HONOLULU, March 14, 2007
Obama's "Aloha" Days In The Spotlight
Hawaiians Who Knew Democratic Hopeful Say He Showed No Signs Of Racial Angst
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Play CBS Video Video What Is "Black Enough?" As some critics question whether presidential candidate Barack Obama is "black enough," Nancy Giles wonders why people are asking that question.
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Video Race Factor In 2008 Campaign Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., are competing for a major block of the Democratic Party - the African-American vote. Michelle Miller reports.
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(AP / CBS)
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Photo Essay Obama Family Album Get a peek at some personal photos from the album of Sen. Barack Obama.
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Photo Essay Barack Obama The junior senator from Illinois is making his name known.
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Who's Who 2008 Democratic Hopefuls Clinton, Obama and Edwards lead the chase for the Democratic nomination.
The fun may wear off, if history is any guide. Journalistic excavations of a presidential candidate's past often turn ugly. In the 2004 presidential campaign, both John F. Kerry and President Bush were embroiled in disputes over their Vietnam-era records, controversies that were stoked by the conflicting recollections of people who knew them.
Arkansas is filled with people still burned from their interactions with the national news media, which descended on the state during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and stayed for his presidency, continuing to poke and prod at his business and personal dealings.
Obama's family is already insulating itself. "I am not giving any interviews," Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. "I am in poor health."
The number at Dunham's apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century. It is the same one that a young Obama wrote in the yearbook of a petite black-haired beauty named Kelli Furushima — the object of his high school crush.
She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979.
Furushima paused, then sighed, pointing out how the potential president was prone to drawing a little Afro atop the "B" and the "O" on his signature. "Isn't that sweet?" she asked. "You can see how he was much more sensitive than the other guys, even back then."
But Furushima, too, is learning to be on guard around the press. She said a woman from People came to visit with her and then walked away with the Punahou reunion list and all its phone numbers. "I don't want to accuse her of stealing it, but it was on the table when she arrived and it wasn't when she left," said Furushima.
A spokeswoman for People said the reporter, West Coast correspondent Maureen Harrington, did not take the list.
Meanwhile, the search continues for Obama's closest high school friends — the self-proclaimed "Basketball Jones," who raced around the island in Darin Maurer's two-toned beige VW van with the band Earth, Wind and Fire blaring from the cassette deck.
Some of that crew has stayed in Hawaii, but others have moved "off island." The race to track them down and coax them to open up likely will include reporters as well as "opposition research" experts for political rivals.
"You need to find Greg Orme," instructed Obama's old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. I get one, maybe."
For most of their high school years, Orme and Obama lived and loved basketball, even if their hours of practice never translated into much playing time on game day.
But Orme is a hard man to find. "Greg? He's kind of in and out. He's off the grid," said Hale, who is now the school's head basketball coach.
Most of his teachers and friends express sorrow that they did not know of Obama's racial anguish or inner demons. "I wish I would have known that those things were bothering him, or if they did bother him," said Eric Kusunoki, Obama's homeroom teacher from grades nine through 12. "Maybe we could have helped him. But he seemed to have coped pretty well."
Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. Furushima said that many of her classmates have expressed dismay at Obama's rendering of the past.
"We are just such a mixed-up bag of races. It was hard to imagine that he felt that way, because he just seemed happy all the time, smiling all the time," she said. "We have so many tones of brown here. If someone is brown, they can be Samoan or Fijian or Tongan. I can't tell if someone is Fijian or black."
His middle school yearbook captures the multiracial mood that many Hawaiians say has always defined the "Aloha spirit." In front of a chalkboard with "Mixed Races of America" written in a student's hand, Obama waved the peace sign for the camera.
On the lower half of the seventh-grade page is the same group, under a heading of "Useless Races in America." The joke, it seems, is on intolerance.
"In Hawaii, our diversity defines us; it doesn't divide us," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, a close friend of Obama's father in graduate school in the early '60s. "We all come from so many backgrounds, we have to get along."
Obama's teammates for the most part are careful not to judge an old friend, even if his memories of racial attitudes at Punahou differ from their own. "I would never say, ah, that didn't happen," said Hale. "But I was pretty wrapped up in my own world back then."
If Obama did show flashes of anger or hurt, according to friends and teammates, it sprang from his lack of minutes on the basketball court more than his angst as a young black man in a multiracial society.
There are, however, chapters in Obama's high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. Just as he was the only African-American on the basketball team, he was also the only jock working on the school's literary magazine, Ka Wai Ola. In his poem, "An Old Man," there are glimpses of a tortured adolescent as well as a budding orator.
"I saw an old forgotten man/On an old, forgotten road," begins the 12-line poem. The man is "staggering and numb" but eventually "pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat,/And walks a straight line along the crooked world."
That thoughtful poet is not remembered by any of his basketball buddies, coaches or friends. Through the haze of the '70s, they recall only the "rat baller" who was always up for a game.
Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. It was also how he wanted to be remembered.
On his senior yearbook page, he left behind these words: "We go play hoop."
By Hans Nichols
TM & © 2007 The Politico & Politico.com, a division of Allbritton Communications Company.
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More From Politics
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 52 CommentsThe 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.
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
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.....
processor2
I've reported you to the FBI for impersonating a human being.
Death threats? lol!!
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
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
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!!!!
Posted by Processorr2 at 09:53 AM : Mar 15, 2007
"Processorr2" is not the same person as "processor2"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Has anyone niticed how much Obama sounds like Ossama?
How do we know he's not a terrorist too?
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)
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/
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.
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See all 52 Comments