Actually, it’s “hypocrisy” (I’m sorry, I’m not trying to pick on you, that just drives me nuts), and **Arizona Teach ** has not, at any point in this thread, indicated that Obama is responsible for his brother.
Hint: Ms. Portalski isn’t in dire poverty. She’s just not as rich Cindy McCain.
But on that note, don’t get me defending the McCain’s they’re scum. I have higher hopes for Barack Obama.
Sure. And if he promptly asserts that he actually thinks that neither of them is responsible for their relatives, then he will not only be free of any double standard, he’ll be holding the same position as me!
And it would likely end the argument against him quite quickly.
Nobody seems to have considered the possibility that Barack offered to help George and was refused. The article doesn’t say that. I’m just suggesting it. Regardless, Obama has no innate responsibility to help George just because they’re related. If I had a half-brother I barely knew who lived on the other side of the world I don’t know just how I’d feel about him and I wouldn’t want anybody else judging me. The only difference here is that Barack is running for Pres. so his entire life is being scrutinized down to the quantum level.
So is this guy a Communist, a Moos-lim, or both? If not, draw a cross in the sand for him and get back to living your life.
Ditto, I was just thinking that there is a likely case for this: Barkack may have been refused when he attempted to help his half brother…maybe it’s against social mores to accept money from family?
Or maybe you guys are just making shit up.
So you won’t even consider the possibility? I never said it did happen, only that it might have.
Post #3. No, he’s not responsible.
(for his relatives…I do think he’s not responsible in other ways, too! 
)
To be fair, I put on the tin-foil hat first with the assumption that this is all an Obama campaign set-up.
These were exactly my thoughts.
I mean, if the guy wanted or felt entitled to assistance from Barack, this interview would have been the place to make that known, and nobody would have turned down a “wealthy presidential nominee refuses brother’s please for help” story. In fact, that’s what this is already sort of getting twisted into.
Instead he seemed, as you said, rather matter-of-fact about the entire thing.
All that said, I can’t believe that there isn’t anybody on Obama’s team specifically in charge of tracking down guys like this presicely so that someone or another can’t spread an, “Elitist Hypocrite Obama Ignores Plight of Brother,” story.
This occurred to me as well - there is a bit of difference between living in a mud hut and having your father pay for your college tuition and your children’s as well.
Obama’s brother doesn’t seem to have received much of anything, let alone ten grand and a down payment on a home.
Not much of a tu quoque, is it? Obama’s half brother didn’t get much of anything, but isn’t complaining about it. McCain’s half-sister-in-law gets tens of thousands, and seems to be complaining that she didn’t get more.
Regards,
Shodan
Without all the political debate and strictly on the social debate.
I cannot see any reason why Obama bears responsibility for this child of his father who abandoned him. They are not family in the way I think of family. They are two strangers that happen to share the same father and that is it.
I would see more responsibility the other way around. If the younger half-brother was well off and benefited from having the Dad around to love and support and the older child was abandoned and destitute, I could see the younger who was treated correctly helping out the older that was treated like dirt. Even that would not be mandatory, but more reasonable.
As George Obama has “hopes to try to sort his life out by starting a course at a local technical college.” It would be a very nice gesture for Obama to directly pay for his tuition and even books. I suspect this would be an inexpensive act of generosity. I would think just giving him $10,000 a year is a foolish and senseless act.
Sure, I’d agree with that. He should help pay for his tuition and books. Maybe set him up in a nicer part of town. I’m not saying Obama should support him in perpetuity.
Not that any of this matters, but Barack Obama Sr. didn’t have anything to give. Cindy McCain’s father left her millions and basically stiffed his other daughters. You act like it’s somehow incredibly generous for a multimillionaire to pay for his daughter’s college tution.
Having said that, Cindy’s half sister isn’t complaining about money or asking for money. Try reading the links before you post. All she’s complaining about is that Cindy McCain keeps calling herself an “only child” when she has two sisters. She’s not asking for money (which she would be perfectly entitled to sue for goven that she’s just as much Jim Hensley’s child as Cindy is). She’s just asking that Cindy have the decency to acknowledge her sisters exist at all.
Oh…and not for nothing, but Barack Obama didn’t inherit anything either. Unlike either John or Cindy McCain, Barack Obama actually had to go out and earn everything for himself.
Where he presumably lives with Baby Mama. :rolleyes:
This isn’t about generous, it’s about impoverished destitution compared to fairly wealthy as opposed to upper middle-class compared to extremely wealthy. Ms. Portanski is hurt over emotional things, but she is in no danger of starving or being beaten to death by roving gangs.
Yeah, Cindy McCain is a bitch. But we already knew that. This thread isn’t about the McCain’s and the two issues are not relevant to one another.
Yes, he did, that’s true, but there is also the courage of his own convictions. It’s hard to hear things about hope and change from a tight fisted millionaire. So it’s a matter of whether he puts his thoughts into action on a personal level or whether he just wants access to the levers of power to force everyone else to do it.
So Diogenes I am going to ask you politely once, and I will leave it at this. Please stop hijacking this thread with irrelevant tit for tat bullshit about Cindy McCain. What Cindy McCain does or doesn’t do for her half-sister has nothing to do with what Barack Obama does or doesn’t do for his half-brother.
I actually think the answer here is…it depends. (this is assuming that we even have all the facts right in this, which seems lacking in the cited article) Does Barack THINK he’s responsible for his half brother? It’s going to be up to the individual after all. To some, family is a heavy responsibility. In my family siblings look out for each other…and even cousins are responsible for helping each other out. In my wifes family her uncles refuse to help take care of their mother and happily throw the entire burden on my father and mother in law. Different strokes and all that.
Obviously to some in this thread the bond of the same father carries no weight. Hell, to some folks on this board there IS no bond between people (family, state, nation, etc). So…it’s really up to what Barack thinks is or isn’t his responsibility in this situation, and what he does with it.
I think that getting outside of the generic discussion though this is going to come down (once again) to…yup, politics and whether it’s your candidate getting gored or the other guys. Look at the McCain side discussion to really underline this point.
-XT
That’s too glib. This is case where Barack never even had a bond with the father, much less the father’s other children. These two are not “family.” They are strangers with a coincidental genetic connection.