce plans with a seal. In other words, you can't do something as simple as add on to your home without official paperwork that holds up but the laughable Los Angeles Times wanted to trumpet it and even added an "UPDATE" to Andrew Malcom's laughable post backing up that it was Barack's birth certificate by . . . citing the Obama campaign ("In reaction to some of the comments left below challenging the veracity of the document, Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, sent the following reaction to The Ticket: "I can confirm that that is Sen. Obama's birth certificate."). Does the paper's blog know the first thing about journalism? They were 'confirming' the validity of the document by citing the campaign that provided them with the document ("The Obama campaign has provided at The Ticket's request what it says is a copy of the Illinois senator's official birth certificate . . .). That is no confirmation in a journalistic sense and that would be surprising were Top of the Ticket not known for being in the tank for Barack.
Barack's bi- or multi-racial and that's about the only thing that's not in doubt other than the fact that, no, his birth certificate has not been published by The Los Angeles Times. The bi- or multi-racial heritage detail is treated as a distraction by Barack and the press is more than happy to jump on board.
March 4, 2007 at the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, Alabama, Barack passed on greetings from Jeremiah Wright and rushed to talk about his 'heritage' and how there are people "who question the audacity of a young man like myself" which of course meant it was time to insert race as a distraction. Barack declared of the Selma to Montgomery March, "It is because they marched thatI stand before you here today. . . . What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, 'You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites.' 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. This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama. "
Barack has no claim on Selma, Alabama. The march took place March 7, 1965. Barack was born August 4, 1961. Everything he declared was a lie. It was a lie from start to finish. Barack Obama did not come to the United States from Kenya due to the Selma March -- he'd come over years before. The "Kennedys" did not institue a program because of the 1965 March that then allowed Barack Obama to come to the United States (in the summer of 1959). John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
It takes a lot of 'audacity' to lie in a church but no baptismal record apparently exists for candidate Barack so his respect for churches is, at best, suspect. He stood in a church, appealing to voters, defending his campaign, with lies and, no surprise, the lies were based on 'race.' It's the distraction that he always goes to.
When someone lies (or, for the generous, is 'so wrong') about the basics, most reporters decide it's time to really examine the story. All the more so with a candidate who builds an entire campaign around biography.
Let's deal with the father because the lies there are many. First off, when he came to the US, he already had a family back in Kenya (wife Kezia, son Roy). Second, the 'glamor portrait' of him is that he was a reformer who fought the system in Kenyan government (upon returning with his Harvarad degree) and was broken by the 'good fight,' turned to drink and would later end up in an accident losing both his legs. He returned to Kenya in 1965 (with wife Ruth Nides), got in a drunken accident shortly afterward, lost both legs and then went to work for the government. That's an important detail and should raise the question of why and how he would visit in Hawaii in 1971 as candidate Barack has claimed?
The 1971 visit, candidate Barack claims, is when he finally met his father. "No such visit took place," insisted a friend of Ann Dumham's. And certainly, her claim sounds logical. By 1971, Barack has a three sons Auma (all by wife Kezia, the last born in 1970) and two children by wife Ruth (David and Mark). The marriage to Ruth was in the process of breaking up. Barack Obama flying from Kenya to Hawaii in 1971 to visit candidate Barack seems suspect in terms of the timeline even before you add in the difficulties of international travel when you're missing both legs, maintaining multiple marriages and fathering various children (son Roy was born in 1970). It's even questionable whether, at the height of Tricky Dick, the now avowed Socialist Barack Obama could have easily gotten into the country?
But the point the friend makes is that candidate Barack was in Hawaii because he had told his mother Ann that he wanted to live with his (White grandparents) there and not in Indonesia with her. "He could have easily said, I want to go to African and live with my father if he had any contact with Barack," she points out. The story of candidate Barack appears to be an attempt to turn a sad life into a Disney children's film.
The racial distraction allows that aspect to be ignored. "So progressive" is said of Ann, implying the story there is that, in 1960, she was forward-thinking enough to have no fears of inter-racial relationship in a racist society. It allows things to be overlooked, especially how a seventeen-year-old gets pregnant and ends up giving birth to the baby during that time period.
What was Ann's favorite film. It was pointed out by a classmate of Ann's in Washington that Barack makes "a big to-do" out of the film Black Orpheus in his first book (Dreams From My Father) and how that gave Ann her view of "Black people but does anyone talk about how much Sandra Dee damage she carried?"
Ann was a "round" (pudgy) young woman with bad teeth. She did not turn many heads. But, after seeing A Summer Place in 1960 (the film came out in late 1959, it made it to a theater near Ann in 1960), she "became convinced she could look like Sandra Dee. She went round and round with her parents about bleaching her hair blonde. She lost that battle but she did adopt Sandra's winged eyebrows."
She adopted other things as well. A Summer Place was considered a scandalous movie, daring, during its day. The plot revolves around Sandra Dee becoming pregnant and, happily for all on screen, Troy Donahue marries her. Speaking to classmates and friends in Washington and Honolulu, the battles between Ann and her parents were legendary (though all stress it was a loving family). Long before the move to Hawaii, Ann had began speaking of the Sandra Dee route as a way to independence from her parents: pregnancy and then marriage.
As a result, she began experimenting heavily with sexual relations. "She couldn't be the girl you went steady with," said one, "but she could be the one you spent time with." As this was confirmed repeatedly by one friend and aquaintence after another, it became obvious that if candidate Barack wants to talk about 'movie damage,' it didn't begin with Black Orpheus. Ann's blueprint was A Summer Place, she saw it as her avenue to freedom. (And, yes, this is in contradiction to reports that she never wanted marriage or children but it was cited repeatedly.)
Ann defined "independence" at that time as "independence" from her parents. Not surprising because once you strip away race, you're left with a young woman in that time period and that is how many saw 'independence.' Long before the family moved to Hawaii, there was said to have already been one false pregnancy scare which and that's what prompted Stanley's refusal to let her remain on the mainland and attend the University of Chicago while he and her mother moved to Hawaii.
Ann's definition of independence, her seeking that route wasn't surprising or "untraditional." Women were taught to believe that marriage and motherhood were "natural" and that college, for those whose parents could afford it, were the best place to meet a husband. Like 74% of her movie attending peer group, Ann learned a lot from the big screen, instilled a great deal. And if she couldn't go blonde, she could borrow the winged eyebrows, she could imitate Dee's laugh and manner of speaking (and did) and she could use A Summer Place as a template for her own life. As a first-term freshman at the University of Hawaii, Ann didn't distinguish herself in the classroom where she was described as "shy" and unable to participate in classroom discussions. But on campus, she was no "wallflower" and was infamous for repeatedly touching males.
"She was always flirting," explained one who has less than kind memories. "She would feel a bicep, touch a shoulder, brush a man's hair to the side with her hands."
In word and deed, she telegraphed what she was looking for. In 1960, "the pill" (birth control) would begin to make inroads (at $4.00 a month, it was inexpesnive) and Gloria Steinem would pen "The Moral Disarment of Betty Coed" for Esquire in September 1962; however, Ann wasn't interested in the pill in 1960 and had begun her battle with outdated morals after seeing A Summer Place the first time (she saw it three times on the big screen). Black Orpheus may have predisposed her to interest in Barack Obama, but A Summer Place set her on the path that determined so much of her life.
"It's not mine," was what Barack supposedly told Ann when she informed him she was pregnant. That was due to the fact that, in one brief semester, Ann had already allegedly had multiple partners. It was also due to the fact that as an exchange student from Africa, as a Black man, fathering a child with a White woman could bring serious repercussions. In 1963, "The University of Connecticut threatened punitive measures against students guilty of uncontrolled public displays of affection." That was 1963. Barack was informed by Ann she was pregnant in December of 1960.
"She cried and cried over that," explained one of her two closest friends from that period. "But it probably was a fair response even if he could have worded it better."
What followed was Ann's determination to go through with the pregnancy with or without Barack. She kept the news from her parents for as long as possible. When Barack realized she wanted nothing from him ("everyone knew he already had one wife"), he became less stand-offish.
After her pregnancy became apparent, her parents insisted she produce the father. Was there a marriage? No one could remember a wedding, just vague words by Ann. A few insisted they were told her parents had told her that she would say she was married, she would leave the islands to give birth and give the child up for adoption. When she returned to Hawaii, they would all say a miscarriage had taken place and that the marriage was dissolved.
Reportedly, Ann did leave the island and did give birth (in the US) but she stalled on signing the papers giving up claim to candidate Barack. When she informed her parents that she wasn't going to do that, she was allegedly told ("with resignation") to come home and bring the baby with her. "That's why she was in Washington with the just born [candidate] Barack and had to be taught by a friend how to diaper a baby," explained one. The August 1961 visit is puzzling for a number of reasons including Ann's inability to diaper her weeks old baby. ("She was only allowed to breast feed. She told me they were doubtful she was really going to give the baby up" at the home for unwed mothers, "so her only contact with her child was when it was time to feed him.") A trip to Washington with a just-born baby is very strange for a number of reasons including the fact that Ann would shortly go on food stamps, that Barack was not wealthy and that if her parents were 'gifting' at the time, they would have been focused on the child, not on puchasing a pleasure trip for their daughter. (And since classes had not started yet, why wasn't 'husband' Barack along for the trip?)
Memories fade with time. And people bear grudges they never admit to. So possibly, all the statements we were told resulted from faulty memories or old axes to grind. But the story that emerged was of candidate Barack being born outside of Hawaii (but born within the US) at a facility for unborn mothers and an original birth certificate that reads "Father Unknown." After the birth, when Ann refused to give candidate Barack up for adoption and her parents told her to come home (with the baby), she would file for a live birth certificate in Hawaii claiming she'd given birth at home. Candidate Barack, as the story goes, has two birth certificates.
Father (or 'father') Barack wasn't having anything to do with it and quickly left for Harvard without Ann or candidate Barack. Another puzzler is why candidate Barack didn't enroll at Harvard immediately upon graduation from high school since he should have been able to gain admission as a "legacy" regardless of his poor grades?
Ann Dunham was a woman slightly ahead of her times. As a teenager, her biggest influence was what she saw on the big screen. She craved a freedom (an undefined freedom, but a strong desire for it) and shifted through several personas as the US view of women shifted.
Were she and Barack ever married? "I think it's far more likely they were divorced," explained a man who identified himself as closer to Barack than Ann. "She had passed herself as married, he [Barack] had gone along with that to get her off his back, so a divorce would have been smart to ensure any issues of a common-law marriage. But I don't think anyone would ever be able to produce a marriage certificate."
So what's true and what's false? One thing that everyone who knew Ann stressed was that finding the truth behind anything she said required stripping away a lot of fictions. (A trait candidate Barack appears to have inherited from his mother.) "She would make you believe anything while you were face-to-face but, a few minutes after she'd leave, you're realize what she said wasn't very . . . realistic or true," explained one.
Candidate Barack's biography matters because he has made it an issue. He did that long before his campaign falsified a birth certificate (that is not his birth certificate). He did it in speech after speech. John Kerry elected to build his campaign around his Vietnam service. As such, his Vietnam service was examined and targeted. It was also distorted.
We're making it very clear that what we've written about was told to us and that time and personal events may have reshaped some recollections -- possibly all. A July 1961 letter shown to us (written by Ann) backs up a great deal of what we were told by various people. In that letter Ann is despondent and does not come off as a young bride or a hopeful mother-to-be. We admire Ann's strength throughout her life. But we question the details provided to the public. We also can't overlook the fact that Ann's mother (dubbed "a typical White person" by candidate Barack) is kept from the press. The woman who raised the candidate is kept from the press. When candidate Barack elects to take a vacation during the campaign in March, he goes to the Virgin Islands and not to Hawaii -- both are tropical locales. One contains the woman who raised him. Madelyn Payne Dumham is over eighty-years-old and continues to live in the high-rise candidate Barack called "home."
A friend of Ann's from Washington recalls a dinner at the Dunhams where Ann began telling the "most incredible story of a car accident" that had taken place earlier that day and Madelyn let her finish the tale before correcting her with, "That never happened." Fear of a similar comment today may be why the Obama campaign keeps the press away. When Jimmy Carter was running for president, no one could keep the then 78-year-old Miss Lillian Carter away from the press. What gives? Is this part of the "unspoken pact with my grandparents," candidate Barack wrote about in Dreams From My Father, "I could live with them and they'd leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight"? In other words, he can invent any fantasy and, as long as Madelyn Dumham doesn't have to be party to the lie, she'll leave it alone?
At 96-years-old, Roberta Wright McCain is considerably older than Madelyn Dunham but the former can be found on the campaign trail, can speak to the press and is out there attempting to get her son (presumed Republican Party presidential nominee) John McCain elected.
It's strange. Had the Obama campaign not produced a non-birth certificate and attempted to pass it off as legitimate, we wouldn't be raising the issue. But after months of discussions with friends and acquaintences of Ann Dunham (we were only able to track down one friend of Barack Obama's from their college days), it appears Ann had the same issues with truth that candidate Barack does.
Last week, Campaign Obama began another character assassination on a competitor: Ralph Nader. They (as usual) distorted his remarks, attempted to smear him as a racist and used the narrative of candidate Barack as a template for honesty. So maybe it's time candidate Barack got honest?
That he was born out-of-wedlock is really not in dispute but is thought to be the motivating factor behind his fanciful tales of his parents. Since Barack Obama came to the United States an already married man (and already a father), ceremony or not, there could have been no legal marriage between him and Ann Dumham. Abraham Lincoln signed the Morril Anti-Bigamy Act into United States law in 1862, nearly 100 years before candidate Barack was born. Even if a ceremony took place and a license was issued (we doubt either), there was no legal marriage between Barack Obama and Ann Dunham.
While that would be no fault on candidate Barack, the fact that he continues to lie publicly about it is an issue since his campaign -- lacking a record -- rests on his biography and his biography does not add up. It needs to be explained why new mother Ann, having just given birth, was in the state of Washington? Without her alleged husband. It needs to be explained why money would be wasted on a plane ticket for travel if Barack and Ann were indeed married and living together since, with a child just being born to two unemployed parents, the last thing in the world the new family would need was to do was immediately splurge on a trip for Ann? (Babies flew free.) It needs to be explained why the Obama campaign is pushing a 'birth certificate' that isn't an official anything?
We were told there were two birth documents. The certificate issued when candidate Barack was born outside of Hawaii and the certificate of live birth issued when Ann returned to Hawaii and claimed a live birth. Again, maybe some unknown grudges and/or faulty memories account for that being told (by seven different women). Equally true is that any official Hawaiian document would list the date it was issued. If the date it was issued wasn't the date of the birth, producing it might cause problems for the Barack campaign.
During the time period of Ann's pregnancy, the issue of race would have been an eye brow raiser, no question. But even had the father been White, it still would have been seen as a scandal. The race issue allows that to be ignored repeatedly. 1961 was not like 1991. A pregnancy before-wedlock or out-of-wedlock was a scandal in of itself. Considering the region (Hawaii) and how White people were the minority (but held a large amount of power) any White woman getting pregnant before marriage would have been a scandal, especially one so young and one so new to the state. Candidate Barack has called his grandfather more easy going while noting that his grandmother did not like scenes. He's reflecting on his much later memories of them. Equally true is that Ann was an only child and had no older sister or brother to wear the parents down before she became a teenager seeking independence.
That their only daughter ended up pregnant without a ring on her finger would have been a very big deal regardless of the race. That aspect of the story is never examined as everyone marvels over how 'progressive' Ann must have been to enter into an interracial relationship. But that story is the one that played out countless times throughout the chronological sixties. With Stanley's military background and Madelyn's reserved nature, it's difficult to believe that the pregnancy itself wasn't a big issue and didn't lead to the standard discussions for that time period of 'options' which largely involved moving away for a brief time to give the child up for adoption. If in fact, those conversations didn't take place, then Madelyn wasn't a "typical . . . person" regardless of her race.