Obama's father forced out at Harvard

I know, it's from politico, and I'm sure the new talking point for the repubs..... UGH..... :puke:

President Barack Obama’s father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.

Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., “until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him,” immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.

Harvard administrators, the memo stated, “were having difficulty with his financial arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.”

An earlier INS memo from McKeon said that while the elder Obama had passed his exams and was entitled on academic grounds to stay and complete his thesis, the school was going to try and “cook something up to ease him out.”

“They are planning on telling him that they will not give him any money, and that he had better return to Kenya and prepare his thesis at home,” the memo stated.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53968.html#ixzz1L6iF1TGR

The only thing I get from this story is I'm impressed Obama had a father who was accepted at Harvard. This is a non-story and I'm surprised it was even published.

nor should anyone else be held accountable for their parents.

First, he left in 1964. If he was a ne'er do well, it has nothing to do with his baby son.
Unless of course people really do believe in "sins of the father".

The only people who look bad are the INS and maybe Harvard, although they say there are no records of this action.

....that he was black.

Imagine an elite university trying to "cook something up" on a black man in 1964.

:puke:

they basically had him deported by "cooking something up to ease him out" of Harvard after he had completed his course work but not received his PhD. Wonder what the real story is. Because they thought he had 2 wives? They were going to cut off his money? Sounds racist to me.

It just makes Harvard look bad. I doubt that they actually "believed" he might have multiple wives, that was just an excuse for their prejudice.

from the grave and hired her to write for them.

Shocked I Tell You!



:sarcasm:

I do.

A lot of people couldn't take the harassment.

occasionally. My son looks quite Anglo and there were times my ex was afraid to go out in public with him because people couldn't believe they were related.

FWIW, our marriage broke up because he cheated--but it was definitely an underlying tension from the day we started seeing each other.

:rofl:

it just can't be a punchline

Didn't think so.

nt

"illegitimate".

What a fracking stupid word and concept.

at that precise time. If this is true, it could have been political. And it has nothing to do with the president.

overthrow of FDR!

Shall we hold our collective breath waiting for the public outrage about that?

yesterday about that story. They said Harvard did not confirm that any of that took place.

Shit, there is a guy who got a damned reality tv show to go public about his "Sister Wives", and his elderly father's two wives were featured as well. The elderly father is a prominent rancher in a western state, no less - republican country.

As for personal finance issues, don't quite a few students at all levels complain about being broke - I thought it was a rite of passage for us students, present and past, even at various levels of economic security; there are plenty of wealthy kids who are delivered an IVY league spot on a platter, who make a serious freaking muck of the financial plenty that the life lottery awarded them upon birth.

Oh....wait....the people I mentioned above as examples were all white. So basically, white guys can have "personal issues including multiple wives" even though there are laws against such practices in this country, and have financal problems for which Suze Orman has a show tailored to their needs, but if your skin color is black, then such behavior won't net you a reality show. It will cause a prestigious university to "cook up a story" to get your otherwise academically qualified self kicked out.

Politico is just showing that it was a white guy's world back then, if not still today in the minds of some backwards looking racist Americans. This isn't news to most people.

eom

It concerns Obama's father, not Obama himself.. Obama did graduate from Harvard, and with honors. Of course, the righties will take this and run with it, now that their birther argument has been destroyed.. anything to discredit Obama..

Poor Ann Dunham. She was obviously such a strong woman. To learn she might be a second bigamous wife must have been awful.

Politico's source is a podunk paper from a VERY red area of Arizona (and I AM a Zonie, fwiw).

Here's link to the Arizona Independent's EDITORIAL:
http://www2.az-independent.com/2011/04/30/commentary-boston-globes-big-secret/

I've always called BS on Politico. I'm doing it again.

and George W. Bush's wife was driving when a fatal accident happened,
and neither of these two facts were Main Stream media worthy when
Bush was running his re-election campaign.

Why?

What I will say is that this story actually provides the evidence that Pres Obama
may have gotten into Harvard for a multitude of reason, not simply due to Affirmative
Action (not that there would be anything wrong with that anyways).
Since his father had gone there...which along with good grades from Columbia, a winning personality
(which is important in the interview process when applying to Harvard), a resume that
displayed Barack's willingness to give back (something Harvard seeks for graduate school candidates),
as well as Harvard's quest for diversity....sounds like Barack Obama II was exactly the kind
of student Harvard actively recruits.

i'd suspect a political angle if indeed he was "forced out".

he started at harvard in 62 & left with an ma/am in 65.

"forced out" = not accepted for phd?

what is this crap?

On a rapid check on readily-available biographical information, most recent presidents had very unsatisfactory fathers. Reagan's father was alcoholic and didn't treat his family well; the same is true for Clinton's stepfather (his biological father died before he was born). Gerald Ford's mother divorced his father after he threatened her with a butcher knife. Nixon's father is also said to have been abusive. Of recent presidents, only Carter seems to have had a completely satisfactory father. So why treat Obama's father as a subject for such special concern?

In any case, Harvard in the early 60s was not necessarily immune to racism affecting its judgments.

So what if Obama Senior got in trouble while he was at Harvard? It's old history, water that not only the bridge over the Charles River, but water diluted to droplets in the world's oceans. Barrack Obama was only three when Obama Senior was at Harvard; considering how very little contact Barrack had with his father, I fail to see what relevancy his father's behavior at Harvard has on the President's fitness to remain in office.

Anyone care to discuss Buckaroo Bush's academic transcripts while he was at Harvard Business School?