Since you brought it up, wise guy:

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How Obama got into Harvard

Posted: May 27, 2010

1:00 am Eastern

2011 </FONT>

Two years ago I inadvertently began my exploration of the authorship of Barack Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," with an inquiry into how Obama got into Harvard Law School in 1988.

In the summer of 2008, I was tipped to a story that the media were scrupulously ignoring. It involved the venerable African-American entrepreneur and politico Percy Sutton.

A Manhattan borough president for 12 years and a credible candidate for mayor of New York City in 1977, Sutton had appeared in late March 2008 on a local New York City show called "Inside City Hall."

When asked about Obama by the show's host, Dominic Carter, the octogenarian Sutton calmly and lucidly explained that he had been "introduced to [Obama] by a friend."

The friend's name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and the introduction had taken place about 20 years prior. Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men." The billionaire in question was Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

According to Sutton, al-Mansour had asked him to "please write a letter in support of [Obama] ... a young man that has applied to Harvard." Sutton had friends at Harvard and gladly did so.

Three months before the election it should have mattered that a respected black political figure had publicly announced that a crazed anti-Semite like al-Mansour, backed by an equally bonkers Saudi billionaire, had been guiding Obama's career perhaps for the last 20 years, but the story died a quick and unnatural death.

The books that might have shed some light on this incident have not done so. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's comprehensive look at the 2008 campaign, "Game Change," does not so much as mention Percy Sutton.

Nor does David Remnick. His new book, "The Bridge," stands as the authoritative book on Obama's "life and rise," but he only inadvertently addresses the question of how Obama got into Harvard Law.

The reader learns from Remnick that Obama was an "unspectacular" student in his two years at Columbia and at every stop before that going back to grade school.

A Northwestern University prof who wrote a letter of reference for Obama reinforces the point, telling Remnick, "I don't think [Obama] did too well in college." As to Obama's LSAT scores, Jimmy Hoffa's body will be unearthed before those are.

How such an indifferent student got into a law school whose applicants' LSAT scores typically track between 98 to 99 percentile and whose GPAs range between 3.8 and 4.0 is a subject Remnick avoids in the section of his book dealing with Obama's admission.

In his 2007 book, "Obama: From Promise to Power," David Mendell is likewise silent on the mystery admission. This surprises because Mendell, a Chicago Tribune reporter who saw more of Obama than Michelle often did, writes objectively and intimately about Obama's ascendancy.

Mendell traces Obama's sudden itch to become a lawyer to the model of the recently deceased Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, but Washington went to Northwestern's very respectable law school in Evanston, Ill.

The thought doesn't cross Obama's mind. In "Dreams," he limits his choices to "Harvard, Yale, Stanford." Writes Mendell as casually as if the honor were deserved, "Obama would soon be accepted at the most prestigious law school in the nation."

Whether or not Sutton helped Obama get into Harvard, Michelle Obama's experience suggests that he could have gotten in without that help.

"Told by counselors that her SAT scores and her grades weren't good enough for an Ivy League school," writes Christopher Andersen in "Barack and Michelle," "Michelle applied to Princeton and Harvard anyway."

Sympathetic biographer Liza Mundy writes, "Michelle frequently deplores the modern reliance on test scores, describing herself as a person who did not test well."

She did not write well, either. Au contraire. One of my correspondents, a college drop-out, found Michelle's senior thesis at Princeton online and concluded, "I could have written it in sophomore English class." Mundy charitably describes it as "dense and turgid."

The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observes, "To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language." Hitchens exaggerates only a little. The following summary statement by Michelle captures her unfamiliarity with many of the rules of grammar and most of logic:

Michelle even typed badly. Still, she was admitted to and graduated from Harvard Law. One almost feels sorry for her. She was in so far over her head that the anxiety had to have been corrosive.

Obama was sufficiently self-deluding – some would say narcissistic – that he felt little of that anxiety. Later in his book, Remnick lets slip into the record a revealing letter Obama had written while president of the Harvard Law Review:

Bottom line: Had Obama's father come from Kentucky not Kenya and been named O'Hara not Obama, there would have been no Harvard Law Review, no Harvard, no Columbia. Barry O'Hara would probably be chasing ambulances in Honolulu and setting his political sights on the Honolulu City Council.

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Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue. His latest book is the blockbuster "Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Love and Letters of America's First Post-Modern President."

Read more: How Obama got into Harvard http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=158901#ixzz1LEnL8V7D

for the libs on this site years ago. It didn't matter when Bush was in school,

IT MATTERED.

Even the National Guard records. They still had nothin.

Shep was so frightened at the hideous spectre of any lack of information about Bush.

And now? The lack of information is a fine thing, who cares....... yeah, a lot like that.

@vaportrail said:

Just look at the indignation from all of you guys about the article I posted. It's fluff, irrelevant bullshit and you guys were all put off by it. I feel the same about this birther shit. And cal, nice straw man, as usual.

Looks like the birther bit's the straw man.

I think his college transcripts and grades are worth a look.

Don't you?WSS

the most powerful man in the world, and we had a right to ALL that info, so we can make a solid decision, blah blah blah...

but now, they couldn't care less to know anything about Obamao, and resent and ridicule anyone who wants to know about him.

Funny how that works in opposite land with libs.

Well it was important enough to write that about Bush huh?

Anyway one of the big issues amongst the great unwashed was that Bush was stupid.

Ten when we found his and Kerry's grades were about the same it was a small embarrassment for the left.

Here Obama has been hailed as some kind of great thinker thanks to whoever writes the teleprompter copy.

If it were to come out that the great and powerful legal scholar of our generation was a mediocre student it'd be good for a laugh, especially since beyond that veneer of academia he really has no other qualifications.

That's all.

WSS

Congratulations and best wishes going forward.

I agree with your statements. I've had so many people laugh at me when I'd tell them my GPA and that I want to go to medical school, and tell me that I'm not going to make it. At one point I thought I lacked the intelligence necessary for a degree in the sciences. I just got out of my final undergraduate course this year, and in 9 days, I'll have a bachelors of science in physics with a minor in biology (WOOOO!) I've got a summer job doing some chemical engineering research, and I'm pumped to hear back from grad school. I've gotta take the GRE in a few weeks. I'm gonna get into med school, and nothing will stop me.

@vaportrail said:

http://dayriffer.com/category/28/l/2056/looks-like-trump-s-right-how-the-hell-em-did-em-this-president-get-into-those-ivy-league-schools

I his early years, John Thompson - the former Georgetown coach - parents were told he had a severe learning disability and would be lucky to achieve the equivalent of a 4th grade education. He is now known as Dr. John Thompson.

A good friend of mine was told by his High School Guidance Counselor that he should look into Community Colleges because he 'wasn't college material'. Today he has a Master's Degree and is doing just fine.

Ted Kennedy's family got and kept him in Harvard despite failing grades. He became a Harvard graduate.

My only comment, Vape, is you need to be careful with this stuff.

For the record, I didn't know Vape WASN'T talking about Obama until I looked at the responses. Take my comments for their worth.

This is just as lame as that bogus IQ test that said that the Bush's were the lowest of any president, and you guys know it. Now that you've been proven wrong, you're just reaching for reasons to tear the guy apart.

If you're gonna criticize him, criticize him for shit that he's xxxxed up while in office, like, I don't know, involving us in a third war when we can't pay for the two we're already in.

Nobody pretended W was a genius.

The left does pretend Obama is.

WSS

really.

I dont see to many people claiming they voted for him anymore. Its 1979 all over again and Obama may out do Jimmy Carter as the worst president ever.

@vaportrail said:

http://dayriffer.com...-league-schools

Dude, still Bush bashing? Nothing else to fall back on, like MCAT's for instance!