csua.org/u/mcy -> www.analyzethis.net/blog/2005/07/09/barack-obama-embellishes-his-resume/
I know because I sat down the hall from him, in the same department, and worked closely with his boss. I can't say I was particularly close to Barack - he was reserved and distant towards all of his co-workers - but I was probably as close to him as anyone. I certainly know what he did there, and it bears only a loose resemblance to what he wrote in his book. Here's Barack's account: Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company's secretarial pool. it was a small company that published newsletters on international business. Like most newsletter publishers, it was a bit of a sweatshop. I'm sure we all wished that we were high-priced consultants to multinational corporations. But we also enjoyed coming in at ten, wearing jeans to work, flirting with our co-workers, partying when we stayed late, and bonding over the low salaries and heavy workload. Barack worked on one of the company's reference publications. Each month customers got a new set of pages on business conditions in a particular country, punched to fit into a three-ring binder. Barack's job was to get copy from the country correspondents and edit it so that it fit into a standard outline. There was probably some research involved as well, since correspondents usually don't send exactly what you ask for, and you can't always decipher their copy. It's also not true that Barack was the only black man in the company. Fred was an African-American who worked in the mailroom with his son. My boss and I used to join them on Friday afternoons to drink beer behind the stacks of office supplies. as the months passed, I felt the idea of becoming an organizer slipping away from me. The company promoted me to the position of financial writer. Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors--see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in my hand--and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal, before I remembered who it was that I had told myself I wanted to be and felt pangs of guilt for my lack of resolve. If Barack was promoted, his new job responsibilities were more of the same - rewriting other people's copy. As far as I know, he always had a small office, and the idea that he had a secretary is laughable. Barack never left the office, never wore a tie, and had neither reason nor opportunity to interview Japanese financiers or German bond traders. Then one day, as I sat down at my computer to write an article on interest-rate swaps, something unexpected happened.
a few months after Auma called, I turned in my resignation at the consulting firm and began looking in earnest for an organizing job. What Barack means here is that he got copy from a correspondent who didn't understand interest rate swaps, and he was trying to make sense out of it. All of Barack's embellishment serves a larger narrative purpose: to retell the story of the Christ's temptation. The young, idealistic, would-be community organizer gets a nice suit, joins a consulting house, starts hanging out with investment bankers, and barely escapes moving into the big mansion with the white folks. Luckily, an angel calls, awakens his conscience, and helps him choose instead to fight for the people.
keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention moved me to tears. The Democrats - not to mention America - need a mixed-race spokesperson who can connect to both urban blacks and rural whites, who has the credibility to challenge the status quo on issues ranging from misogynistic rap to unfair school funding. Barack's story may be true, but many of the facts are not. His larger narrative purpose requires him to embellish his role. Just as I can't be inspired by Steve Jobs now that I know how dishonest he is, I can't listen uncritically to Barack Obama now that I know he's willing to bend the facts to his purpose. Once, when I applied for a marketing job at a big accounting firm, my then-supervisor called HR to say that I had exaggerated something on my resume. But when Barack Obama invents facts in a book ranked No.
Comments: 50 Comments Comment from KL Moore "The Voice of Reason" Time: October 29, 2007, 10:15 pm Wow, you sure are vitriolic for someone claiming to be a fan. But then, the people who hate us most sometimes wear the disguise of a friend... As is the need to downplay other people's role in an office environment or nit-pick their activities and tear them to pieces personally. You say he was distant from everyone, then in the same space you claim you were as close to him as anyone. If that was true, you would have understood more about him and felt less need to slam him publicly. Um, he says he was the only Black man at a desk and you say there was a freakin' "black mail room clerk" as if that's the same thing. He says he talked to his sister, and you MOCK his sister in pejorative wording and then claim he actually didn't talk to his sister but instead had to deal with copy... There is no need to tear someone apart unless there is some lack in your own person. Hell when I worked in corporate america I had to wear nicer clothes than everyone else or be mistaken for a Mail. A bit suspect especially with what we know these days about the truly faulty abilities of "Eye Witnesses" memories... Were you a stalker, a closeted "fan" of his warm smiling features? That's why I recall that a hot guy I worked with wore a blue shirt at least twice a week and a pale pink one once - he was hot, so I remember. Barak could NEVER have hung out and had a beer with those mail clerks because soon everyone would associate him with the mail clerks. Where you were having a beer, he would be exploiting his time at work to get drunk. Where you were the cool Boss Man, he would be asked to help them out in no time. You associate with one black person, and suddenly the only people you like are Black people and you're a difficult worker. I mean that happened anyway, as you say, he didn't really hang out with his coworkers. To place it within the realm of organizational behavior, Barak was synechdocic of the Black community, and as such if he did anything off, he would be slammed all the more. I'm sorry, this is a complex argument, and according to your essay above, you only understand the simple. Oh yeah, and you two were real tight Mr: "I can't say I was particularly close to Barack - he was reserved and distant towards all of his co-workers - but I was probably as close to him as anyone." com) No one is above feeling threatened in America where race/class fight to divide us all the time, and white is told that black is the problem and asian is told they can do better than those hispanics... And it appears you are still not exempt today where, instead of stating what you may know (that the company did not work as a multi-national per-se) you tear someone to pieces who was probably feeling pretty crappy the whole time you knew him. For your ridiculous ability to (in spite of what must have been a good education somewhere) fall full face down into a big pile of old habits that should have been scooped up with a plastic bag and thrown away 20 years ago! Comment from Tristan Time: October 30, 2007, 3:11 am You may not like Steve Jobs personality, but I hardly see how anyone cannot be inspired by the man who revolutioned every field that caught his interest. Comment from JR Time: October 30, 2007, 7:32 am Perhaps the point is that regardless of the personal feelings one has about another person, it is never acceptable to represent a story as fact when it is not. If Barack Obama worked at a newsletter publishing company, then he did not work a multinational financier. If people wore jeans and drank at the office, ...
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