Claims from a no-holds-barred exposé in time for a former president’s birthday may have left him wishing he was only confronting the mysterious death of an employee, but the question remained: “Whose version of the story is correct?”
On Wednesday, Tablet Magazine’s David Samuels released his interview with former President Barack Obama’s biographer David Garrow. In addition to his depiction of the president as not “a normal human being,” much of the Obama public persona was suggested to be fictionalized, including certain aspects of his sexuality.
Having interviewed Obama’s three girlfriends prior to his marrying Michelle Robinson, the author of “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama” had made particular note of his Occidental College paramour Alex McNear’s contribution to the record. She had provided love letters from Obama to Emory University where a particular paragraph had been redacted because, as she put it, “It’s about homosexuality.”
Garrow explained how he dispatched his friend Harvey Klehr to examine that portion that the school would not allow him to photograph. “So Harvey has to sit there with a pencil and copy out the graph where Barack writes to Alex about how he repeatedly fantasizes about making love to men.”
The Tablet story comes just as suspicious eyes have turned toward Martha’s Vineyard where the Obama family’s personal chef Tafari Campbell recently died in a paddleboarding accident near their estate. Delayed and seemingly changing details have only added to the perception that something was being covered up.
Meanwhile, what had certainly not been covered up was Obama’s take on “banned books,” filled in many instances with pornographic, homosexual content, which left him declaring his support.
“Today, some of the books that shaped my life–and the lives of so many others–are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or feature people of color, Indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community–though there have also been unfortunate instances in which books by conservative authors or books containing ‘triggering’ scenes have been targets for removal,” he’d said.
Obama raises eyebrows with TikTok campaign defending ‘banned’ library books: ‘Shaped my life’https://t.co/SwxF2X7Udh
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) July 18, 2023
The president’s nod to stories featuring “people of color” harkened back to his breakup with former girlfriend Sheila Miyoshi Jager whom Obama had dated in the 80s. However, their tales didn’t mesh.
According to her, they had split when Obama “would not condemn antisemitism.”
His own accounts from the time suggested they had come to a crossroads over his “embrace of Black racial consciousness.”
“Whose version of the story is correct?” Samuels asked. “Who knows. The bridge between the two accounts is Obama’s emerging attachment to Blackness, which required him to fall in love with and marry a Black woman. In Obama’s account, his attachment to Blackness is truthful and noble. In Jager’s account, his claims are instrumental and selfish; he grants particularism to the experience and suffering of his own tribe while denying it to others.”
Additionally, Garrow leveled that discussion of the “Dreams from My Father” author’s actual father was off limits, a fact that left him asserting “He’s not normal–as in not a normal politician or a normal human being.”
What was gleaned from Obama’s memoir, the biographer slammed as “historical fiction” and “oh God, did that infuriate him.”
“It’s so inaccurate, whether about the dynamics among the guys in Hawaii or what’s going on in the community group on the far South Side [of Chicago]. And it completely omits women. I’ve always thought that there’d eventually be a feminist critique of Obama because his mother and all the girlfriends — they’re not there. They don’t exist,” Garrow pointed out.
The scrutinizing look at the president also raised questions about the media’s lack thereof, especially since Obama has remained a resident of Washington, D.C. where comings and goings of White House officials and power players remained uncatalogued.
While there was disagreement as to which point from the interview was the most salacious, the viral nature supported the agreed-upon take that it was lengthy but worth the time to explore.
Long read but worth the time. It explains many things about the current administration.
— el Jefe (@JeffMiller64) August 4, 2023
The biggest Obama lie is that he overcame being Black to become President. If he was white he would be that high school english teacher who you thought was cool but then when you grew up you realized he was just a stoner.
— brian t muldoon (@brian_t_muldoon) August 4, 2023
Confirms a lot.
— Hopeful (@shobnaz) August 4, 2023
What gave it away? pic.twitter.com/5A6254SS3W
— Rodney’s Shit Clock’s (@domino77767) August 4, 2023
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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