Barack Obama’s grandfather was imprisoned and brutally tortured by the British during the violent struggle for Kenyan independence, according to the Kenyan family of the US President-elect Full Story »
Posted by Walter Cox
Macintyre and Orengoh's main source of Onyango's grievances is his widow. A student of history would eschew this as a primary source; after all, the writers concede the widow's account was "hazy," I suspect the editors gave them a "skinny" (little or no expenses), two-day deadline assignment — an ersatz due-diligence piece, if you please. Then the editors slapped on a provocative headline, the kind that riles up the tea and crumpet crowd: "Dear me, their new president doesn't like us…"
The real story here, IF The Times were interested in parlaying the article into something meaningful, is to compare Mrs. Onyango's claims (about her husband's suffering under the hands of British rule) with the initial reservations the "Moses Generation" (black civil rights leaders) had about taking Obama seriously: Either he was not "black enough," or did not descend from slaves. To whatever degree Barack Obama's grandfather suffered, it would certainly qualify the President-Elect to claim victim status. The point being that that is not a card he's ever played, or ever would.