If this is how he cares for his family, why would anyone want him to lead them? The headline is not mine and very misleading as Obama met his half brother 2 years ago and I doubt he was any better off then. The article says he lives on $1 a month and lives in a very small hut. Sorry, but I have 6 half brothers and sisters and would never treat them like this.

This story will be used in the campaign and is a sure loser for Obama as Americans take pride in their families over all else. Abandoning families or at least ignoring them, does not.


The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender.

"No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month."

According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world.

Vanity Fair also noted that he had a front page newspaper picture of his famous brother - born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...d-in-Kenya.html

(yawn)

has is bro asked for help. could he be happy with his life? money does not equal happiness.

I'm John McCain's half sister.....he doesn't know me....actually we met, and he wasn't very nice to me....
I'm on welfare, and he doesn't care about me....My maiden name is Laura McCain....if anyone asks me, I say we are not related. I'm so ashamed.....

You know, your response tells a lot of why I am no longer a democrat, and especially a liberal one. When confronted with someone who has the means and ability to take care of his own family and doesn't, your response is "yawn". But have someone vote against a bill to raise my taxes to take care of someone in a similar situation here in the US, you blast as being "uncaring", "just for the rich", "against poor people". It truly is revealing. This disgusts me and shows a total lack of compassion on Obamas part.

did his bro ask for help?

Should he have to? Did Obama offer it?

at face value im with you. but sd with most things there is much more to the story in my opinion.

I don't believe he was ever lost, but now that he has been found, it will be interesting to see if Obama steps up to the plate and helps his brother. The article did state he wants to go to technical school. Obama has spent a lot of time espousing education and training. This is a huge loser as a story about him at this point, but if he takes the bull by the horns and gets him in a decent house, with decent food and registers him into that technical school, it could be a huge plus, but he better act quick as if this story ever hits the american press, Americans by the millions will abandon his empty retoric of hope. How could anyone expect help from someone that doesn't help his own brother?

I suggest that before you go condeming Barack, you should hear both sides of the story....perhaps it is Obama who is ashamed of his half brother, for things that HE had done....I think you judging Obama without hearing HIS side of the story, is very revealing about you, my friend....

its so easy to throw stones

Sorry, but he is family. I would always try and help family no matter what he did. I may not condone everything, but would never allow a family member to live like this and I do not have near the money Obama does. Your making excuses for the unexcusable. Do you espouse not giving all of the welfare benefits and other government programs to those that society is "ashamed of"? BTW, his half sister is a speaker at the convention.

On what basis do you form any of your opinions about someone else's family?

If the brother had animosity for BHO, would he have a picture of him in his home? Do you know anything about Kenya and its people?

Truth is I have a friend that I went to HS and college with, who had a "great" life. Working for a major production house, worked on some of the most watched TV programs in history. He left here and now lives in Kenya. Lives a life without all the crap we hold dear and he LOVES it.

I agree with you that I would always try and help a family member as well, but we don't know if Obama DID try to help him and he refused,or if he is INDEED helping him, and he's going around saying bad things about his half brother for his own agenda...WHO KNOWS? Point is, we don't. Personally, I see Obama as very family oriented, and there must be some reason for him to "ignore" his half brother....could be that his half brother is doing drugs, and that Obama offered to help only if he got off those drugs....could be the man is a liar, could be he's truthfull....my point is that until we hear Obama's side, we shouldn't be so quickly to judge.....

This guy sounds like he chose to recuse himself from his family, not the other way around.


I don't get it. They've met twice, and one of those meetings was when George was an infant. What was he expecting?

Is this a distraction to divert attention from the Half-Sister that Cindy has? Because at least Barack has acknowledged that he has family members all around the world, but Cindy always describes herself as an only child, and we KNOW that isn't the case.

Wow, what a surprise! Something anti-Obama from MOTR! I'm so shocked.

This story will circulate like wildfire, and it just brings into sharper focus how nobody really knows who this Obama guy IS? Anyone who's tried to ask, has been labeled a racist and shut down. I mean, seriously, we have some vague idea he was born in Kansas or something, lived in the middle east as a child, and then with his grandparents at some point, but his past and his family are really very mysterious. This hurts him IMO, particularly coming out now. It appears that Obama met this brother a couple of years ago. He should have thought about how this would be perceived for Pete's sake.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obam...wotreecc09.stng

Seems to me this is a personal family matter ... how deep do we want to dive into family details and hold it against them? As long as we're going to be fair about it, then by all means, let's get dirty ... BTW, did Obama betray his half brother, leave him on his hospital bed and then sue him?

Are you looking for the "lesser evil" candidate here? How do you make the choice between Obama and McCain when it comes to the treatment of their relatives? Maybe this is a non-starter for both candidates?

again, assuming he hasnt helped, assuming he was asked for help, assuming his bro wanted help.

How the hell does a half brother in Kenya hurt him?

Because the people circulating and listening to this story want something to hurt him. They are scared we might actually have a black man in the White House and it makes them mess their drawers.

what? you should be writing some right wing pro mccain tv ads...with that nonsense

sorry, but when I see nonsense I call it what it is.

I understand why some people go out of their way to promote negative stories about Obama that are probably not being reported accurately, we know that is how the right gets votes, by making shit up or exaggerating it so the average schmuck will believe it...

what you have said above is worse, because you are saying it at a time when unity and defeating the republicans is the most important thing there is...

It always amazes me when people say they don't know who Obama is....it's all out there, all you have to do is look, listen, and read....he has out 2 books, and he has a website which tells you exactly what he has voted for and against....
I just don't understand how you can "not know him"....I think it's by choice....

Really? You mean there are some very vague details, spun the way he wants them spun. People are still wondering about his moving around so much as a child and where all he lived, his mother and what her deal was, and his father, all this food stamps - to private schools confusion. He's tried to keep his story line down to the last 20 yrs. or so, and that's not now these things work. ANY unseemly things coming out about his background NOW, given his standing in the polls and the support he's been losing, are like sticks of dynamite. Not everyone in the country wants to read two books worth of self-serving propaganda to figure out who this guy IS - and if that's what's required, he's in trouble.

BLK

I don't agree with you....his books are very honest, and he admits that his early years were "different" than most kids....nothing wrong with that...he may have been the very reason, why he is who he is, and why stability is so important to him. Personally, I admire how he has "pulled himself up from the boot straps" to coin a phrase. I think he's done a wonderful job.

What's this got to do with his being black? Are long lost half-brothers a "black thang"? Really, I keep thinking the people hoplding all the racist stones to throw, should take a look at their fine motives in this "historic" campaign, of nominating a "black" guy, because he's black, not because he's the best, most qualified person for the job. Thanks. Thanks a bunch.

This "half-brother" story will spread like wildfire among racists who are always looking for the next plausible rationalization for supporting their racism.

Those who "don't know who Obama is" simply can't understand someone like him - not because they don't have the data, but because they just can't understand - any more than a 5 year old can understand his 10 year old brother.

Of course you do, YOU READ HIS BOOKS. Well, believe me there are going to be OTHER books written about his life, and they're not going to have the spin he prefers - one of those books is being written right now, in the public arena of a presidental campaign.

Look, I'm not going to argue with you except to say that you can believe whatever you wish...if you don't feel comfortable voting for Obama then don't....but may I ask you who you are voting for? If you say McCain, then you should not be on this board....(sorry, mods.....)

And he can fix this problem how exactly? If he went on the teevee and made a statement on this issues (it's in his book BTW, so he isn't trying to hide anything) would you believe anything except maybe his admission that he purposely decided to abandon his half brother while his brother was begging for some support and that he would do it again in a heartbeat?

What WOULD you like to hear him say?

some guy on tom hartmann is trying to disparage Obama for not taking care of his relative.

because when your dad disowns you at 2, you know everyone he's slept with and the kids that have and have yet to be born.

Always with the racist slurs. That's why we're in this shape right now, because no one was ALLOWED to discuss Obama's background, Obama's qualifications, Obama's past assocations with people like Rezko, Obama's ever changing positions on the issues, because there's always some SMUCK with his trigger finger on the race card. It may have driven people out of the discussion, but it won't beat them back at the polls, where they'll remember how they were silenced and offended by being called a racist for daring ask about Obama or disagree about him being the best candidate. You're, in effect, driving more people away from Obama by tossing out this race card every time someone is skeptical about Obama, not winning the battle or the war.

kind of my thinking as well.

They aren't going to vote for him anyway. Anyone that would let this be their decision makerwas not going to vote for him anyway.

Very weak distraction.

Racists is the operative word here.

They are lost causes anyway.

Heck if I know. I didn't create this situation, neither did he, but this is NOT the time for people to be finding out about it. And do you really think everyone in the country read his books, or even wants to? He's been at how many forums, like the one the other day, where he talked about his faith and his values. Don't you think that might have been a good time to put this stuff out on the table?

Unfortunately, the people who comment on his books also don't bother to READ HIS BOOKS., as Jerome Corsi has so handily demonstrated.

No, I'm saying put it in perspective. If a person is concerned for the country, for rehabilitating the US, rescuing the middle class, then it is obvious that Obama has the energy, intellect, program to do it, and it is obvious that McCain does not. So that is on one side of the balance. On the other side is an obvious smear, made as large as possible by those who can't stand the thought of Obama as President.

EVEN IF Obama proves to be a greedy little bastard who didn't want to double his half-brother's income by sending him $1 a month, I'd still vote for him (see above). Balance. Those who couldn't vote for him under any circumstances (because he's ?) need more rationalization to support their emotional decision.

I don't like either of them. Even if McCain changed back into the guy he used to be he'd still be WRONG on the war, WRONG on the economy, and WRONG on Sup. Ct. nominees. I'll vote for Obama, if for no other reason that Sup. Ct. nominees, and hope like hell he has sense enough to surround himself with people qualified to run the largest democracy in the world history, but I don't like how we got here, and I don't like who we ended up with as our nominee.

But even if I were supporting McCain, it seems to me people around here need to hear MORE diverse opinions, not less.

diverse opinions are always a good thing.

I actually think Edwards, Biden, or Clinton were MUCH better choices in the all those areas, but of course, Edwards got laid, so he is out, and Obama was more "inspiring."

I wonder, is it racist when people criticize McCain's behavior in his first marriage or disparage his military service record? Of course it's not, but ANYTHING negative said about Obama, is ALWAYS because people are racist. I don't think very many people are racist - I think it's a very, VERY small minority, and Obama supporters need to stop slinging that race card around so freely. That is not how you win people over. I, personally, am really sick of it and find it offensive and insulting to the intelligence of the American people.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

There is nothing new about those opinions.

This made me recall what exactly it is that we find in the middle of the road.

Squashed possum for one.

Cow pies and dead armadillos, depending on where you live.

A big yellow line.

But most of the time we find nothing...just empty space.

I feel so ignored on this thread.
One minute, I'm pointing out that Middleoftheroad's assertion that Obama called for Saddam's head was completely false.

Another I'm pointing out that the people who make claims about what's said in Obama's books make it all too transparent that they didn't read the books that they're criticizing.

And yet I get ignored.

Do I need to call someone a whore to get some attention in here?!

I've read dozens of books about our founding fathers, and keep a copy of The Federalist Papers on my coffee table. I seriously doubt Obama's self-serving meanderings are going to rock my world. Frankly, the idea that the entire American electorate should be required to read some guy's pre-presidential propaganda is what's naive, not those of us who haven't partaken in the bound version of the Oba-Koolaid.

I'm about as sick of people's entire devotion to Obama being summed up with "read his books," something they can rarely elaborate on beyond that, as the other compelling argument, that you're a racist if you don't support him. It's GOT to get better than this.

i agree to the point that writing a book about yourself will be written in your favor.

Facts? You expect some of these folks to respond to your FACTS? They're like COOTIES to some people!

Aye, isn't this predictable? Run out of cogent arguments, and go straight to the ad hominems about kool-aid

So what you're saying is that it's too much to ask someone who is criticizing what someone has written, to actually READ WHAT THEY'RE CRITICIZING? If you were reading a critique about the Federalist Papers, and it became increasingly clear to you that the critic was cropping lines, claiming things were left out that weren't, or in there that weren't, would you still take them seriously?

I responded to you. Maybe if you put "READ HIS BOOKS" on a bumper sticker it would get more of an enthusiastic response. I suspect half the people who say that, didn't actually read them, since they rarely give details beyond that snotty, superior slogan, and the other half didn't understand what they were reading.