Email: Evidence Of Obama's Past

"Evidence of Obama's Past"

[note - all mistakes below are original to text of email]

From: XXXXXX@gmail.com
To: XXXXXX@hotmail.com
Subject: Fwd: Evidence of Obama's past

Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia
University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there,
but none remembered him.

Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who
also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single
person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me.

I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever!
Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding." Root adds that
he was also, like Obama, "Class of '83 political science, pre-law" and says,
"You don't get more exact or closer than that. Never met him in my life,
don't know anyone who ever met him.

At the class reunion, our 20th reunion five years ago, who was asked to be
the speaker of the class? Me.

No one ever heard of Barack! And five years ago, nobody even knew who he
was. The guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New
York, the macha who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who
ever met him. Is that not strange?

It's very strange.." Obama's photograph does not appear in the school's
yearbook and Obama consistently declines requests to talk about his years at
Columbia, provide school records, or provide the name of any former
classmates or friends while at Columbia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Allyn_Root#column-one

NOTE: Root graduated as Valedictorian from his high school, Thornton-Donovan
School, then graduated from Columbia University in 1983 as a Political
Science major (in the same class as President Barack Obama WAS SUPPOSED TO
HAVE BEEN IN)

Pass to all your Email friends.

Response

Hey there, thanks for passing this along.

My first reaction to this email was that this is just another crazy Internet rumor.  I mean, if President Obama didn't really go to Columbia, wouldn't it have come out during the campaign? So I did a little research and here's what I found.

If Obama's classmates don't remember him, it might be because he only attended Columbia for two years before graduating.  He transferred from Occidental College in California before his junior year.  At Columbia, he lived off-campus.  He also spent most of his time studying.  "Mostly, my years at Columbia were an intense period of study," Obama told Columbia College Today in 2005. "When I transferred, I decided to buckle down and get serious. I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn't socialize that much. I was like a monk."  Read the whole thing here: http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan05/cover.php

Moreover, one of Obama's professors at Columbia remembers him well.  Michael Baron told the New York Times that he wrote Obama a recommendation for law school.  (In the same interview, Baron inadvertently fueled another Internet rumor about Obama's "fake thesis.")
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/politics/30obama.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/26/blog-posting/obamas-columbia-thesis-all-fiction-dreamed-blogger/

Finally, it should be noted that the source of this rumor is Wayne Allyn Root, who was the Libertarian nominee for Vice President.  He made similar claims in an interview with Reason magazine, saying that "maybe" Obama "was involved in some sort of black radical politics." Clearly, Root has political motivation to try to make Obama look bad. http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/05/wayne-allyn-roots-million-doll/

Hopefully, this will help clear up your concerns.  If anybody sends you another email like this, make sure you get the facts before sending it to more people.  That way people won't get all worked up over nothing. 

Talk to you soon.