One of the sillier Obama rumors going around questions whether Barack Obama ever graduated from Columbia. The primary arguments are that (1) supposedly no one remembers him, and (2) Obama's picture is not in the yearbook.
This rumor is easy to explain and debunk:
1. Contrary to some assertions, Obama was indeed remembered by both some Columbia students and some Columbia faculty. Transfer students, especially ones living off campus, are seldom as well known as people who bonded with their freshman classmates.
2. Some yearbooks do not have individual pictures of the graduating class; it is not known whether Columbia at the time had such a practice.
3. When he applied to Harvard Law School, Obama would have filled out a form directing Columbia to submit his transcript to the Law School Data Assembly Service. The LSDAS would have computed his combined undergraduate GPA from both Occidental and Columbia and sent it to law schools, including Harvard, along with his LSAT score, and an index combining his GPA and LSAT. Since Obama applied in 1987-88, when he was living in Chicago, long after he left Columbia in 1983, the transcript would have had to have shown that he graduated for Harvard to admit him.
4. Even if Obama had somehow claimed that he was still atending Columbia when he applied to Harvard in 1987-88, I'm certain that Harvard would have required of Obama what was required of me when I was admitted to the University of Chicago during my last year at Yale College: proof of graduation by the start of first-year law classes.
Thus, it makes no sense to imagine that Obama would have been admitted to Harvard Law School without graduating from Columbia. And it would have been impossible for him to claim falsely that he had graduated if he really hadn't, since Columbia would have submitted his transcript to the Law School Data Assembly Service, which would then have sent it on to Harvard before they considered his application for admission.
2. It's important to debunk false claims made, as I did in June on the Michelle Obama "whitey tape" rumor. My debunking of that, which marked a tipping point on opposition to it, was featured prominently on Obama's own website. Those bloggers who debunked other ridiculous rumors (e.g., Obama was not born in the US; McCain is not a natural born citizen) deserve praise -- or at least silence -- not insults.
3. I'm hoping that, after the election, people will regain their sanity and become more serious than dismissive when people post trying to understand who President Obama is.
Jim Lindgren
McCain's circumstances are not a rumor at all, let alone a ridiculous one, it's the legal conclusion derived from those circumstances that some people have argued about. There's no dispute about his birth date, or the fact he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Some have suggested legal arguments to the effect that McCain isn't eligible for the presidency because of his date and place of birth but however weak such arguments may be, they're arguments, not rumors.
An odd rumor to debunk, but praise worthy nonetheless.
While I agree the rumor's probably silly, I'm not sure this argument against it works; Obama could have graduated from some lesser school, been admitted to HLS, and now be falsely claiming to have graduated from Columbia.
The posting at Protein Wisdom is implausible on its face - there's is no reason to believe that Obama "hung around" with people who planted bombs. It's also silly - academic fraud was not exactly the Weather Underground's style (and in the early 80s they were rather preoccupied with getting arrested).
Obama's explanation - that he was working so hard he was "like a monk" at Columbia is plausible on its face.
Persisting with this kind of argument looks a little unhinged.
Didn't he say in one of his books that he worked with the Sanctions against South African Apartheid groups while at Columbia. Hardly low profile.
Like his Health records, I find it strange that he didn't release his Columbia transcripts.
That's not the point.
I keep getting forwarded e-mails from my parents that say that Obama was born in Kenya, he took the oath of office with the Koran, he is a muslim, hates America, he's bestest buds with Billy Ayers, he lied about whether he attended Wright's church, etc.
I have debunked each of these claims point by point. The last e-mail from my Mom had 13 separate easily falsifiable lies. When I asked her why she believes lie #14 from e-mail correspondents who lied 13 times before, she said "There are so many things, there must be something there. I have never heard so much bad stuff about a candidate before. Something's fishy."
These claims are targeted at the low-information voter and are designed to give remnant racism a morally palatable "reason" to vote against Obama - even if the person can't name one of McCain's positions on the actual issues.
I feel badly for McCain - if he does manage to pull out a victory tomorrow it will be on the backs of racists and idiots. (NB to McCain supporters: yes, yes, I know YOU have good issue-based reasons to support McCain - I'm talking about the idjits who are "undecided" today and will go to the polls and vote for the white guy.
This makes me sad - I like McCain and think he'd be a reasonably competent president. I just don't like how he is going to win.
Concur. As with the Aunt living in Boston, more transparency would help. The records of the opposing ticket have been traversed with a fine-toothed comb and a magnet; why not Senator Obama's?
Has any other presidential candidate's wife been falsely accused of such inflammatory speech, when absolutely no such evidence exists?
A vicious rumor accused Kitty Dukakis of burning the American flag in a protest march. No evidence of the incident ever surfaced.
ef, do you realize how crazy you sound, despite pretending to be moderately weighing the evidence? The idea that Bill Ayers/SDS have a significant amount of influence with university registrar's offices, at Columbia, no less, is batshit insane. These are the people who butted heads with university administration at every single opportunity. There is no way they had enough influence to get a transcript forged. The Manchurian Candidate bullshit has got to stop.
(2) I also personally wish to debunk the story that John McCain and Sarah Palin routinely torture kittens and puppies while watching child pornography. As far as I can tell, there is no truly convincing evidence supporting these charges.
As Hawkins says, anyone who accuses Obama supporters of crying racism at everything is simply pretending not to hear the dog-whistles.
Hello? Sarah Palin has been accused of faking a pregnancy--possibly wearing a "pregnancy suit"--and pretending to give birth in order to cover up her daughter's pregnancy. She was accused of this not by commentators on obscure blogs, but by a writer for The Atlantic, who went on, ad nauseam, to demand that she release her gynecological records. (We can't evaluate breeder candidates, apparently, unless we have medical evidence about what's been in and out of their vaginas.) So I don't think it's McCain's supporters who are the nutty ones.
I definitely don't recall any Obama supporters, here or elsewhere, stating how offensively insane the rumors in The Atlantic about Gov. Palin were, but maybe I missed it. hawkins, got a cite for us on that?
Bill Ayers and his wife were flat out evil killers, and the academic world set them up with great high level jobs. Ayer's wife, Dohrn, can't get a law license because she is so evil, but she sure can be a professor of law at a top ten law school.
The same story plays over and over. Black panthers ran around killing folks? Give them all professorships as soon as they get released. Any left wing group killed folks? Free professorships, no matter what they did and no matter what academic quals they have.
Is it too much to believe that a working man having seen this happen his whole life, hears 1) that several years are missing from Obama's life while 2) he was working with and for the 60s loons, 3) that his time at Columbia is a secret, and 4) all of the sudden he got into HLS, 5) on review, and 6) a free professorship at Chicago law, all 7) while his political masters Ayers and Wright held his hand evey step of the way....is it too much for that working man to conclude the academic system was rigged yet again?
That he hasn't done so speaks volumes to me, and it should speak volumes to everyone who reads this blog. He can't apply for a job without providing those transcripts, except apparently, for the position of President of the United States. For Obama supporters, his grades are just a 'distraction'.....as is every other question about his fitness for the office.
Dear God, you wouldn't hire anyone for your law office without getting their transcripts (and bar exam grades), why would you vote for some one who won't provide them?
Obama supporters are uninformed racists, happy to vote for a man simply because of the color of his skin. Unwilling to simply ignore the content of his character, they insist that it isn't even an issue worthy of examination.
Release his grades!!! Unless there is something to hide, of course.
The post on this issue, like the previous comments, only obscures the issues. What were his grades at Columbia and Harvard, and why haven't they been released?
Any answers to those questions? (crickets chirping)
The claim is not mine, nor do I endorse or otherwise claim merit to the argument. My comment was only made to point out that the claims by the OP do not directly refute those made by Goldstein or others. I had hoped that the phrasing f my comment would make such clear.
The real questions are whether Palin's administering a taser shock to a kitten is in fact "torture" - Palin believes otherwise - and if national Republican leadership is correct that the use of simulated children in the pron makes otherwise indecent material into legal speech.
But that's exactly the problem! Vicious rumors are part of every election and persist even when there isn't an election in sight. Many Obama supporters attempt to insulate their candidate from criticisms both worthwhile and spurious by casting them as racism - look to the whole "socialism means he's black" meme circulating among left blogs. The "dog whistle" only exists when you attempt to cast Obama as unique in being on the receiving end of these rumors rather than a predictable recipient.
And Obama hasn't released any proof he's a human being. I think this speaks volumes! It's simple to just go to a doctor and get a certificate you're not an evil alien trying to take us over. Why hasn't he done that?
I think the answer is clear as the domestic beer no one owes Orin.
Amen.
Most of my friends weren't in my year group, and I'd be hard-pressed to remember any of those in my year group. I actually have gone to 1981 reunions because I know more folks in the 81 year group than any other!
I agree, and I appreciate your work in this regard.
However, when I pointed out (here and here) that you had quoted York quoting McCain's spokesman making a false claim, this resulted in no correction or comment. I find that disappointing.
You seem to be implying the McCain released his health records. Trouble is, he didn't. He let some reporters look at them for a few hours, under very restricted conditions.
You also seem to be implying that other candidates have released transcripts. Wrong. Bush never voluntarily released his college transcript. It was leaked. See here.
Kerry did eventually release his transcript, as part of releasing his military records.
Candidates Bush and Kerry did not voluntarily release their college records. With Bush, it wasn't voluntary, and with Kerry, it only happened after he was no longer a candidate.
By the way, have you seen McCain's transcript? Or Palin's?
---------------------------------------
bdog:
I guess that means you won't be voting for McCain and Palin.
And I think Nader and Barr haven't released their transcripts, either.
By "more transparency," I guess you mean more suspicious leaks of government information on the eve of an election?
I thought your post was satire, but then I realized it was you.
Please show your proof that Ayers ever killed anyone.
When I was an undergrad, Yale Law caused a stir by admitting someone who not only had no college degree but had no college credits at all. It made the NY Times in 1994:
No College Credits, and No Problem
The article goes on to say:
"With 36,000 matriculants admitted each year at 176 law schools, maybe one student every 5 to 10 years is admitted with only a year or two of work toward a bachelor's degree," said James P. White, for 20 years the chief consultant on legal education to the American Bar Association and the acknowledged doyen in the field."
While there is probably a better chance of winning the lottery, with Obama's luck you never know. University of Chicago Law School reportedly offered him a full tenured professorship despite have little to no record of distinguished legal scholarship:
Inside Professor Obama’s Classroom
I'd be curious what Lindgren makes of that.
You're calling a majority of Americans uniformed racists? Love it or leave it, pal.
Anonymouse Troll:
Re "torture," you make a good point. The Constitution isn't a suicide pact, after all. But again, I personally don't have any actual proof of what particular "stressful" acts McCain and Palin are performing on kittens and puppies while watching child pornography. Thus, while the issue may raise some questions about their judgment, in the end I think it would be best if people stopped talking about it.
Obama supporters contend it it worse. Few Presidential candidates are called foreign terrorist traitor manchurian candidates. Few are smeared by being accused of being a religion not their own in the face of all evidence, few have their birth circumstances seriously questioned, their educational records, etc. Few are attacked on spurious connections ranging from the absurd to the other-guy-is-as-closely-connected.
Maybe it's just that the Rove-era Republicans have never been losing so badly they had to dip this deep into the cesspool, and had Kerry been up 5-10 points the same type of garbage would have come out. Nevertheless, for whatever reason the McCain campaign has been significantly dirtier than the Bush, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dole, and Bush I campaigns. Desperation, tactical purpose, or racism? You make your call, but none of those three are unreasonable.
"Even more unusual is Chicago’s claim that Barack Obama was offered a fully tenured position. The University of Chicago is one of the most elite law schools in the country, and it would be extremely rare for the law school to offer a tenure-track position to someone without any legal scholarship, much less one with tenure. The course materials and examination questions prepared by then-Professor Obama demonstrate a deep and nuanced command of the law, but for that to have resulted in an offer to the tenured or even tenure-track faculty, the normal course (indeed, nearly the only course) is for that command of legal subjects to have first manifested itself into published articles."
Does anyone no which is more rare:
1) Admission to an elite law school without a college degree
2) Offership of immediate full tenure (not just tenure-track) to an elite law school with no published scholarship
I am pretty sure Harvard Law could waive its normal requirement for an undergraduate degree if it chose to. I have no idea if Obama graduated or not from Columbia. McCain says he graduated 894 out of 898 in the Naval Academy. Why would a presidential candidate not release his undergraduate records? At age 47, what possible reason could he have? This does not strike you as very odd, regardless of the reason?
Isn't it disconcerting that our potential next president exhibits such peculiar behavior over so minor an issue? If you ran a business and asked a candidate to provide his transcripts and he said "no", would you hire him? This is pretty obvious, isn't it?
It is not whether we can create a hypothetical path of logic to show he must have graduated that is the issue. The issue is that a candidate for president won't provide such an innocuous document to begin with.
Why is that not a bright red flag?
Mike Rulle
In previous campaigns we've had a national press doing that job. This year most seem to be wearing wetsuits for some reason, and can't or won't find time between Fairbanks trips to resolve other trifling ambiguities.
In 1981, while a student there herself, Barbara Ransby, a prominent UIC professor who wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune supporting Wm. Ayers, was the founder of a group at Columbia called Coalition for a Free South Africa. It was the group responsible for eventually getting Columbia to divest from South Africa.
Barbara Ransby is a well-known author of the book, "Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision," a book that has citations everywhere (just google it). The New York Times either did not interview her, THE 1981 founder of Columbia's anti-apartheid group, or did but did not cite her, a well-known author. Either way, it's a huge red flag for me.
Many Americans would consider Ransby controversial and radical, considering her membership and/or support for rabidly anti-Israel groups like End the Occupation (along with Rashid Khalidi, BTW), Black Radicals for Obama, and MDS.
If you’re a candidate trying to convince all Americans, not just the far left who don’t think those associations present any problem, that you’re not a far-left guy, the last thing you going to do is to let people investigate your Columbia friends and associates. Not when they’ve simply moved on to other far-left, actually socialistic or authoritarian causes. Not when you’ve already got other people like Rev Wright in your corner.
It's a lot safer to have Ben LeBolt, your spokesperson, say "He doesn’t remember the names of a lot of people in his life." Uh-huh. You know what? I'm not buying it.
But you see, that would establish (or not) that he was in a specific place at a specific time. The other folks who took Poli Sci 101 at that time would be able to corroborate that claim (or not) - unless the presence of a tall, handsome, articulate African-American was eminently forgettable...
Most of my friends weren't in my year group, and I'd be hard-pressed to remember any of those in my year group.
Um, any of them running for President right now?
I think I'd remember someone from one of my classes umpteen years ago if they subsequently became internationally famous.
The VC successfully demonstrated awhile ago that Obama was NOT offered tenure at U of Chicago despite a thin publication record.
I thought your post was satire, but then I realized it was you.
Please show your proof that Ayers ever killed anyone.
You must be a pretty good lawyer. 'Prove my clients, while CEO and controller, of the company, had knowledge of the option backdating they approved.'
Okay, I will play. Professor Bill Ayers, while head of the WUO, directed the murder of Sgt McDonnell (and blinded officer Fogarty).
The 'townhouse explosion' took place while his team was assembling the nail bomb to be used to kill non-commissioned offcers and their families at the Fort Dix NCO dance. The scumbag was going to attack enlisted families.
His group also bombed many other times, and only through the grace of God were more people not killed.
I suppose this means her pregnancy was faked, plus she has VD, plus she procured an abortion, plus she has scurvy. And a sex-change operation.
Fair is fair.
Two things occur to me. One is that it is implicitly wrong, somehow, to presume that something which is not demonstrably true must still be believed as if it were demonstrably true. Yes, he did graduate from Columbia. To say otherwise is to be mean or something. Would that be applied to McCain or Palin? Not on this board.
The other thing is that the debunking is framed as "would have", or would have had to. Or, implicitly, couldn't have not happened because it has to happen normally. This sort of "proof" is normally considered unfounded speculation.
Sounds like Prof. Lindgren has been Stockholmed to the point of going 'way out on a limb to show he really is a nice guy.
Thanks for link. I should've know better than to rely on a single source especially when thay source is Jodi Kantor of the NY Times.
If people are no longer dismissive of the racist, xenophobic, Islam-hating, disingenuous bullshit that passes for serious discussion about "who President Obama is," that will be a sad day.
I'm hoping that, after the election, people on your side will regain their sanity and make the paranoid conspiracy theorists find their own party. If not, Obama will have no serious opposition. And everyone can use rational, serious opposition.
Mad Max: "Um, any of them running for President right now?
"I think I'd remember someone from one of my classes umpteen years ago if they subsequently became internationally famous."
Unless someone made an impression when you "knew them when", there's no reason to suppose they'd have become any more memorable simply because they became famous later on.
I went to the same high school as Dan Brown--as in "The Da Vinci Code" ("internationally famous" enough for you?). In fact, his dad taught math there and I was a good friend of his (that is, of Richard Brown, the dad). He (Dan) was two years behind me, so he'd have been a sophomore when I was a senior. It's even possible that his dad introduced us at some point.
Nevertheless, I have absolutely no recollection of him from our time together.
Next in line is the silly Internet rumor that Obama's for compulsory universal service.
Will those who denied them say, "Oops. Stupid me. I apologize, especially for all the nasty names I called you guys."?
Or, "So? So what? What difference does it make that he [pick two] or didn't [pick two]? Huh? Just exactly what difference does it make?"?
Or. "Suckers!! Chumps!!"
Here's a clue:
fortyninerdweet:
Have you seen McCain's transcript? Palin's? Why aren't you calling for the release of those transcripts?
I'll be happy to. I'll also apologize to the "9/11 was an inside job" nut cases if they ever prove their wild ass conspiracy theories. Same goes for the chupacabra people, the "Hillary killed Vince Foster" people, and the "Queen of England is a reptilian shape shifter" folks.
McDonnell's death is an unsolved crime. No one was ever arrested. If you can prove otherwise, please do so.
Still waiting for you to show your proof that Ayers ever killed anyone.
Wrong. According to Dean Fischel as quoted by Jodi Kantor, Obama was indeed offered tenure:
VC never proved that this report is wrong.
He has taken all he was given and accomplished next to nothing with it, and he is farther left than McGovern and Dukakis put together. That's the reason he should be voted down, not nonsense like this.
Gosh, that's funny. See here:
That's a lot of stuff I haven't heard McCain deny. And it would be so easy to do so. I was an undecided voter before this thread, but now I'm not sure I can vote for McCain.
I think the problem is that this blog has "conspiracy" in its title, so you get all the idiots - the 9/11 Truthers, etc. Now, you get the crazies of the political persuasion.
I'm sure the hit count of VC has gone up, but at what cost? When the election is over and the Conspirators try to go back to posting about legal issues, will these idiots go away? Or will they fill the comments with "Did you hear President Obama kills babies?"
Poole-Rosenthal scores show that Obama is roughly at the center of his party.
Sorry, it's already been done: "Ohio Christians !against! baby-murdering Muslims for president."
I guess I'm too clever for you.
My supposition is that some of these rumors may be true--I have no idea and being told that I must believe they are not, absent evidence or be a meanie is not convincing--and that many of his supporters know, believe, or hope they are true because they want what the rumors hint.
They do want to wuss out on the WOT. They do want to use the government to shut down speech which bothers the left. They do want to socialize the nation. They do want to bankrupt the coal industry. They do want to make the public ed system more left-indoc than it currently is. They do want the mandatory voluntary public service. I say this because I know, personally, people who want each of these things. Emphasis on "personally". Heard them say it.
Some of them are cagey enough to know that you can't sell this stuff on the open market. So they deny.
Thus, if any of the rumors to those effects are proven true, I rather doubt PC will actually apologize. He'll be laughing too hard.
Its hard to go against a direct quote like the one from Fischel, but it just flies in the face of everything else I have heard here from the people who were also involved in that decision. From my understanding Obama almost certainly would have gotten a tenure-track offer (but no such vote was ever officially made) and people I spoke to were confident he had the intelligence to produce scholarship and get tenure... but it just didn't happen.
And even Fischel's quote does not mean Obama actually got a tenured offer. Read it closer: all Fischel is saying is that he would have given Obama a tenured offer and he was confident the faculty would approve. But the faculty never voted on it, so the offer was never approved, and thus Obama never actually received a tenure offer.
Another thing from that article that I find a little surprising (but not improbable): a job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic? Wow. Perhaps directing one project within the clinic or maybe serving in some secondary administrative role in the clinic? I could see that, but directing the whole clinic? I'm pretty sure the job of Director of the clinic went from Randolph Stone to Abner Mikva... and I find it hard to believe they would give the job to someone who had previously been an Associate Dean at the college... but perhaps I'm wrong.
Why are there no pictures of her eating limes? This raises questions that the MSM really should ask.
Which rumors? That Obama is a secret Muslim? That he is a commie Manchurian Candidate? He was born in Kenya? That the SDS and Weather Underground modified his Columbia University transcripts so he could get into Harvard Law?
I heard a rumor that Gov. Palin wants women to die from botched, back alley abortions. I heard a rumor that John McCain wants poor people to die from lack of health care.
Do you mean dishonest rumors like those? btw, when you say you have "personally" heard people that want "those" things, I've "personally" heard people that want to imprison Americans "they" consider to be un-American.
What's your point?
And there's lots of proof to back up those claims. You just have to know where to look:
Well, that's a useful addition to this debate.
I think you're doing some hairsplitting.
True. I should have said that VC convinced me that the report [of Chicago's offer of tenured position to Obama] is wrong. The issue didn't affect my vote one way or the other, though.
I have no doubt that Obama graduated from Columbia, but I'm calling shenanigans on the notion that anyone remembers seeing a random, unknown student at the bookstore 26 years ago.
Prove me wrong.
To waste time, seeing I have so much of it, the point is that if any rumors which are being so vigorously disputed turn out to be true, I don't foresee apologies of the type PC claimed he would offer.
Now, as I say, if Obama wins and one or two of these currently-disputed rumors are true, I don't expect to hear anything but gloating laughter from the people I know personally. To presume that none of the VCers are the same type is foolish.
There is every reason to suppose that, because when they become famous it will trigger such memories. Maybe not in everybody, but there should be a lot more people saying they remember taking classes with Obama at Columbia than there are. He is not, after all, a non-descript, non-memorable guy!
On the other hand, what will it mean if it transpires he's a fraud about that? He'll be rightly judged on his performance in office.
We're being asked to vote for him based on his qualifications, not his performance (since after all, he's never done anything). If his qualifications are a fraud, why should we vote for him at all?
Hey, why don't we ask Joe Biden whether academic fraud should be grounds to disqualify anyone for running for President?
He has taken all he was given and accomplished next to nothing with it, and he is farther left than McGovern and Dukakis put together. That's the reason he should be voted down, not nonsense like this.
Agree.
That's what I've been saying about the Palin/McCain scurvy, kitten-tortuning, child pornography, fake-pregnancy stuff! Again, I don't have any proof of any of it, and some of it probably isn't true, but I guess I should suppose that some of it is. After all, I did read it on the internet. And right here on the VC too.
Fair enough. I see your point. But if he didn't get a tenure offer, then he got a rough approximation of such a thing. Meanwhile, there are people saying they're not sure he's bright. In other words, in the broader context, the distinction you're raising is not terribly material.
And what about the reverse? Should we foresee apologies from you?
Nice job ignoring the comparable evidence I posted regarding Palin.
If Obama turns out to be a secret Muslim I will apologize. If you are talking about something dishonest like, "wuss out on the WOT," that's a policy difference. I'm assuming you mean wanting to leave Iraq is wussing out. That's a difference of policy and opinion, so I'm not sure what I would need to apologize for.
As for shutting down speech, I have to assume you mean the Fairness Doctrine. I've already said I think it a stupid policy and will work to make sure it isn't enacted.
Socialize the nation? Dishonest.
Bankrupt the coal industry? Dishonest.
Leftist indoctrination? Does that mean no "teach the controversy?"
Mandatory voluntary service? I'm still trying to figure out WTF that means. Prof. Lindgren's posts on the issue have only confused the issue for me.
Now will you apologize if chupacabras really exist?
"My counselor at Columbia said don't even bother applying to Harvard Law School, because you can get into any law school in the country with your record, except Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton."
Can't make this stuff up.
We've been ruled by Yale-educated morons for decades now
You misspelled Harvard there.
One thing we need to remember is that record manipulation is not that hard in today's world. A college records department is not some holy fortress. All you need is one stooge to give you access. Bill Ayers father, a wealthy man, had big connections to the board Bank Street College, a sister school to Columbia where Bill Ayers went, and also Columbia. It wouldn't be that hard to manipulate the data. We only have Obama at ONE class in CU. It's not enough.
As to Obama being a Muslim, it's something to take seriously, not some nutty idea. His father was a Muslim, his stepfather was a Musim, his stepfather put down his religion as "Muslim" in school, he studied Islam in Indonesia, his mother was probably a Muslim if she married two Muslim men. At what point was he raised a Christian? We have no evidence he was. His friends in college were mostly Muslim. At what point did he not become a Muslim? Probably like Obama says, he thanks Wright for "introducing" him to his Christian faith. And by the way, Muslims can worship Jesus as well and still be Muslim.
So yeah, I think Harvard Law would have known the exact status of his Columbia studies when they admitted him and even afterwards.
PC.
I don't mean the Fairness Doctrine. The lawyers around here have convinced me it doesn't stand a chance. From which I predict it has a fifty-fifty chance of becoming the law of the land.
Thinking instead of vaguely threatening letters from the FCC to, say, military commentators. Previously-sealed divorce decrees becoming mysteriously public. More letters from the FCC. Civil rights suits like that against the folks protesting a group home in their area.
And I don't intend to apologize for something I didn't say. I have never claimed this stuff is true. I believe there is the possibility that some are true. After all, the backpedaling wrt the relationship with Ayers is based on the facts that were not as originally promoted by Obama. IOW, he lied. And, in fact, he's even quit backpedaling even as more and more information comes out. Can't go any further, I guess, and he knows that his fans don't give a rodent's patootie.
I have said, wrt the current issue, that claiming to debunk something by saying the procedures make it unlikely is not generally considered debunking, and only Obama partisans would consider it such.Not that they do, of course, but it satisfies.
Imagine this technique used by a historian and critiqued by other historians. .
Imagine saying a republican is proven not to have done something because the various circumstances would have made it difficult. That would fly, right?
I, who am strongly Anti-Obama, feel this is the cheesiest sort of so what. I am much more concerned that the Dean of the OofC Law School has indicated he would happily prostitute his schools faculty selection process to his political beliefs. On the other hand, this does not feel to foreign to my daughter's experience when she attended the UofC.
As to documentary evidence of Obama on campus, some quick googling is enough to answer any questions
My mother, many years ago, got an A in a class she had not taken in grad school.
If "would have" is good enough to debunk, anecdotes of screwy admissions and grade happenings are good enough to throw doubt.
No, sorry . . . it's a nutty idea.
Everything you could want to know about McCain is a matter of public record. All of his failings, as a wild midshipman, as a divorced husband, as a Senator meeting with Charles Keating, have been revealed by him. We know what happened and we know how he has become a better man. Obama reveals nothing but his gift for secrecy, conspiracy, self pity and manipulation.
This is simply not true. McCain, for example, has not released his full military records.
We're in for a lovely 4 years. The continuing drift of American politics to extremism and polarization. I suspect next election both parties will be recruiting bombmakers and snipers a la Kosovo. At least the Democrats will already have signed up Ayers.
This is a silly rumor for the reasons Jim stated, and just another example where Obama's critics want him to jump through hoops at their command. If he showed them his diploma from Columbia, they'd just start some stupid rumor requiring his high school transcripts or his vaccination records or a DNA test proving that he's not a space alien.
It's been said on various blogs that a certain view of Muslim doctrine resembles that of the Bates Motel. You can check in, but you can't check out.
IOW, given his background, he cannot be anything but a Muslim, no matter his preferences, sincere or otherwise. His views don't matter, others' ideas of the situation don't matter. Some Muslims--the story goes--will consider him a Muslim. Problem is that some non-trivial proportion of Muslims think the proper penalty for apostasy is death and, to the extent Obama claims he's not a Muslim, he's an apostate.
If he is elected, it will be interesting to see if he runs into some ramification of this idea.
As I say, this view is independent of what Obama thinks or says, and of what anybody else thinks about it.
I've decided that Sarah Palin is not only hiding scurvy in her promised by unrevealed medical records, she has also had a boob job.
So you want me to believe it is as difficult to remember a remarkable man at a comparatively small elite university as it is to remember an entirely unremarkable woman (intellectually, anyway) at a huge no-name state school?
Moreover, the graduates who don't sit for yearbook photos are not a random cross-section of the class. People with fewer ties to their classmates are less likely to bother getting their picture into the yearbook. As Prof. Lindgren notes, Obama had transferred in as a junior. In those days, transfer students couldn't get university housing. Obama lived far from campus and was friends with far fewer classmates than he likely would have been had he arrived as a freshman. His absence from the yearbook is not very surprising.
One other note: at least one alumni publication noted in 1990 (or maybe '91) that Obama had become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. The Columbia administration thus recognized him as an alum long before he entered public life or became well-known.
Columbia's education programs are at Teachers College ("TC"), a legally separate entity which is affiliated with Columbia in much the same way as Barnard College and which is across the street from the northern edge of the main campus. Columbia has no reason to make Bank Street a sister school when it already has such a relationship with the much larger and more renowned TC.
I have no idea what sort of "connections" TooTrue thinks Ayers has to Columbia, but the very idea that such connections would enable him to falsify Obama's records is absurd.
This is why the comments here represent some of the best comedy on the 'net. I know that's not what Eugene et. al. intended for this site, but the clowns show up in force for all the kook threads.
Kudos to Prof. Lindgrin for debunking this silliness.
Do you think "debunking" by pointing out normal procedures would work anyplace else?
The original post says nothing, not a thing, about what actually happened, or didn't happen. Only that to get where he was, he "would have". Clearly, that's what needs to happen most of the time, but it proves nothing whatsoever about what happened this time, only that, had it happened, it would have been irregular.
I have no idea about the question, since I've seen no direct information about the actual facts.
Nice try. It's not just that there's no evidence that Ayers ever killed anyone. There's also no evidence that WUO ever killed anyone (other than themselves). On the other hand, McCain did actually drop actual bombs, but I don't hold it against him.
life:
WUO had a policy of using warnings to get places evacuated. This is probably why they didn't kill anyone.
Wrong. He never signed SF-180. Most of his records are still secret. He crashed several planes under conditions that suggest recklessness and impulsiveness. There are still many unanswered questions about those crashes, like how he got away with it.
You seem to be saying that certain Muslim extremists might have a desire to kill an American president. And this would be new in what way, exactly?
Huh? What university is "comparatively small?" Columbia has 25,000 students.
Huh? "A huge no-name state school?" University of Idaho has 12,000 students.
Palin also attended Hawaii Pacific University. 9,000 students. And she attended North Idaho College. 4,700 students. And she attended Matanuska-Susitna College. 1,700 students. All schools a lot smaller than Columbia. And hardly anyone remembers her.
What was that you were saying again about "small" and "huge?"
She had nearly won Miss Alaska. She was a babe. Why would no one remember her? What makes you think she was ever in college at all? Where's your proof that Palin actually went to college, or graduated?
The problem is not solely that extremists want to kill him. The problem is that this would possibly increase the number of extremists who want to kill him. The one-issue types.
And it also may have, probably not, an effect on the way some people view Muslim extremism. Some people simply won't get beyond the view that it's all our fault that the warm, friendly (pick any enemy of the US) are angry at us and justifiably so.
To discover that, potentially, the nutcases are angry at Obama for apostasy, which has and can have nothing whatsoever to do with us, might be a wake-up. Naw.
I know. But it's still a large urban campus with a lot of students running around, which means that it's easy for one person to not be noticed.
Weather Underground: Honoring the Cops They Killed. "The Weather Underground was responsible for bombing several government targets throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and a building used by the New York City Police Department. To finance their domestic terrorism activities the group also conducted “traditional” robberies, which occasionally led to murder.
What you don’t usually hear in modern-day news coverage of the group, is that three of those murders were of police officers killed in the line of duty."
I believe at least one security guar was killed as well.
Oh! and the bomb that blew up prematurley, and killed the morons, was destined for a Dinner dance at the Fort Dix NCO club. If they had succeeded in bombing the dinner dance I suppose they, and you, would class the mothers, wives, girlfriends, fiancees and staff also killed as collaborators.
They also bombed a New Jersey's judges house. Three bombs, front and back of the house plus the car.
The article you're pointing to says this about McDonnell:
Exactly. No one was ever arrested. You have allegations, but you don't have proof. Not the same thing.
And the Brinks robbery took place in 1981, after WUO didn't exist anymore. If an ex-member of that group commits a crime next week, is that also Obama's fault?
Ayers suspects that Oughton blew it up intentionally because she opposed that plan.
And once Obama (or McCain) starts governing, there will be important work to be done - rumors about their past will be even less relevant.
You ask what I think of the false claim that the U of Chicago law faculty made a tenured offer to Obama. I debunked that one on VC at length, confirming its falsehood with the relevant officials in the law school and the central administration.
Neither the faculty appointments committee nor the faculty was ever asked to consider making Obama a tenured offer. The dean at the time, the source for the NYT story, is now not so certain of what sort of offer/promise he might have made Obama, but I can assure you that the faculty never even considered such an offer. Further, neither the faculty nor the provost would have approved it.
An offer with a quick road to tenure and a low publishing standard (a near guarantee if he wrote) might well have gone through. That's a deal I probably would have supported myself at Northwestern. He's an awfully smart guy.
Jim Lindgren
Wrong Edward. Look at this I got from a little google:
"In 1984, Bank Street entered into an agreement with the Milbank Memorial Library of Teachers College, Columbia University to serve as a repository for the records of Bank Street College of Education. Bank Street's papers were transferred and organized by the staff of Special Collections at Milbank Memorial Library with support from Bank Street and Teachers College faculty."
Bank Street had a connection with the Teacher College which was a part of Columbia. If A=B and B=C, then A=C, right? Obviously a pretty good connection if Bank Street transferred all their records over in 1984. Hmmm, 1984. The year Ayers graduated from Bank Street. Perfect time while transferring the records over to Columbia to get into a little Columbia records monkey business, isn't it?
Is the remaining right wing really this brain-dead, or are they all trolls?
"Sounds like" is not good enough proof. It's not a game show. "Records" of the Bank Street College of Education are not "documents" or "papers". "Records" of the Bank Street College of Education "sounds like" 'education records' to me. Either way, there is obviously a connection there between the two colleges. And, by the way if you keep reading the link, the records were transferred back to Bank Street some years later.
Here is what you are dishonestly leaving out from your own link.My emphasis. If Columbia were in some sort of operational relationship with Bank Street, then of course the records would have gone elsewhere in Columbia. Now we see that these records are not even accessible at the moment. Does that sound like current, useful data? Or historical records that Bank Street thought belonged in a larger, better-known research institution?
Yeah, there is a "connection". By this argument, Bank Street is also connected to the Sanitation Workers Union, for the records they throw away.
The level of paranoid idiocy from the anti-Obama forces is a little frightening, like half the Republican Party has been taken over by LaRouchies.
Regardless of what you believe about Obama or who you're voting for, I think it's worth quoting at length General Powell's comments on this subject on Meet the Press:
Other commenters have already explained that placing records in another school's library does not a sister-school make. Columbia's libraries are a repository for documents from many individuals, organizations and governmental entities, but that doesn't make it their affiliate and certainly doesn't suggest that any of them has the ability to falsify student records at Columbia.
Moreover, your claim that TC "was a part of Columbia" is wrong. As I explained in the very post yours supposedly addressed, TC is legally separate from CU. It has its own administration, its own faculty, its own finances, its own buildings and its own library. Columbia doesn't control any of it (though each must abide by the terms of its contract with the other). Thus, even if TC really did have some sort of close working relationship with Bank Street, it would not follow that Columbia had one.You seem to equate delivering boxes of Bank Street papers with the ability to access and change sensitive Columbia records. Your analysis is absurd, and would be even if TC were a part of Columbia. Librarians don't have access to the registrar's data, so they can't give such access to others.
I have no idea why you think the fact that the transfer happened during the same year that Ayres graduated from Bank Street matters at all, let alone that it materially strengthens your argument. Do you think everyone who graduated from Bank Street that year was able modify Columbia's records at will?
Well we wouldn't know if they aren't accessible now, would we? Besides if there was something nefarious going on, wouldn't that be the way to go, to make the records inaccessible during the election? But, I repeat again, either way, there is a connection of some sort between the two schools, some tie, not NO ties. And I think the left is not paranoid enough. They are too trusting, making themselves easy to swindle.
Well, okay maybe the connection is not direct, but there is SOME connection, however small it may or may not be.
"You seem to equate delivering boxes of Bank Street papers with the ability to access and change sensitive Columbia records."
I just think it's something to think about. This does not sound like just a few boxes, this seemed like a long invloved task. It would make sense that someone with access to one part of or distant relative of Columbia records might have an easier time faking access to another part. Just my guess. If Obama released his records and we had more than students from one seminar class come forward, I would admit my error.
Yeah. There are certain things said about Obama which simply must not be said. There is little evidence that they are not true, some that they are, but they simply must not be said. Or, for that matter, seriously investigated. Or you're a poopyhead. For example, Prof. Lindgren has "proven" that O graduated from Columbia by showing that getting into HLS without doing so would be inexplicable or irregular.
Well, hell. I was in jump school with a guy who'd had no military training at all--being a pro football player who got drafted--but called his college coach, Bear Bryant, and ended up a second lieutenant with no branch specialty. Irregular. Inexplicable. My commission was signed by Nixon, but apparently Bryant had his own sources. Still, the guy was there. Nice. Clueless. Using Prof. Lindgren's standards, it didn't happen. Poor guy had the military bearing of a toilet seat and knew he was in the wrong place. Almost funny, in a sad sense.
Literally as I'm writing this (I live in the swing state of PA), I'm watching a McCain commercial featuring the Reverend Wright, the controversial Christian pastor whose church Obama attended for over twenty years, was baptized and married at, and had his children baptized at. I don't like the Reverend Wright, but he's a pastor of a Christian church. You can't have it both ways.
I'm also reading this Wikipedia page stating that "Obama is a Christian...baptized at Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988." I'm not really sure where this "long history" of being educated as a Muslim or "many associates" who are Muslim comes from (I'm pretty sure Bill Ayres is not a Muslim). I'm also not sure what "evidence" one shows of being educated as a Christian (maybe Obama will release his childhood Bible school records with his records from Columbia?). I haven't seen any "evidence" that John McCain is a Christian, I just kind of believe him when he says it, just like I believe any person who genuinely professes his or her own faith. As for Obama's parents, again I don't have any "evidence", but I'm pretty sure that a woman named Ann Dunham from small town Kansas probably wasn't a Muslim. His father was a Muslim, and I don't think Obama or anyone in the media has denied that, but it's also pretty well-known that his father left him when he was two years old.
Should it have mattered that Romney is a Mormon, Kerry a Catholic, Lieberman a Jew? No, and the fact that some people have faced prejudice doesn't make it any more acceptable to be prejudiced towards others.
The point is, if he is a Muslim then he has been misleading. Maybe he practising Taqiyya.
Yes in 1988, when he was about 27 years old. He was educated as a Muslim as a child in Indonesia, he took intense classes in Islam at his school there. His father was a Muslim and left when he was two, but his mother went on to marry another Muslim when he was around 6. People in Indonesia remember Dunham as a practicing Muslim. She spent later years in Pakistan for a job and learned Urdu. Although his mother was born in Kansas, people can and do convert, even in Kansas. Ayers has given his children Muslim names and seems to be a Muslim dabbler, if not an actual Muslim, it goes with the black power groups Ayers hung out with. So Obama's formative years were spent as a Muslim, it seems pretty clear. So let's assume if he starts his life as a Muslim with a Muslim family, chances are he was a Muslim until he converted.
I think it's almost as offensive to assume that just because Obama moved to the US at 10 or 11 years old he all of a sudden converted to Christianity. Living in the US does not autimatically make you a Christian. No it takes more than that to convert, it takes a conscious action. He talk about Wright "introducing" him to his Christian faith when he joined Wright's church. Obama does not talk of converting to Christianity before that.
And testimonial evidence debunking other parts of the allegation, plus the fact that the allegation itself was even more flimsy and anecdotal. The same way he proved Obama was never offered a fully tenured professorship at Chicago. He didn't actually prove either instance conclusively, but only someone with an ax to grind would deny that his conclusions in both cases were almost certainly correct. Occam preferred razors to axes.