I was just having a conversation with a family friend who is a staunch Republican, and someone I generally respect. He claims that Obama’s Harvard transcript has never been publicly released, and seems to read at least some whiff of scandal into that. This is not an issue I know anything about at all, and I felt I could not intelligently respond. So:
(1) is it true that Obama’s Harvard transcript has not been made public?
(2) if so, is that at all unusual? Are high level public figures’ educational records usually made public?
(3) if in fact that is unusual, was that Harvard’s decision or Obama’s? And what justification was given?
thanks
It’s hidden somewhere in Kenya, with his birth certificate.
I’ve gotten several wing-nut e-mails from my conservative friends where this is listed as one of the “suspicions” about Obama. The last one was comparing him to McCrystal about the time when the he got the boot. It’s just one of those things people latch onto when they hear it, if they’re predisposed to be strongly anti-Obama.
Its not simply that, of course. There was a time when higher office was sought by persons of the right sort, untainted by sordid ambitions. But this fellow has to claw his way to Harvard with the assistance of all manner of affirmative programs. Are there no perfectly good community colleges in Hawaii? What sort of “man of the people” behaves in such an unseemly fashion, which rather smacks of the arriviste, don’t you think? Its all very well to rise above one’s station, what America is all about, isn’t it? But it never quite washes off, now does it?
Well, let’s see. Bush’s, as I recall, was found in his National Guard records. Gore’s was dug up by the Post from somewhere. But neither of them were released by the school in question. Given that Obama was never in the military, it’s probably harder to find his school records than most, just because they wouldn’t be in any discoverable place.
It is somewhat interesting to not how desperate a lot of the wingers are to try to deny or “debunk” Obama’s intelligence. It’s like thy just can’t stand to believe that a black guy is smarter than they are.
You should have asked him if his transcript has been publicly released yet.
Just because someone is elected to a public office, does that by necessity mean that everything they’ve ever done in their life needs to be made public? Where are Obama’s 7th grade essays, hmm??? I demand to see them at once!
My understanding–could be wrong–of the complaint is that his grades from Occidental and Columbia prove that he would not have been accepted into Harvard Law if not for Affirmative Action. What that proves, I don’t know. He certainly demonstrated that he was worth accepting.
From what I can tell, many conservatives are itching to paint Obama as “dumb” in order to return the favor of eight years of George W. Bush (as in “see, you elected the REAL dumb guy!”). And to show that affirmative action is bad. And to demonstrate once and for all that his policies are based on unintelligent thought. (Though I thought some argued that not being an elite egghead was a GOOD thing…?)
He left the race question blank on his Harvard application, so no affirmative action was involved.
One thing I think a lot of the conspiracy loons and teabaggers don’t know, though, is that Barack Obama Sr. also went to Harvard and got a Masters in Economics there. So Barack Jr. was a legacy, just like Dubya. If the teabaggers need a non-AA way for BHR Jr. to have gotten into Harvard, there it is.
Just a nitpick but they didn’t need to denigrate his character: he did a stellar job of that himself. Fortunately, America saw that the positives far outweighed the negatives. Even presidents are human.
Obama didn’t just burst on the academic scene at Harvard law school. He went to Cornell as an undergrad, and the private high school he went to in Hawaii, Punahou, is one of the top schools in the country. His mother was an academic, so it should be no surprise that education would have been a big part of his life.
I’m not sure I’d say he came “from nothing”, considering his mother had a PhD, and he went to prep school as a youngster. Perhaps compared to Bush, you could say that, but not compared to most of us.