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The Friends of O
(page 3 of 4)
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After deciding against a clerkship or a position at a big, high-powered law firm, in 1993 Obama launched his law career at a small Chicago firm then known as Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland. Judson Miner, who had been corporation counsel under Mayor Harold Washington, remembers calling the Harvard Law Review to recruit Obama. When the receptionist asked if he'd like to leave a message, he said, "Sure; this is a recruiting call." She said, "Well, let me warn you that you're going to be 650th on the list." Miner laughed at the exaggeration and pursued Obama anyway.
Miner's firm specialized in civil rights litigation and in representing not-for-profits. "The 'game of law' irritated [Obama] more than fascinated him," Miner says. "There are people who just like the game. Barack didn't like the game."
Allison Davis, a former partner in Miner's firm (and the son of a prominent U. of C. professor), occupied an office next to Obama's at 14 West Erie Street. "He spent a lot of time working on his book [Dreams from My Father]," Davis recalls. "Some of my partners weren't happy with that, Barack sitting there with his keyboard on his lap and his feet up on the desk writing the book."
Davis speculates that Obama never joined a blue-chip Loop firm out of concern that he would then end up representing the sort of wealthy corporate interests that might appear unsavory from the point of view of a Democratic politician. One time, Davis worked with DePaul University to draw up a proposal to redevelop the Cabrini-Green public-housing area. "I asked Barack if he wanted to represent this entity," Davis recalls. "And he said no, because this is going to result in poor people being moved out." (The proposal never went anywhere.)
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Still, if Obama's aim was to avoid unsavory clients, he fell short of the goal, considering Antoin "Tony" Rezko's trial this year on charges of influence peddling in state government. Rezko's development firm joined the long line of recruiters while Obama studied at Harvard, and later at Davis Miner Barnhill, Obama did some legal work for nonprofits partnered with Rezko's firm. "If you look at Rezko through a 1994-1995 lens, you're going to get a different picture," says Miner, defending Obama's relationship with Rezko. "He was more like the poster child for low-income housing development. At that point, [Rezko] was well thought of." (However, Rezko was known to be under federal investigation by the time Obama made a tangled deal with him involving the purchase of the senator's new Hyde Park home in 2005—a transaction that still darkens Obama's presidential campaign.) As early as July 31, 1995, Rezko became the first $1,000 donor to Obama's 1996 campaign for the state senate, his entry into elective politics (for more donors to Obama's early political runs, see "Network Ties").
From the start, Obama "was very attractive to traditional progressive activist Hyde Park types," says the Illinois House majority leader, Barbara Flynn Currie, whose district includes parts of Hyde Park. Founded in the mid-1800s as a suburban resort town for Chicago's rich, Hyde Park—along with South Kenwood, Woodlawn, South Shore, and Chatham (roughly speaking, the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth wards)—has a storied political history. The First Congressional District, which encompasses much of the area, is the historical seat of black political power in the United States. William L. Dawson, the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century, represented the district from 1943 to 1970. [Correction alert: The first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century was Republican Oscar DePriest of Chicago, who represented the First Congressional District.] Harold Washington, a Hyde Park resident, represented the district before serving as mayor from 1983 to 1987. Carol Moseley Braun also came from Hyde Park with University of Chicago connections. She earned her law degree at the university and served a single term, 1993 to 1999, before making a brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. (In fact, three presidential candidates have emerged from a few square blocks in Hyde Park. Besides Obama and Moseley Braun, the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 1984 and 1988, operates RainbowPUSH Coalition at 930 East 50th Street. Jackson's home is in South Shore.)
Over the years, the neighborhood cradled Chicago's liberal and reformist politics—not that reformists can claim many victories in local government. The 100-year-old Leon Despres, Fifth Ward alderman from 1955 to 1975, remains a renowned champion of progressive thought—but he and a few other independents rarely bested the Daley camp in their days on the city council. Dan Shomon, a top aide to Obama in the 1990s, says, "Barack understood that Hyde Park was an insular political community. Hyde Park is not considered the real South Side; it's an island unto itself." For that reason, Shomon says, Obama made a point of placing his first state senate office in grittier South Shore, at 71st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.
To get there, Obama had to knock out Alice Palmer, the incumbent state senator from the Hyde Park area. At the time, she was also a prominent member of the merged Independent Voters of Illinois–Independent Precinct Organization—the IVI-IPO or, in a shorthand phrase describing a type of doctrinaire liberal, the IVIs. Palmer decided to run for Congress, so she blessed Obama as her successor in the state senate. But when Palmer lost in a special election for the U.S. House, she decided to reclaim her seat in Springfield and tried to run in the 1996 primary. Obama refused to step aside, and his supporters kicked her off the ballot with legal challenges, a move that still rankles some IVIs. In the recent February presidential primary in Illinois, Palmer ran as a delegate for Senator Hillary Clinton against Obama's delegates. (Palmer declined to comment.)
Obama's aggressive political tactic in that race gets cited often as a sign that, for all his elite connections, he could play hardball, Chicago style. As Obama himself put it while campaigning for the Pennsylvania primary in April, "I'm from Chicago. I know politics. I'm skinny, but I'm tough." However tough he was, Obama's 1996 campaign had another lingering repercussion. Palmer initially made the rounds of Hyde Park to introduce Obama to the neighborhood liberals. Among them were William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, members of the violent Weatherman group during the Vietnam War, now respected college educators. In the heat of the presidential campaign, Obama has minimized his relationship with Ayers, describing him as a mere neighborhood acquaintance while denouncing violent tactics for change. Actually, their paths have often crossed. Asked by a Tribune reporter in 1997 what he was currently reading, Obama mentioned Ayers's analysis of the juvenile court system. The two men served on the board of the philanthropic Woods Fund from 1999 to 2002. In the tight world of Hyde Park, it was inevitable that Obama would know the couple. "I don't know the nature of Barack's relationship with Bill and Bernardine, but they are people who are very well known to residents of Hyde Park, active in the community," says Geoffrey Stone. "Nobody who has lived there for any extended period of time wouldn't know them—Hyde Park is a small community." (Neither Ayers nor Dohrn replied to requests for comment.)
Apparently, however, Obama kept his political, social, and academic lives in separate compartments. Stone says he does not recall Obama's ever discussing Ayers, Rezko, or the Reverend Wright while Obama was at the university.
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Reader Comments:
For those who think that Obama is our future, consider the fact he will not hold his hand over his heart when the pledge is recited. He will not wear an American Flag on his lapel.
This from his own books:
> >> From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'
>
> >> From Dreams of My Father: 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'
>
> >> From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'
>
> >> From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'
>
> >> From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I had packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'
>
> >> And here's the clincher: (grab on to something when you read this:)
> >> From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'
>
> >> _____________________________________
Is anyone paying attention out there?
Does that mean if elected President he would be partisan with the Muslims? The Blacks? Race discrimination was not a preferred ethic, but neither is reverse discrimination. It's hardly a solution to equality.
And it's in PRINT !
It continues to disappoint me that people, like Anonymous (how appropriate, considering the nature of his/her comments), take quotes out of context - or to just make up lies. I live in Oregon, where the Japanese were herded into concentration - er "relocation" - camps during World War II (even as the German bunds in the midwest collected secrets and sent money to Nazi Germnany - and it still shakes my faith in some Americans that they would want us to do something so perverse and antithetical to what our nation stands for to Muslims that live here now. That is the context for Senator Obama's comment on "stand with the Muslims".
So yes, some of us are reading and listening - and we really wish folls like anonymous would crawl back under their rock and die.
http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/barack-obama-refused-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance-youve-been-played-for-a-daggone-fool/
It was not the pledge you are referring to, it was the national anthem. Do your own thinking next time, don't just believe everything you get in an email. Check out the great site above for the TRUTH, though I assume you're not truly interested in it.
I won't even address the out of context quotes, unless you want me to take some of HRC's quotes (both RFK Assassination references anyone?).
But I thought Obama's campaign was being run by radicals and terrorists.
Ah! Anonymous 1 and the silly neo-con smears, which have been so often debunked.
1. Every time he says the pledge his hand is over his heart. Sometimes when he sings or listens to the national anthem it's not. Just as sometimes Preisdent Bush's and Dick Cheney's is not.
2. He does wear a flag pin. Does McCain? Does Hillary? Happy now?
And as for the rest of of your lies:
3. From Dreams of My Father : "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race." THIS DOES NOT APPEAR IN ANY OF HIS BOOKS. Perhaps if you learned to read, you might know that.
This quote is the words of an unfavorable review by the a book reviewer, Steve Sailer, not Obama. You have the personal opinion of a conservative author and falsely presents it as a confession by Obama. Lie!
4. "From Dreams of My Father: "There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."
Actual quote from "Dreams from My Father" [pgs. 141-142]: Now he was trying to pull urban blacks and suburban whites together around a plan to save manufacturing jobs in metropolitan Chicago. He needed somebody to work with him, he said. Somebody black. ...
He offered to start me off at ten thousand dollars the first year, with a two-thousand-dollar travel allowance to buy a car; the salary would go up if things worked out. After he was gone, I took the long way home, along the East River promenade, and tried to figure out what to make of the man. He was smart, I decided. He seemed committed to his work. Still, there was something about him that made me wary. A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white - he'd said himself that that was a problem."
This edited quote makes it appear as if Obama is left with an unfavorable opinion of someone based on race. The full quote shows that Obama's mention of Marty Kaufman's race is made only after Kaufman raises it as a potential problem in light of his consideration to hire Obama for a job on a community organizing drive.
Obama took the job. "Kaufman" is actually a pseudonym. Obama told Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet that the man's real name was Gerald Kellman, who was Obama's boss at his first job in Chicago as a community organizer at the Calumet Community Religious Conference. Obama worked for him for three years before going on to law school. Kellman has said of Obama: "One of the remarkable things is how well he listens to people who are opposed to him."
5. "From Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."
Actual quote from "Dreams from My Father" [pg. xv]: When people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites), I see the split-second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign. They no longer know who I am. Privately, they guess at my troubled heart, I suppose - the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds. And if I were to explain that no, the tragedy is not mine, or at least not mine alone, it is yours, sons and daughters of Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island, it is yours, children of Africa, it is the tragedy of both my wife's six-year-old cousin and his white first grade classmates, so that you need not guess at what troubles me, it's on the nightly news for all to see, and that if we could acknowledge at least that much then the tragic cycle begins to break down...well, I suspect that I sound incurably naive, wedded to lost hopes, like those Communists who peddle their newspapers on the fringes of various college towns. Or worse, I sound like I'm trying to hide from myself."
On its own, the quote can be interpreted as Obama rejecting his white heritage and, by extension, the entire white population. But, in full context, the statement is part of Obama's assessment of "black or white" individuals' first impressions of him as a person of mixed race.
6. "From Dreams of My Father: "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, Dubois and Mandela."
Actual quote from "Dreams from My Father" [pg. 220]: Yes, I'd seen weakness in other men - Gramps and his disappointments, Lolo and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew - Frank or Ray or Will or Rafiq - fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own - my father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!
You have cut out important words, changing the quote's meaning. Gone is the notion that he "might love" white or brown men. Gone also is that Obama was speaking not of white or brown men generally, but specifically about "these men," his white, maternal grandfather Stanley Dunham and his Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro. The doctored quote makes it appear as though Obama said he would never emulate any white or brown man, based on their race.
Gone as well is Obama's admission that his black friends sometimes "fell short of [the] lofty standards" of black role models like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
7. "From Dreams of My Father : ; "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."
Actual quote from "Dreams from My Father" [pg. 100-101]: To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed necolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated. But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.
On its own, the quote makes Obama appear racially militant. Whereas, in full context, the quote illustrates Obama's confusion over his race and cultural heritage. This is emphasized in the preceding paragraph, where Obama describes himself as someone compensating for insecurity in his "racial credentials."
And your last, nastiest false assertion that he would "stand with the Muslims," HE NEVER SAID THAT. What he actually said is that he would stand with AMERICAN immigrants from Pakistan or Arab countries should they be faced with something like the forced detention of Japanese-American families in World War II:
Actual quote from "The Audacity of Hope" [pg. 261]: Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
He was saying the he would stand with AMERICANS, to ensure their consitutional rights were protected, in the face of misplaced hate from people like you. You and your fellow narrow-minded neocons need to stop spreading lies. It is this sort of hysteria, jingoism and misinformation that led to McCarthyism in the 50's. But this time, decent Americans will be too smart to fall for your hate and fear-mongering. You don't hold the patent on patriotism! And every time you tell these lies, patriotic Americans will stand up and tell the truth!!
MickFinn2001 wants people to die. That's the way Obama supporters normally respond toward anybody criticizing Obama. (See KOS)
Why would anybody want to post much information about themselves online with nutballs like that lurking about?
MickFinn2001 does not sound like a real name by the way. I'd wager that MickFinn2001 does not have a clue about Cook County government.
Peter Oslin
and what about his friend Jim Johnson? Hmmm....
Mr. "O" is same ol' chi town lib politics. Sad we live in a country that is swayed by 20 second sound bites and image consultants, "branding" experts.
Why is all of this being said? The one individual has taken a great deal of time to quote Obama correctly (from his book).
I'll vote for that guy to run our country.
Obamas relationship with the muslims is not just his entire name.. it is a Saudi prince who financed his education through an attorney for OPEC..it is NO wonder at all that Obama does NOT want to drill and says things like he will always stand for the muslims.. it is because he IS for the muslims! Even though islam has declared WAR on freedom and is spreading across the planet like cancer. Obamas "christian" church pastor brags that his masters degree is in ISLAM study rather than biblical scriptures. Obamas "christ" is a mean, cruel, hypocritical, black, vengeful "god" who wants to commit genocides across the world.. hmmm..just like ISLAM. ( see " black liberation theology " and look up NOI ) Obama has learned for the past twenty years or so ..to HATE his own country ....IF IF IF he is even an American citizen! He refuses to produce his birth certificate! No matter..as soon as he is found out whether now or AFTER he is elected ( there are that many stupid Americans willing to NOT look at the truth about this terrible man that WILL vote for him ) to not be an American citizen ..he will be impeached. If Joe Biden has anything to do with helping Obama decieve all of America.. Biden will go down with him, hopefully to jail..just like his own son had some man arrested immediately after he publically accused Obama of using cocaine illegally and having two homosexual trysts ..along with two strange execution styled murders of two young homosexuals near the same time from Obamas church in late 2007 when Obama was very worried about the truth.. as he is now. And he should be. Is this why Biden got the VP nod?????
My opinions only..but I can add two plus two and will accurately come up with the correct answer of four.
I am a Democrat and I will vote to remove all of our toip democrat leadeership soon as possible. They ALL make me sick to my stomach.