Other Crap

Barack's father was capable of time-travel

Can you spot the problem with Barack's story below?

"It worried folks in the White House who said, "You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set forth in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites." So the Kennedys decided,"We're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is." This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. In 1959, at the age of 23, he arrived at the University of Hawaii - the first African student there."

In case you missed it, Kennedy took office in 1961, whereupon he gave Barack's dad a scholarship and a time machine.

Actually, Obama's recollection is not so far from the mark. To make his claim correct, just cross out "The White House" and substitute "America." It was SENATOR John Kennedy who arranged for the Kennedy Foundation to finance the Mboya Airlift. Full story here. In fact, the State Department ended up getting into a pissing contest with Kennedy over who would pick up the tab, and the whole deal became a political football. (Hey, that's America.)

Once the Kennedy foundation got things moving, the State Department and the Ford Foundation jumped on the bandwagon, and many bright African students came to American universities. If I remember right, Kofi Annan came to America a couple of years after Barack's father, another beneficiary of similar foundation largesse.