About The First Lady

It makes some of us sad when we hear ridiculous comments that the Honorable First Lady Michelle Obama “doesn’t act like a First Lady.” In other words, she doesn’t act like royalty, that she acts “common” that she has been seen in shorts with muscular arms – the result of rigorous exercise, and fraternizing with common folk.

Of course, Mrs. Obama is not Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Reagan, or Mrs. Clinton, for that matter. She exhibits what she is: a middle class woman from the south side Chicago, who lived in a one-bedroom apartment, studied hard and obtained government financial aid. A woman who the went to Princeton and Harvard, became an attorney and served as a mentor for Barack Obama and later married him.

Both the First Lady and the President rose from incredibly ordinary beginnings. Born to a pump worker at the City of Chicago Water Plant and a secretary of Spiegel Catalog Store, Michelle grew up as an ordinary, simple young woman living in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a classic Chicago brick bungalow. Her bedroom was actually the apartment's living room, which, for a while, had been converted with a divider down the middle, allowing her to share it with her brother.

The President also hails from humble origins. He was not born of famous people who had gained high military or political honors. His father was not the endower of the Exalted University sitting on its Board. He had no European nannies for him, no privileged status, no fineries of clothing. This commander in chief of the most powerful armed forces of the world didn’t grow up in estates or palaces with marble floors, fine tapestries and gilded domes, acres of polo playgrounds, hundreds of Arabians, French chefs in the vast kitchens and harem girls to pamper him. In fact, when he was a child in the State of Washington, for a while his mother had to live on food stamps.

How much more ordinary can you get and what a saga of conquering environments which some may consider blighted.

But herein lay the marvels of democracy, the great equalizer, and the American way.

And now, it is good that we have a fresh breeze in the White House, and a hard-working campaigner, a person who cares for the poor and the middle class. She has a ready smile for the common folks, the elementary school students, and whoever she comes in contact with.

Mrs. Obama is a phenomenon. Barack Obama has called Michelle “the most quintessentially American woman I know.” The world press called her a “firebrand” when she was in the 2008 campaign trail. She is a powerful speaker, an astute analyst, and one on whom the President has always relied heavily in campaign and in office. “Long before there was a Barack Obama, there was a Michelle Robinson who was a star in her own right,” said a classmate of hers at Harvard. Even though she is a “homely,” unassuming person, the French said she reminded them of Jackie Kennedy.

Consider the opposite. Suppose all of a sudden she changes and goes about with regal bearing, up-turned nose, with a retinue of assistants and body guards, always wearing expensive, high fashion clothes. Some may like it. The photographers will have field day.

But there will be others who would say, “Look at that woman! What a put on! Don’t we know where she is from? South side Chicago? And how can we forget that she is a great, great, grand-daughter of slaves?

We admire Mrs. Obama just as she is -- a smart, talented woman and role model.

Woodward’s Book Title Is Music To The Ears Of Racists

Back in the east, in Asian countries persons of a lower caste or social standing are not supposed to look straight into the eye of a person of higher standing. So whenever you scold them or instruct them they are supposed to keep their eyes downcast or look at the ground instead of at you straight in the face. Students and devotees are not supposed to look at the master.

A similar type of obeisance existed here between the slave owner and the slave.

So when we elected an African American president, many die-hard racial supremacists -- yes, perhaps only a few of them here and there -- could not stomach the fact that now a black man is leading the country.

Take, for example, an honest confession from Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball. After he listened to President Obama’s State of the Union message on January 27, 2010, he was dumbfounded. “I forgot he was black tonight for an hour,” he said. “He’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country and past so much history in just a year or two. I mean it’s something we don’t even think about. I was watching and I said, wait a minute, he’s an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people and there he is, President of the United States, and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight — completely forgotten it.” This meant, according to his confession, that’s what usually comes to his mind when he sees him, that he is a black man, but this time that recognition did not occur. “I didn’t think of him in terms of the old tribalism or old ethnicity,” he said.

Another boo-boo came from Glenn Beck, the famed Obama-hater, on June 14, 2010. During the vast BP oil spill, Beck asked his listeners: “What is it that Barack Obama knows that he won’t even bother to meet with the guy (the CEO of British Petroleum) to hear him out? What is it? Tell me, I’d like to know. Does the fact that BP’s CEO, is a capitalist, is that what does it? … He’s a white CEO, maybe that’s it. He’s a white CEO.”

To say that Mr. Obama was reluctant to meet the CEO of BP because he is white, a white CEO, is so foul-mouthed and uncivilized, that one wonders what frames of reference are there in the minds of pathologic Obama-haters.

The whole controversy over his birth certificate stemmed from an eagerness to pin down the President as one who is not qualified to lead the country. Chris Matthews chastised Mitt Romney recently for “playing the race card” when Romney said in jest that he can produce his birth certificate.

Of course, one would remember President Carter’s statement in 2010 that much of the opposition, President Obama was facing was because he is a black man. Mr. Carter, coming from the south, knows the thinking of several die-hard racists.

Now, comes Bob Woodward’s book with a major premise that there was a “leadership gap” in the Obama administration. And many persons in the U.S, would reply, “Well, what do you think? Here is a black man trying to lead us white people, the majority and the powerful in this country.”

The belligerence, stubbornness, uncooperativeness of the Republicans is thus glossed over.  

AN UGLY LIE FROM D’SOUZA

Dinesh D’Souza’s statement that Obama is a “whites-hating President,” as stated in a book called “The Roots of Obama's Rage” and in a recent documentary is an ugly lie; an example of prurient journalism. In addition, he also says that by 2016, Obama would have irreparably damaged this country.

Ask me why I say this.

I knew the Senior Barack Obama. Both of us were foreign students in the US in the early sixties. He was studying in Hawaii and then doing a Masters in Harvard, and I was studying toward my Masters at Syracuse University. In my brief conversations with Obama Senior, I never saw him as a man leaning toward hatred of whites. He was very friendly, scholarly, with a tremendous sense of humor and a very deep bass-singer voice. However, there was nothing extraordinary about our meeting, we were both foreign students, sponsored for our high academic credentials or job experience and were on equal footing.

How D'Souza could say that Obama Senior was a “whites-hater,” or taught his son to hate whites, beats me. There was practically no interaction between the father and son. When Barack Senior was in the U.S., D’Souza was a toddler. Where did D'Souza get the idea that he was a “whites-hater”? By reading about race relations in Kenya before it received its independence in 1963, and the Mau Mau Rebellion and the first President Jomo Kenyatta?

In fact, Obama Senior and his closely-knit group of three friends (all of them of Luo tribe) relied very much on their white American and British friends. As he grew up Obama Junior was referred to as a “coconut”, brown on the outside and white in the inside. He grew up with a wonderful, intercultural, white mother who respected all religions and cultures.

When I was looking for a publisher for my book initially titled, “The Battles of Barack” three publishers said they would publish my book if I could say something negative or filthy about the President’s father or the mother. I didn't have any “dirt” on them and wasn't about to fabricate something in order to get it published. Instead, I stayed true to my convictions and published my book on my own terms.

By the way, TIME calls D'Souza's book and documentary, “a combination of skewed analysis and dire portents. In a statement, Obama's team said that the D'Souza documentary, 2016: Obama’s America, “is nothing more than an insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the President by giving intellectual cover to the worst in subterranean conspiracy theories and false, partisan attacks.”

Woodword’s Title Is Untrue. Meant to Attract Sales?

That the first term in office of President Obama suffered a “leadership gap” is a very wrong statement by Bob Woodward, the Watergate-famed reporter and the author of a recently published book, ”The Price of Politics.” Could it be that Woodward chose a title that can do well in a rapidly changing book market, attract talk show hosts and rake in more money?

The so-called “leadership gap” is not that of the President, who, in spite of the recalcitrant and stubborn, Tea-Party-manipulated Republican Party, recorded the following significant triumphs:

He confronted head-on the economic meltdown; turned around the auto industry, caused money to flow again to help states, communities and schools, arrived at $25 billion settlement with the country’s banks to provide relief to homeowners, stopped more than 800,000 foreclosures, established new rules for Wall Street, revamped the health care system to help some 50 million uninsured and underinsured, reduced taxes (which largely went unnoticed), and succeeded in difficult negotiations on the debt ceiling with Republicans hell-bent on paralyzing the government. He brought back the troops and decimated the perennial threat of Osama bin Laden. These were no mean accomplishments.

If there was a lack of leadership it was the lack of statesmanship, fair play and decency on the part of the Republicans who believed from the beginning that the path to success in 2012 is through non-cooperation and continued badmouthing of the President. They continually fought against every move of the President designed to help the common person. They painfully prolonged the debt ceiling and balanced budget debate and continually fought against the health care bill even after it became the law of the land. When Obama sent the $447 billion jobs bill that would bring jobs to the unemployed and veterans, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said it would dead on arrival. At one time in the heat of the debt ceiling crisis, Speaker of the House John Boehner even refused to return the President’s call. It was appropriate that once the President quoted Jimi Hendrix’s song, “They treat me like a dog.”

Therefore, it is grossly inappropriate and a dereliction of responsibility and civic duty to provide unbalanced reporting on any president, more so this president who will become one of the nation’s greatest when he wins a second term. Mr. Woodward brought down one president; he should not, through false analytical reporting, bring down another.

For a more extensive discussion, read my new book "We Are The Change That We Seek" available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions.

My New Book on President Obama is Now Available

New Book on the Obama Administration “We Are the Change That We Seek,”
Now Available on Amazon.com

Well-researched book portrays the battles, torments and triumphs of 

President Obama in leading a nation that is hungering for change

September 26, 2012 – San Diego, Calif. – New book on President Obama weaves together a rich tapestry of first-hand accounts, personal memories, international perspectives, and discussions of landmark legislations of the Obama administration. “We Are the Change That We Seek,” by author, George C. Thomas, delivers a unique and well-researched biography of the President, his family and the many intercultural influences that have informed his presidency. Thomas aims to reach voters who may yet be undecided as well as those who are in support of the President’s legislative achievements.

The book provides readers with a glimpse of the President’s heritage, spanning several continents, and how his unique upbringing makes him responsive to the needs of the American middle class. The author provides succinct, yet comprehensive, summaries of major issues addressed during the first term, such as international troop withdrawal, the economic meltdown and debt crisis, job recovery, and healthcare for the uninsured – all of which were uphill battles with a recalcitrant and uncooperative opposition party.

“I wrote this book for the undecided voters of America who wish to be more politically informed, and for those of us who are baffled and angered by the lies and distortion aimed at undermining the President, at a cost of more than a billion dollars by the opposition party,” said author, George C. Thomas. “This book emphasizes the positive, sweeping changes that have already occurred in the President’s first term and the certainty of more to come after his re-election, which will bring greater prosperity to America, including ‘the 47%’.”

About the Author

George C. Thomas is a graduate of Spicer Memorial College, Pune, India, and the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. He has served as department head, project director and executive director affiliated with various U.S. universities, medical centers and nonprofit service organizations. He has also served as Chief Advisor of economic development for the U.S. Agency for International Development – Dominican Republic operations. He is currently semi-retired and occasionally teaches public health, business administration and marketing in San Diego and at Universidad CETYS, Mexicali, Mexico. Reach him at georgechthomas@gmail.com.

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© 2012 George C. Thomas. All Rights Reserved.

Media inquiries:

gct.bookpromo@gmail.com

Woodward's New Book on Obama's Leadership Gap

Really disappointed with Bob Woodward's new book, which calls out the so-called "leadership gap" in the Obama Presidency. This is a disservice to the President and to voters in this contentious election season.