You have read before that Obama is inspirational, charismatic, the Black JFK, a unifier, the best hope for this country after the disastrous GWB presidency. I have misplaced my crystal ball and would be hard pressed to confirm all this and to tell if Obama would uplift America, repair the chasms between Red and Blue Americas, America and its allies, give America’s tarnished image abroad a new shine, etc…
What I can do is tell you about the first part of his autobiography “Dreams of my Father”. I offered the book as a Christmas gift to my mom, but ended up being the first one to read it as she was too engrossed with the writing of an article and straightening up my house (Thanks mom !).
The book presents us Obama’s familial background, his Kenyan father, Indonesian stepfather, childhood in Hawaii, teenage years and search of self and Black self, drug use, passage into adulthood, meeting his Kenyan family, being in Africa etc…
I love literate men. I love men who can write beautiful sentences. Obama crafts gorgeous sentences, paragraphs and chapters. I love Obama the writer. I do not know yet Obama the politician, although all the pundits and journalists alike are under the charm. I confess to having been close to tears when listening to his Iowa victory speech. And I am not even American. Charisma does not even begin to describe the man.
The book was written more than 10 years ago, and presumably before Obama even knew he was going to end up facing Queen Hillary during the Democratic primary elections, and so I believe wholeheartedly that this book is essentially honest and candid. It is not a book about setting and protecting one’s legacies as former Presidents’ autobiographies often are about (hint hint, Bill Clinton, who did not inhale, and his verbose two volume autobiography. I used to love the man but his behavior in the past two weeks has been truly undignified for a former statesman and “loholona”.).
The most fascinating chapters in this book are the last ones, when he visits Kenya and meets his paternal relatives. He unveils the mystery of his idealized father and feels grateful to be liberated by the man’s failures. But in particular I was drawn to the passages relating to his being American and black in Africa :
“… beautiful faces that made me understand the transformation that Asante and other black Americans claimed to have undergone after their first visit to Africa. For a span of weeks or months, you could experience the freedom that comes from not feeling watched, the freedom of believing that your hair grows as it’s supposed to grow and that your rump sways the way a rump is supposed to sway. You could see a man talking to himself as just plain crazy, or read about the criminal on the front page of the daily paper and ponder the corruption of the human heart, without having to think about whether the criminal or lunatic said something about your own fate. Here the world was black, and so you were just you, you could discover all those things that were unique to your life without living a lie or committing betrayal. How tempting, I thought to fly away with this moment intact. To have this feeling of ease wrapped up ‘…’ neatly ‘…’ and take it back with me to America to slip on whenever my spirits flagged.”
Throughout the book I find Obama’s modesty striking and quite an appealing feature it is too. I read somewhere on the Internet a review criticizing the book for not shedding a clue of what a man Obama is. I could not believe it. This book tells it all and gives a measure of what a president Obama would be if he were elected. I believe he would be indeed a unifier, having bridged chasms and divides all his life.
Politics and high politics change men.
A good soul in a good man that were there 10 years ago may have gone.
Sometimes, only the body remains, and the heart has forgotten all the good things the eyes have seen.
That’s why politicians **always** deceive people.
DotMG,
Thank you for your comment. This autobiography is essentially non political, written when Obama was fresh out of Harvard Law School. That is one of its many appeals.
I choose to think this way : there are good people with good souls who commit bad actions.
If he really wrote those lines 10 years ago, no offense but 4 words: this is so gay
Don’t get me wrong, he’s good and maybe it’s part of his charismatic talent but I wouldn’t want Andry TGV to show off some like that in 10 years time to come
I think he’s equally as good as Hillary, except that Hillary has more experience and maybe leadership or maybe the other way around as well.
Otherwise, they are both “stupid”, they are actually doing the job for the republicans. Well, democracy is so nice, isn’t it? hu hu hu
I too love literate men with multi-cultural background.
Sure…
I’m refering to Obama, not to my last “intellectual” crush (it makes it easier when you compartiment your feelings!)
…
to please Mialy and show her I’ve read her post from line 0 through line 50 :
- I read Giving from Clinton (duh I can read other stuff than XIXth century’s novel), I don’t understand the change. I was looking for answers on his face but I’m clueless (maybe he really loves his wife)
- from a Canadian perspective I’ll say ” Hoy America beats us ! they managed to have more racial mixity on the politic level”….because…people….Canada is fun and freedom-of-speechful but …our parlment is stil dry white !
- I love Obama’s ears, I hate Hillary’s hair-do, I love the idea of an american president coming from immigration (when it’s not shwarzie !), I hate to ask but ” does Hillary have a heart hidden somewhere in her chest?”
….
Tuesday, Sipakv is posting like crayziee, this is a great week !
Bisouxxxx
Welcome to this blog, Simp. Interesting how one comment can be seen as great and candid and honest by me and completely felt the other way by others. I fail to see why these 10 lines make a gay man out of Obama, but maybe you know something I do not.
As to your comment that Hillary and Obama are doing the jobs of Republicans, this is a line often repeated by Republicans themselves, and I view it as very condescending, almost as condescending as Bill Clinton calling Obama a “fairy tale”, as if a Black man (or a woman) could never be elected President of the United States. Yesterday was Martin Luther King’s day and a special day indeed because some never thought the day would come that a Black man could even be considered a serious contender for the White House.
Jogany,
Yes, I am posting up a storm here. Is it due to the long week-end and extra time on my hands? Lol.
I believe there is hope in this country despite the decried freedom violations and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo : where else in the Western World can you say that a Black man has a serious shot at Presidency? Certainly not France, nor the UK, sorry to say Canada.
Yes, Hillary’s do could be the subject of any entire book. My mom remarked the other day that she had been botoxed. Not sure, but some days she definitely looks better than others. And Bill, why does he look so red in the face nowadays?
que la meilleure gagne !
“I used to love the man but his behavior in the past two weeks has been truly undignified for a former statesman and “loholona””
I could not agree more. Oh my, Billy dear, where did we go wrong ?
Did you catch Barack’s answer to whether Bill was the 1st Black president ?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/22/obama-is-bill-clinton-really-a-brother-id-have-to-see-him-dance/
Barack just has it ( whatever “it” maybe).
que la meilleure gagne
Lova, I think he answered that very loaded question very nicely and graciously, and managed to be funny too at the same time.
I remember reading somewhere that Hillary referred once to her couple as being “interracial”. Of course her audience was black.
Rajiosy : la meilleure? Dois je te rappeler les grands succes d’Hillary :
- le plan catastrophique de reforme de health care
- vote en faveur de la guerre en Irak, Iran
- vote en faveur de la criminalisation du flag burning
Sans Bill, elle ne serait elle non plus que le junior senator de NY, without a solid record at her own name. Reconnaissons le, ceux qui irons voter Hillary seront surtout les nostalgiques de Bill.
Je crois que ces elections verront vraiment le pouvoir electeur des Hispaniques s’affirmer. On l’a deja vu au Nevada. Si les Blancs disent etre prets pour un president noir, du moins en public, je ne suis pas sure que les Latinos soient prets a voter pour un candidat noir.
well, poetry, litterature and what else, some (children plz close your eyes) “crappy” gayish story isn’t the best way for getting laid, is it?
If he wrote those lately, these days, I would understand that from an old man but 10 years ago, come on, he was like 36 back then 
But he can be the president, why not, change we can believe in after all. As long as it’s a democrat, between him and Hillary, it’s like bonet blanc et blanc bonet
(check out the malagasy version of this: tain’omby sy omby tay 
)
Otherwise, I would rather say, it’s true that women hate each other. U would never like her as much as Obama no matter how nice is her hair-do… that’s how God created you guys, can’t help you with that, sorrrrrrryyyyyyy
Let us stay civil and keep vulgarities out of the discussion, please.
So we women are just like that, uh, hating each other? Sexist much, simp ?
Crappy gayish story ? I do not think we read the same thing at all. I will leave it at that.
i’m madly in loooove angelina jolie and not only for her balloony lips, do i sound gay? does gay stories still make people feel insecure in 2007 ?
yes sipakv I’m still proudly wearing my dumb smile . I wish Hillary smile that often so i won’t focus on hating her do anymore…and I still think obama’s ears are funny…is it bad?
Hey,
as far as I’m concerned, I don’t hate him. I even said he’s good for president.
For the gay issue, hard to explain but think of it this way, there are ways normal people (called straight) behaves, and if you don’t really follow that you’re gay, right? I don’t say that he’s really gay as such, but you just call him, dude that’s gay… why do you think people call novelists gay?
and hey, I was putting the quotation marks for the “crappy”, meaning I don’t really find the right word without saying it explicitely. Still you got it wrong, so it was a terrible idea anyway… but I get it, no more uncivilized youngsters behavior around here
and no, I’m not sexist, I’m realistic. Would you like Hillary, if she shaves off all her hair?
je vois que sipakv prend tout ça à coeur
obama : after all he’s just a man, hiranay taloha izany
simp voulait je pense dire que beaucoup de femmes ne sont pas encore prêtes à voter pour une femme ou à pousser une femme à un poste supérieur, j’ai pu le vérifier à plusieurs reprises. il y a toujours une jupe ou un chignon qui cloche. zava-misy izany ka aza atao mahatezitra an ! moi j’en ris, c’est tout.
“that’s how God created you guys, can’t help you with that, sorrrrrrryyyyyyy
”
That comment is , at best, careless; at worst, it is loaded with prejudice. Adding a smile at the end of the comment does not make it less “unfunny”.
Replace “you guys” with a race/countrymen of your choice in that sentence and see how it sounds.
Les femmes ne sont pas pretes a voter pour des femmes ? En tout cas, les femmes semblent voter en bloc pour Hillary.
Je suis une femme qui prefere Obama. Le chignon ou la jupe n’ont rien a y voir.
Avant de lire Dreams of my father, je n’avais pas de preference, j’entendais juste dire qu’Obama etait the Big Thing. Plus que les discours ou les CVs et les experiences et les connections, le livre et l’auteur m’ont seduite.
lova,
the fact is that you simply can’t stand each other…
sure, I actually said the prejudice before that, women “hate” each other. Have you heard about the myth: vinanto-rafozana, which side would you take?
and the funny part is that you guys are gonna deny it so much but ending up doing it again
As for the rest, if you play with words, the nicest thing you said can be turned into the worst so …, and there will always thousands of reasons to say smth is bad so I’m just sorry if I hurted your feelings that much. (plz notice that I didn’t put any smiley there)
btw, is it me or there is a woman league fighting every guy passing by, around here?
sipakv,
Hillary a aussi ecrit un livre, tu l’as deja lu aussi??
ceci dit, il parrait q’Obama etait super hier soir sur CNN. Mon point de vue d’en haut etait q, c koi la difference entre lui et Hillary du moment q c democrate? bon d’accord, il faut vraiment un seul candidat mais bon, au fond ils sont et devraient etre le meme, ie representer l’ideologie/point de vue democrate
Simp, my dear friend, just for the record and because this conversation is obviously going nowhere, I may not be as manly as yourself, but I am what you call “one of the guys”. The fact that you assumed I was a woman is all I need to know about your enlightened point of view.
:-)
Lively discussion. As lively as yesterday’s, according to the news reports. But Lova is right, it is not going anywhere. And so yes, let us leave it at that.
cool
but can you pass the message to my dear friend lova that his dude membership might be seriously revoked
“Les femmes ne sont pas pretes a voter pour des femmes ?” : beaucoup de femmes, beaucoup de femmes…
pour une fois que j’étais féministe !
ah, mais est-ce vraiment Hillary qui t’a converti au feminisme, Rajiosy, ou est ce que tu as simplement la nostalgie de Bill?
réalisme, réalisme ! au bout d’un certain temps on s’aperçoit que “l’enfer est pavé de bonnes intentions”, de très bonnes intentions. “mon coeur est plein d’amour pour ce pays” c’est trop beau pour être vrai. Comme le charme et l’éloquence du gars, c’est utile pour gagner des élections mais pas pour tenir l’Empire qui nécessite non pas tant d’autres qualités mais surtout d’autres défauts que notre bel ange nous “cache” encore ? et puis aller discuter “sans conditions” avec Ahmadinejad qui nargue et qui ne veut que la destruction de l’amérique relève de la légèreté à mon sens. à mon avis, Condi Rice par exemple, est plus apte à négocier (ou a plus de c…) avec ce genre de lascar qu’un idéaliste comme B. Obama. toujours mon féminisme primaire
)). Ceci étant dit, mon propos n’est pas de te faire changer d’avis. Je ne nourris aucune passion vis-à-vis de cette élection. “Izay tonga eo dia raisina” ho anay na républicain aza satria tsy sûr hoe démocrate no handresy @ farany. Mais selon moi, l’amérique a le devoir d’assumer son statut d’empire dominant avec tout ce que cela implique…
Condi Rice face a Ahmadinejad? Encore une sur qui bien d’espoirs reposaient et qui a fait une bien pietre Secretaire d’Etat… Je me rappelle une conversation avec un taximan noir ici a DC. Il la detestait tellement que c’etait comique: “She think she white !”, il m’a repete vingt fois. Apparemment un sentiment tres repandu dans la communaute noire.
Mais Rajiosy, je ne vais guere changer d’avis et je suis loin de dire comme toi que izay tonga eo dia raisina. Pour la premiere fois de ma vie, je vais pouvoir voter ! Yay ! Ca m’ecoeure de voir Bill Clinton descendre aussi bas, le “hit man” comme disent maintenant les journaux, un homme qui ne renoncera a rien pour revenir au pouvoir? Il avait reussi a avoir un modicum de respectabilite pourtant, loin des scandales sexuels, etc… Heck, on chuchotait meme qu’il etait devenu copain avec George Bush Senior.
Plus que tout ca m’attriste de voir un homme bien comme Obama se faire ecraser par la machine destructrice clintonienne, d’autant plus que la negativite instillee par Hillary et Bill dans cette campagne risque fort de diviser le party democrate pour le long terme, tout comme 8 ans de Hillary et Bill a la Maison Blanche ont divise ce pays.
What if … Al Gore was candidate?
DotMg, if Al Gore was a candidate, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. Highly improbable though, isn’t it?
very unlikely, he found his “nouveau jou-jou”, fighting global warming and, maybe, ultimately world peace
too bad that Obama hasn’t the guts to take over the world, and Hillary has no guts at all 
anyway, he didn’t have much of a chance after he was defeated by Bush in 2000 so… at least he’s got the Nobel prize, Bush got the terrorist prize, they made the glory of America
what if… Hillary or Obama dies?
would it be alqaeda?
I see. So B. Clinton wants to win back some kind of relevance. Somehow I thought that he was excessively driven because he wanted to make it up to his wife for previous misdeeds.
@Simp,
you really should do all of us a favor and spare yourself the embarrassment with your nonsense. Is Simp short for “simple d’esprit” ?
well, I don’t know, I thought the you shooting at me for “some reasons” was over, wasn’it?
I guess what you’re saying is that alqaeda is behind all of this, or maybe Iran? oh gosh, alqaeda is behind Bill clinton, an han, that explains everything:P U know how alqaeda likes to protect their wives… this is so embarassing, I got a T-shirt signed by him
btw, how was the manucure?
seriously, what’s it to you?
Calm down guys, calm down…
“(…) ca m’attriste de voir un homme bien comme Obama (…)” : il n’y a pas de quoi être triste car il n’y a pas d’homme bien en politique. et s’il y en avait, il ne faut pas l’élire, il faut l’éviter comme la peste ! un naïf à la Maison Blanche ? les saints ne sont pas faits pour diriger un pays comme les Etats-Unis. pour s’occupper des pauvres à Calcutta, oui.
Les hommes bien qui ont une vision differente de ce que le monde devrait etre, je suis sure que ca existe, et je comprends ton raisonnement, Rajiosy, qu’ils ne devraient peut etre pas acceder au pouvoir. Mais ne peut -on pas etre un homme bien sans etre naif?
Un leader visionnaire, bien entoure et conseille par un staff experimente et roue … Tout serait possible… J’en reve…
Rajiosy,
too bad!
Hillary va encore paniquer apres ce resultat mediocre
on dirai q je te porte la poisse ou koi?
sipakv,
oui en effet tt est possible mais disons q c peu probable…
par exemple moi aussi je souhaite la paix dans le monde, j’en reve
ne vivant pas aux states. Je suis très mal placée pour apporter mon jugement sur la politique américaine.
En toute objectivité, Hillary, pardon Billary a tellement d’expérience qu’elle(ils ?) a voté la guerre en irak…
Enfin bref, je n’aime pas trop hillary, je n’aime pas la femme qui a tellement d’ambition présidentielle qu’elle a poussé son mari à se porter candidat. On connaît la suite…
La femme qui après le scandale lewinsky est restée avec son mari, je crois toujours à cause de son ambition présidentielle. On sait tous que les américains tiennent compte du statut marital d’un candidat.
Et surtout, cette façon qu’a Bill de s’insérer dans la campagne. Lasa raharaham-pianakaviana ilay izy…. Mety hilatsaka koa ve chelsea indray andro any?
Je suis pro Obama, il a un charisme qui est un grand atout pour lui pour mettre les électeurs dans sa poche. Et je crois que même l’Amérique a besoin de sang neuf
.
Maintikely,
Il y a un article dans le New York Times qui plaisante que si on devait elire le president uniquement sur la base de l’experience, Dick Cheney ferait le meilleur president…
Personne ne peut savoir exactement ce qui a motive Hillary pour rester avec Bill apres Lewinsky etc… mais j’aime penser qu’elle n’est pas restee avec lui que par ambition. Nous verrons, n’est ce pas, si jamais elle est elue president et si elle l’envoie effectivement promener, nous aurons la reponse a cette question.
Bill a fait de l’exces de zele, je suis tout a fait d’accord avec toi. Ca semble s’etre retourne contre lui. Les electeurs ne sont pas des imbeciles. Souvent ils le sont, mais pas en South Carolina, apparemment.
L’Amerique a besoin de sang neuf, et le parti democrate a historiquement ete assez averse aux empecheurs de tourner en rond : remember Howard Dean?
Moi ce que j’attends avec impatience, c’est l’annonce par Al Gore qu’il soutient Barack Obama !
oui j’attends cela aussi. Il paraît que les kennedy vont aussi lui apporter son soutien.
Oui c’est sûr que son ambition n’est pas la seule à pousser hilary à rester avec bill après l’épisode lewinsky, mais je pense que cela a beaucoup compté
enfin bref, attendons la suite
fanga mbola tsy vita ihany ny resaka ato????
ay moa mbola misy 1 an…kay lééé ahona raha ohatra simp sy lova manao match kely ao @ FBC? tsy tinareo ve?? zay makony mitady bastonneur fa i pakysse sy tnr efa à court d’arguments ka lasa mifampinamana dray!…
Mialy for some (weird and very “you know what I mean”) reason I HATE YOU! ok well i’m jealous…schniiff
ok je fais la grève de ton blog now
hahaha
tsy miady zany 
zay ol hendry be kou
On attend impatiament le supertuesday, sao d tokony asiana what if kely alou
SuperTuesday s’annonce chaud chaud chaud.
L’ecart Obama-Clinton se retrecit en Californie. Check out this Gallup poll : http://www.gallup.com/poll/election2008.aspx
hi
dv5k08vbbvsil9f2
good luck
Действительно, на самом деле все очень просто