Obama's "Aloha" Days In The Spotlight

Hawaiians Who Knew Democratic Hopeful Say He Showed No Signs Of Racial Angst

(The Politico)  By The Politico's Hans Nichols.

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Until recently, the players on Hawaii's 1979 state basketball championship team thought their glory days were behind them, consigned to yearbooks and faded newspaper clippings.

Now lots of people are interested in helping graduates of Punahou School jog their foggy memories, trolling for revelations about a young man who spent much of his time that season riding the bench. The Los Angeles Times weighed in the other day. Vanity Fair is coming soon.

So far, the candidacy of the man known by his high school friends as Barry Obama has been good for the Hawaii economy and bad for newsroom budgets. Since January, more than a dozen news organizations from around the globe, from the BBC to TV Asahi to People magazine, have dispatched reporters to Oahu.

Most classmates and teachers recall an easygoing, slightly chunky young man, with the same infectious smile he sports today. Yet many say they have trouble reconciling their nearly 30-year-old memories with Obama's more recent descriptions of himself as a brooding and sometimes angry adolescent, grappling with his mixed race and the void left by a father who gave him his black skin but little else.

The attention on Obama's time at Punahou — a country club campus with nine tennis courts, an Olympic-size pool and an endowment of $180 million — represents the next important challenge for a celebrity politician who leapt onto the national stage with a few swift strides.

Obama's presidential prospects have been fueled in large part by an arresting life story: The son of a Kenyan goatherder, he wrestled with his dual identities to become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and a member of the U.S. Senate. So far, it has been a narrative spun almost entirely on Obama's terms and in his own words — most prominently in his bestselling memoir, "Dreams From My Father."

Now that life story is being edited by others. He is undergoing what some have called the "Profile Primary" — which is testing his ability to keep control of his public image, as journalists sketch portraits of the candidate as a young man and comb for contradictions and potential embarrassments in his past.

So far, this process has not yielded anything especially damaging to Obama's candidacy. But it has revealed the vagaries of memory, as well as the ambivalent emotions stirred among old acquaintances when someone they once knew becomes famous.

Dan Hale, the 6-foot-7-inch star center of the 1979 Punahou basketball team, said Obama's depiction of Hawaii as a place where race really mattered hardly resonates with him.

"I was certainly oblivious to a lot of what he references," Hale said in an interview. "If you look at our teams, that year I was the only white guy on the starting five. You had three part-Hawaiians, one Filipino and me."

But Hale said he is still enjoying the novelty of a famous classmate. "It's good for me, pre-Alzheimer's, to try and remember this stuff," he said, struggling to recall something other than Obama's love for basketball and his improbable hook shot. "If only I had saved that Nerf hoop we used to dunk on. I'd put that up on e-Bay."

Alan Lum, another teammate from the championship squad who now teaches second grade at Punahou, has done enough interviews that his fellow teachers have started to rib him about his newfound fame. After a recent lunch with a reporter, he winked at a table of faculty-lounge colleagues and joked, "This one is with Playgirl."

[forthepeaple]

agree and the americans do have a american to protect them,and my name is david a belanger,vet and ready to protect all americans,and to take back AMERICA from the washington crime family.just look at what has happen in just a few days look this is your ssn money the pork went from 94 billion to now over 130,000,000,000,000 billion in a week that your money. gone and now all of them are saying wait i need some pork for me to...wake up america.. that why you need me in washington and we need more average americans to come down and change our government back to the government for the people by the people.vote for me david a belanger for president and lets clean house.at [e-mail] send me a line.until then god blass our troops and god blass america

[pakaal]

mitywhity wrote: Bottomline is that he is muslim with a mask on. You can have him if you want him, but I don't trust any of them. Sign me as the honest bigot you PC cowards.

The fact that Obama is Christian means, by definition, you're a lying bigot, not an honest one. But bigots are often liars, so no surprise there. Hey! Fox keeps repeating that Obama is a Muslim too! Fox must be a bunch of lying bigots!

No surprise there either.

[agnim]

"Why hasn't there been an investigation into whether or not Obama is a terrorist?

Posted by Processorr2 at 08:42 AM : Mar 15, 2007"

You have been commissioned to do the investigation; take a lifetime (even though your days are numbered)! LOL

[forthepeaple]

Who said this statement: If the personal freedoms of all americans by the Constitution and bill of right are Inhibiting the Government ability to (Govern)that meant control, the people of united states of america..Than we Should look to Limit those GUARANTEES #2.The united states Government CAN'T BE so fixed on our desires to preserve the RIGHTS of ORDINARY AMERICANS #3.I can do any ********* thing i want,I'm president of the united states and you dont forget that.....who am I.....
Who said this statement: If the personal freedoms of all americans by the Constitution and bill of right are Inhibiting the Government ability to (Govern)that meant control, the people of united states of america..Than we Should look to Limit those GUARANTEES #2.The united states Government CAN'T BE so fixed on our desires to preserve the RIGHTS of ORDINARY AMERICANS #3.I can do any ********* thing i want,I'm president of the united states and you dont forget that.....who am I.....

[frankly6]

processor2

I've reported you to the FBI for impersonating a human being.

[frankly6]

processor2

Death threats? lol!!

[processor2]

I'm the Processor!!!!
Posted by Processorr2 at 10:14 AM : Mar 15, 2007


I have been posting of CBS way longer than your dumb-a-s-s.......you have also been reported to the FBI for your death threats

[processor2]

I'm the Processor!!!!
Posted by Processorr2 at 10:14 AM : Mar 15, 2007


I have been posting of CBS way longer than your dumb-a-s-s.......you have also been reported to the FBI for your death threats

[processorr2]

processor2

I don't know who you are but I'm the REAL PROCESSOR.

If you don't have the intelligence to make up your own name then you don't belong here.


I'm the Processor!!!!

[processor2]

I agree with you. I don't trust anyone with a funny name or brown skin either.

Posted by Processorr2 at 09:53 AM : Mar 15, 2007


"Processorr2" is not the same person as "processor2"

[processorr2]

Bottomline is that he is muslim with a mask on. You can have him if you want him, but I don't trust any of them. Sign me as the honest bigot you PC cowards.
Posted by MITYWHITY at 09:03 AM : Mar 15, 2007

MITYWHITY

I agree with you. I don't trust anyone with a funny name or brown skin either.

[mitywhity]

Obama is ethically and by default the only candidate truly "worth" your vote.
Posted by tru_america1

Let's just skip president and make him Pope with sainthood thrown in for good measure. Funny, I recall his amazing acuity for real estate. That's not ethical what he did with land transactions!

Bottomline is that he is muslim with a mask on. You can have him if you want him, but I don't trust any of them. Sign me as the honest bigot you PC cowards.

[processorr2]

Why hasn't there been an investigation into whether or not Obama is a terrorist?

I'm guessing you libs can't answer that one.

[tuckerndfw]

tucker,just a note why would you vote for someone that takes money from AIPAC BECAUSE ALL OF THEM DO....

Posted by forthepeaple at 08:17 AM : Mar 15, 2007

Ron Paul probably doesn't get much money from Israel (AIPAC). He is one of the few candidates who actually denounces Israel. (and the UN)

But, then again, few people know who he is due to the lack of publicity his campaigns usually receive.

[processorr2]

Has anyone niticed how much Obama sounds like Ossama?

How do we know he's not a terrorist too?

[forthepeaple]

tucker,just a note why would you vote for someone that takes money from AIPAC BECAUSE ALL OF THEM DO....

[tuckerndfw]

Obama appears to be a much better candidate than Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

I am an independent and the three front runners for my vote are Obama, Hagel or Ron Paul.

There is no way that I would vote for Clinton, Giuliani or McCain. They are the three sleaziest and/or weaseliest candidates currently in the campaign.

It appears Dems & Repubs are both terrified of Obama, which makes him an excellent choice.

Ron Paul isn't bothered by denouncing Israel, which makes him an excellent choice.

Hagel seems to be straightforwards, but we'll see how much he sucks up to Israel as time goes on.

That will probably be the deciding factor for my vote, NO "Israel first" politician (McCain, Clinton, Giuliani) is qualified to be US president. (or anything else, so far as that goes. Israel firsters are traitors)

[forthepeaple]

Who said this statement: If the personal freedoms of all americans by the Constitution and bill of right are Inhibiting the Government ability to (Govern)that meant control, the people of united states of america..Than we Should look to Limit those GUARANTEES #2.The united states Government CAN'T BE so fixed on our desires to preserve the RIGHTS of ORDINARY AMERICANS #3.I can do any ********* thing i want,I'm president of the united states and you dont forget that.....who am I.....

[coffeehead-2009]

Is there anything worthwhile in this mans past that would apply to his wanting to be president?


Honesty? Integrity? AMERICA'S interest?
Other people's lives? something other than PROFIT?
Well obviously he has something "worthwhile" to
most Americans - other than those stuck in subliminal mode.....




Ethics

Throughout his political career, Barack Obama has been a leader in fighting for open and honest government. During his first year as an Illinois State Senator, he helped lead the fight to pass Illinois' first ethics reform bill in 25 years. As a U.S. Senator, he has spearheaded the effort to clean up Washington in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal.Read more

More issues:

Crime
Defense
Education
Energy
Environment
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Iraq
Seniors
Veterans
http://obama.senate.gov/

[randalds]

Again, what are his ideas? Does he have any?
Posted by Kaliveotin at 02:27 AM : Mar 15, 2007

If you don't know him. If you don't know his past or his positions on the major issues. Then either you haven't made an effort to find out or you don't want to know, but just oppose. That's fine. That's your right. However there is nothing hidden with him and nothing to hide. Read and educate yourself and you'll realize that he'd make a young, but excellent president. He'll need us to help him, to work with him to make his dreams for us come true. Still isn't that better then a "leader" like Bush who believes to office of president means doing what he wants, no matter how his bosses, the people, feel about it? It's time we had a president, like Kennedy, who inspired us to greatness, rather then just told us his version of America and demanding we follow if we like it or not.