Replies

[Someday I want to be president.]

“Presumably, he meant president of Indonesia.”

Around a year ago there were articles [???] that ‘Obama’s half-sister’ had died. The back story was that in the Soetoro household in Indonesia there was an early-teens-aged girl who had apparently been taken in as a kind of foster child. She had given an [or some] interview in which she described herself as Barry’s half, or step, sister.

She also told a lot about him and his life there, describing him as a bossy and beligerant child. She said he loved to watch the Indonesian president’s speeches on TV, and that he often pretended to be ‘the president’ - arranging other kids [including her] as his “audience”, and to stand behind him as his “assistants”. She said he was insistant that the others listen to his being-in-charge “speeches”. In Christopher Andersen’s book, ‘Barack and Michelle’, pages 32-33 have considerable detail about the type of insufferable , bossy brat Barry was.

I don’t know if the half-sister story was based on fact. It does sound like his behavior. Reportedly, it was shortly after she gave a lengthy interview that she suddenly and unexpectedly died. She was married, with several children, and lived in a farming area of Indonesia.

As to Barry’s third grade essay: during his formative childhood years, Obama’s political mindset was being implanted by an Indonesian step-father, an America-hating mother, and the Indonesian schools’ curriculum. He didn’t learn about July 4, 1776, or the United states’ founding fathers, or Memorial Day, or “God bless america, land that I love...stand beside her, and guide her...”. Instead, he experienced, and loved such things as [’Dreams’, page 50] “...the goose-stepping demonstrations my Indonesian Boy Scout troop performed in front of the president...”. In Indonesia, he learned about Indponesia’s history - communism, coups, and armed rebellion, and to the tune of Islam, he learned to emulate speechifying from his hero the Indonesian president.

So, yes - most likely scenario is that if Barry did write this/such an essay, he was voicing his desire to become president of Indonesia.

Something else that nags at me about this essay bit is time frames. We know from the INS file on Soetoro that he and Stanley Ann married in 1965, that he returned to Indoonesia in [IIRC] 1966, and that she and Barry joined him there in October 1967. In the fall of 1967 Barry was 6 years old. He supposedly attended the Catholic School in Jakarta for two years, followed by two years in the Indonesian government school. That’s four school years: (1) 1967-68; (2) 1968-69; (3) 1969-70; (4) 1970-1971. In the summer of 1971, when turning 10 years old, Barry was sent to Hawaii to live, where he was enrolled/started in fall 1971 at the Punahou school - in the 5th grade.

Now, back to this “essay” Barry purportedly wrote. He says: “I am a third-grade student as SD Asisi.”

How can he have been in THIRD grade at Asisi school? According to the INS timeframe [moving to Indonesia/starting school there in Oct. 1967] he would have to have been in Asisi for 1st and 2nd grades, and then the Indonesian government school for THIRD and 4th grades - to be on track for entering 5th grade in Hawaii, fall of 1971.

The essay story doesn’t jive with the dates the INS, and Barry, have elsewhere stated.

The most curious thing about this essay story is the language. Unless Maraniss’ account in his book has information about it - his copy? - being a translation, I hesitate to give it any credence whatsoever. another Barry lie - and one not carefully thought out.

This bit is written in English - complete with the cutesy “eeeeeeeeend”. The language of Indonesia is/was Indonesian, not English. In “Dreams” Barry brags about how he was speaking the Indonesian language within 6 months of arriving there. Other than kindergarten in Hawaii, all of his classroom schooling was in the Indonesian language: 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. So Barry - in his third year there, and therefore in the Government school - was not doing schoolwork in what would have been considered a foreign language.

Unless Maraniss can produce the essay as it would have been written - in the Indonesian language, specifically, the ORIGINAL paper - I’m thinking this is yet another example of Barry BS, and that instead of parsing it all - essay, historical probability, and oops - common sense regarding the known liar - Maraniss allowed himself to be had.