Obama not quite his father's son: Similarities, but in many ways "quite the opposite"

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Obama not quite his father's son
Friends and family note the similarities between the senator and his Kenyan father -- both idealistic, charismatic, eloquent and ambitious. But in many ways, he's 'quite the opposite.'
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 17, 2008


Barack Obama, 10, poses with his father, Barack Obama Sr., in a 1971 photo. The senator's father visited his son only once after leaving the family to study at Harvard when Barack was two years old. Obama wrote about the tense, monthlong visit in his memoir, recalling that his father taught him African dance moves, impressed his classmates and squabbled with his mother.
(AP)

NAIROBI, KENYA -- During an emotion-packed visit to his father's homeland in 2006, Sen. Barack Obama took time from family reunions and official visits to chastise Kenya's government for failing to stem corruption and tribalism, irking his hosts in the process.

It wasn't the first time an Obama had taken Kenya's elite to task. Forty years earlier, a rising star named Barack Obama -- tall, elegant and impeccably dressed -- attacked the nation's post-independence government, accusing leaders of betraying their ideals and replicating the nepotism of departing colonialists. "It must be something in our family," observed a smiling Said Obama, younger brother of Obama Sr.

Although the lives of father and son scarcely intersected beyond a few letters and a 1971 visit in Hawaii when the younger Obama was 10, friends and family see similarities in the men's charisma and eloquence, even if their lives took dramatically different turns.

Both achieved success at a young age. Both advocated change. And both displayed a self-confidence that friends described as bordering on cocky.

"The father was full of life, ebullient and arrogant, but not unpleasantly so," recalled Philip Ochieng, a former drinking buddy of Obama Sr. and veteran Kenyan journalist. "But in many ways, the son is quite the opposite. He has self-control. The ambition is controlled. And he has a more sober mind."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-obamadad17-2008jul17,0,662486,full.story

[DFLforever]

1. This photo is heartbreaking

The way he's holding on to his father's hand, to keep him.

And that this is the one and only time in his life he will see his father.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. I agree. And to think that so many false rumors center around the father's role...

in his life, when, in fact, that role was the role of an absent father.

[Cha]

2. Thanks for this DeepModemMom..

I started "Dreams From My Father" last night and this pic is riveting to go along with Obama's writing.

Btw, Obama knows how to spin an interesting story..fascinating.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. I read that book a while back, and once I started it, it was hard to put down.

As you say, absolutely fascinating.