I cannot answer all of your questions, but I know a couple of things from reading Dreams of My Father. (My son had to read it for a literature class) His father was a goat herder when younger. After studying in the US, he had much more opportunity back in Kenya, and he was a governmental employee in the department of Economics.

I don't know if Obama learned Indonesian in 6 months, but I wouldn't say it is impossible. He is obviously very intelligent, and the age at which he went over there is an optimal age to learn another language. I have seen several younger children pick up English in that amount of time.

As for seeing poverty, he clearly saw the poor in Indonesia. He describes in the book about the beggars coming to the door. There is one description of a man with leprosy, who had a disfigured face coming to the house. He went to a Catholic school for 2 years in Indonesia, but went to a public school for the other 2 years. (This is the "madrassa" according to the Fox news crew) If you have ever been to Indonesia, you would understand that it is impossible to miss the extreme poverty, as it is almost everywhere.

You should read the book, even if you don't support him in the election. It is well written and sheds a lot of light on his past, and his point of view. It was written 14 years ago, so it is relatively free of politics.

For the record, I don't believe that Hillary is a serial exaggerator. She made a mistake in her comments, but I don't see that as such a big deal. They are both politicians who try to put their accomplishments in the very best light.

This race has a chance to get really interesting. If the candidates stop exaggerating.

And if Cafe readers will stop exaggerating then we can all come back to reality where it's known that the race is effectively over.

Desidero, you'd help Hillary more if you didn't try to help. A lot of the points you raise in trying to argue that Obama is a liar just like Hillary are addressed by ga medic. And note that you're trying to compare points about what Obama did when he was a kid with exaggerations Hillary makes about her "experience".

But even worse is that you try so hard to defend Hillary that you re-write her lie. She said some very specific things about snipers, running from the plane to the car, etc. You try to counter that with a generic observation that Bosnia was dangerous. But the fact remains that (not surprisingly) we didn't send a First Lady, her sixteen-year-old daughter, and two entertainers into a situation that endangered their lives. They strolled across the tarmac, Hillary gave an air kiss to an eight-year-old girl, listened to a poem, etc.

And you really don't want to bring up the Ireland story, not when Hillary's own auto-biography doesn't attribute any special significance to the tea party, not when the local papers at the time didn't attribute anything other than social/photo-op significance to it (the big news was that Hillary praised a teapot, and was given it as a gift), and not when she's also recently tried to make it sound like something it wasn't by changing it from a tea party in a cafe to a meeting at city hall.

And you don't address the other examples of her serial exaggeration/prevarication, such as NAFTA, SCHIP, and quite a number of others. Note that these are lies and exaggerations having to do with qualifications she's claiming for herself as a presidential candidate, not questions about what sort of job Obama's dad had when he was a baby.

The serious prevaricator is your candidate. Just embrace it, and argue that this shows that she's so committed to winning she's willing to do whatever it takes, even lie.

OK. I just watched her March 17th claim again.
Here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsGo_HWP-c

Check out the part where she is asked about what Sinbad said. She tried to convince the reporter that Sinbad was not to be believed because he is a comedian. She stressed in repeatably, in a effort to persuade the press that Sinbad was just joking when he said that he did not remember any sniper fire. She then went on to describe in detail her big lie about ducking and running.

Something that I have not heard anyone point out: There have been claims made that there was a fear of snipers in the surrounding area.

Take a look at how First Lady Hillary is dressed as she walks calmly off the plane and over to the little girl.

No Flak jacket, armor, or Helmet on, and also no security team surrounding her to shield her from any potential sniper fire. That means that there was no fear of any attack period. It is all a great big lie from start to finish, and it has all been rehearsed. This was a carefully concocted story to elevate Hillary to a fearless warrior status who would not flinch when an imaginary red phone rang in the middle of the imaginary night.

Pay special attention to who is walking behind Hillary as she walks away from the plane. You will see a press person walking behind Hillary with a long boom microphone which the person is struggling to move along.

Does anyone in their right mind actually believe that if there was any fear of any kind of hostile fire that the Hillary entourage would have been deplaned in that sitting duck manner, without a shred of protection around her. She is just telling a carefully crafted line of Bullshit.

I once learned Catalan in four months, and I'm not nearly as bright as Obama. Millions of kids learn languages in a few months.

I read the thread from Barack's former colleagues. I gave it a good fair study, and the worst thing I could conclude is that Barack MIGHT have shared a secretary in that job, rather than having his OWN secretary as he said in his book. I see no big deal there.

Also, his colleagues said no one wore suits in that office. Barack's only mention of a suit is this:

"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..."

It is not hard to imagine that Barack had worn a suit once in a while when his job required him to interview special guests.

Can you just say "heavily exaggerated" instead of all this?