Obamateurism of the Day
posted at 8:05 am on July 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Some Obamateurisms are so obvious, everyone forwards it to you, and this is one of them. When candidates build their bios for the campaign, they like to include all of the sweet personal stories possible in order to endear themselves to the voters. That’s especially true if the candidate and his/her spouse “meet cute,” or even if they met professionally, as did the Obamas.
Unfortunately, if the candidate can’t keep that story straight, then it makes him look like a fool or a BS artist:
“I don’t know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I’m sure that you’re all going to have wonderful careers,” he said as he warmed up the audience before delivering a commencement speech at an economics school in Moscow Tuesday.
Obama seemed to be playing off an introduction that referred to him meeting his future wife, Michelle Robinson, while he was a student. But the truth is that the couple met not “in class” but at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley Austin, in 1989. Obama was a summer associate (essentially a legal intern) there and Robinson was an attorney completing her first year at the firm. Both attended Harvard Law School, but Michelle graduated in the spring of 1988, while Barack Obama did not arrive at the Cambridge, Mass., campus until that fall.
I’ve been married fifteen years and have known the First Mate for almost twenty. In fact, I met her for the first time in the same year as the Obamas met. For some reason, I don’t have more than one story about how we met, and I suspect most married couples also only have one story (or can’t recall it at all, in some cases). In this case, the adaptation for this audience is particularly silly, since the Obamas never attended the same school at the same time.
I wonder how many other anecdotes change according to the audience. I also wonder how many other policy pledges change for the same reason.
Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.
Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!
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I bet Obama’s original birth certificate will clear up when and where he met Michelle.
Shy Guy on July 9, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Ask Jack Cashill, maybe he’s got an idea about the confusion.
LastRick on July 9, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Did he tell the story in fake Russian accented English?
btw, I know he never released any transcripts, but does anyone know what language school he went to in Hawaii or elsewhere to learn the southern black dialect he affects on occasion? A friend of mine wants to go. (I sure wouldn’t choose Hillary’s school. wow.) Also, do they have any diversity scholarships at those schools for whites?
JiangxiDad on July 9, 2009 at 8:11 AM
_____________________________
They change with the wind….I don’t think the man can tell the truth…
cmsinaz on July 9, 2009 at 8:11 AM
“Well, when Michelle and I met at our first ACORN meeting”
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 8:13 AM
then it makes him look like a fool or a BS artist:
i vote for bs artist.
SHARPTOOTH on July 9, 2009 at 8:14 AM
I just love how the media is so understanding when Obama makes things up.
Phoenician on July 9, 2009 at 8:14 AM
Barack and Bidens personalities are conflating more and more.
the_nile on July 9, 2009 at 8:14 AM
Wasn’t Bernadine Dohrn an attorney at Sidley Austin?
tgibson1962 on July 9, 2009 at 8:15 AM
Well , he forgot 20 years of hate speech..
the_nile on July 9, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Well, we have the real version and a cleaned up
version. We like to stick with the cleaned up
one and leave the real one one for intimate
moments. I don’t brag about either one though
and have no intention of entering politics. And,
neither does she.
cozmo on July 9, 2009 at 8:16 AM
No, it was in the Austrian language.
Not “hope & change” but pure old fashioned political playing to the crowd. Except Dear Leader’s not as good at it as Bill Clinton was.
rbj on July 9, 2009 at 8:17 AM
I’ll play conspiracy theorist here and say, there’s so much about his time at Columbia in the early 1980s that we don’t know about, hell, this classroom tale could actually be the true version and the other version (meeting at a law firm) the lie. At this point, there’s no way to know what part is true and what part is
written by Ayersfiction.LastRick on July 9, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Surely a Chicago law firm can be considered a “classroom” for something — such as community organizing, political corruption, etc.
BigD on July 9, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Hello Ed, can you say… All of them?? come on Ed, I know you can… All of them… See, now wasn’t that easy… ;)
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Jet lag? JET LAG?? My God, I fly to Israel regularly (coach, not aboard the comforts of AF1), a trip that generally takes most of a 24 hour day from the door of my house to the hotel room, and I can friggin’ remember how I met my wife!! If he truly couldn’t remember how he met his wife after a single plane ride then he’s not only mentally unfit for the Presidency, but he’s probably got some sort of brain tumor.
crazy_legs on July 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM
change it to BS fool….
cmsinaz on July 9, 2009 at 8:22 AM
Josh Gerstein: It was unclear what prompted Obama’s confusion or lapse of memory…
No. It should be clear by now that Barry is a liar. Hello!
Or, are you confused or having memory lapses, Mr. Gerstein?
Or…
Loxodonta on July 9, 2009 at 8:23 AM
Me thinks,Obama might be Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
of politics!(Sarc).
canopfor on July 9, 2009 at 8:23 AM
How could Obama possibly have a brain tumor when he sooo obviously is a septicemic boil on America’s a$$???
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:25 AM
This is easy. Just remember, if his lips are moving, he’s lying. Simple.
missouriyankee on July 9, 2009 at 8:27 AM
The man is standing on shifting ground. Expect anything, and everything, to CHANGE where Barak (sic) is concerned. Obama is a cypher.
Interesting, those various definitions for cypher. They all fit.
cypher:
1. The mathematical symbol (0) denoting absence of quantity; zero.
2. An Arabic numeral or figure; a number.
3. One having no influence or value; a nonentity.
Yoop on July 9, 2009 at 8:27 AM
Bill Clinton spent 8 years in the White House lying about a lot of really important stuff. But the criticism of Clinton that I found most telling was that he also lied about the most inconsequential things, transparently and inexplicably.
Ultimately, I decided that he is a congenital liar, for lack of a better term. He makes everything up as he goes along (I always wondered if this was the product of growing up without a father and with a drunken, doting mother, but that’s just armchair psychobabble).
Obama seems to be just as full of shit, and just as full of himself, and the product of the same kind of Mommy-centric upbringing. He is also a sissy, like Clinton. There is a very strong deja vu aspect to all of this for me, and I guess I just don’t believe anything he says.
Jaibones on July 9, 2009 at 8:29 AM
How pathetic is it when the only media outlet that could shed the truth on this web of lies and deceit Obama has woven is the National Enquirer. If they focused of team of reporters on this man, we would have the gory details and facts in about a month.
sherry on July 9, 2009 at 8:32 AM
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
rollthedice on July 9, 2009 at 8:32 AM
lol!!
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 8:33 AM
No, it was in fluent Urdu, and a rare dialect of it at that…
The boy is such a BS artist.
Fortunata on July 9, 2009 at 8:34 AM
YOU-NEED-MORE-COFFEE!!!!!
When his head is up his a$$ everything is in the correct proximity for both descriptions. ;-)
Yoop on July 9, 2009 at 8:35 AM
Coffee?? /snifffs around… did somebody say COFFEE….. I likes me some good strong coffee this time of morning… ;)
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:38 AM
This ads to my theory that Obama wasn’t born. He was created as was his entire life story… you know.. the one no one knows and the one he can’t even get straight.
The Obamas are like the old TV show 3rd Rock From The Sun. They’ve come here on a mission.
Only they are 7th rock from the sun. Uranus.
katy on July 9, 2009 at 8:40 AM
Met my lovely wife in a bar. I still remember half the night.
BadgerHawk on July 9, 2009 at 8:40 AM
That’s awesome. I like the response, when someone asks you how married life is, “Each day’s a little better than the next.”
BadgerHawk on July 9, 2009 at 8:41 AM
“If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people!” Micah 2:11
Send_Me on July 9, 2009 at 8:42 AM
Nobody on the left will notice. They’re used to history being rewritten to serve a current agenda.
ROCnPhilly on July 9, 2009 at 8:42 AM
Where would these boys get this idea?
“It’s a Black World!” in Acron, Ohio
Celebrating Independence Day with family and friends, Marty Marshall, wife, 2 children and 2 adult guests (white) are blindsided and attacked on the Marshall’s front lawn by unprovoked African-American teenage boys passing by. The agressors were yelling, “It’s a Black World!” during their attack on the entire Marshall party. Marshall’s head was beaten badly, requiring days recuperating in the local hospital’s critical care unit. Meanwhile, given investigation, the police find no reason to classify this as a hate crime, or to consider the group of savaging boys a gang.
Where would the local law enforcement authorities get their ideas?
maverick muse on July 9, 2009 at 8:45 AM
Mrs Robinson: Oh silly. Barak always gets his story of how he first met Michael Singletary mixed up with how he first met my daughter.
*****************************************
That one is for you jeff from WI.
jbh45 on July 9, 2009 at 8:45 AM
test tube baby
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 8:46 AM
Cough cough… They might be Uranus, but they aint myanus, myanus doesnt stink anywhere near as bad as those two…
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:46 AM
Acron ACORN Akron
maverick muse on July 9, 2009 at 8:46 AM
When you are nothing more than a walkin, talkin, traveling schuck and jive act, it’s not supposed to matter. Do you think the state run media cares about lies?
tarpon on July 9, 2009 at 8:47 AM
“When Michelle and I first met on the Starship Enterprise…”
/waits for it…
bluelightbrigade on July 9, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Writing that one down.
rollthedice on July 9, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Smoke and mirrors.
csdeven on July 9, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Well, to be fair…he really is Still in class.
Just doesn’t seem to be learning anything.
bridgetown on July 9, 2009 at 8:49 AM
LastRick on July 9, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Lol
maverick muse on July 9, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Oh yes indeedy. It was the lovely “Mrs. Ayers” who introduced Miss Robinson to Mr. Obama when the two ravishing, intelligent, peace loving ladies worked together at that law firm.
Brat on July 9, 2009 at 8:51 AM
I just used that one one a friend’s birthday card…thanks BadgerHawk!
bluelightbrigade on July 9, 2009 at 8:52 AM
Of course they do, all of their pages would be blank if they didn’t print lies.
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:53 AM
ever been to Mianus, CT?
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Come on, we know where they probably met.
Either
1) Urdu poetry club or more likely
2) Kashyyyk
Upstater85 on July 9, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Who the hell gave you authorization to release that info???
JiangxiDad on July 9, 2009 at 8:53 AM
But he does not now nor will he ever have any class.
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Didn’t he also get the age of his daughters wrong too? Thought I read that along with the how he met Michelle goof.
modnar on July 9, 2009 at 8:54 AM
maybe Qur’an recitation
:P
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 8:55 AM
That depends… Do you have photographs or video tape of me being there? If not, then definitely not… :P
doriangrey on July 9, 2009 at 8:55 AM
No. Michelle can’t read squiggly lines…
Upstater85 on July 9, 2009 at 8:57 AM
I don’t see what would have been so embarrassing about Obama telling us how he met Michelle at the Zoo… Oh wait…
Upstater85 on July 9, 2009 at 8:58 AM
I was thinking more like pod people.
katy on July 9, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Something strange in the story at the link you posted.
The attack took place on the evening of July 4th, after the fireworks display.
On Ohio.com the article is dated: POSTED: 07:44 p.m. EDT, Jul 07, 2009
Yet the artile says:
“Marshall was the most seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and multiple bruises to his head and eye. He said he spent five nights in the critical care unit at Akron General Medical Center.”
What am I missing here?
Yoop on July 9, 2009 at 8:59 AM
You mean this place?
http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/archives/2007/01/time_for_him_to.html
katy on July 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM
ميشل و براك هم شرير
put that in your google translator crack pipe and smoke it!
blatantblue on July 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Yoop on July 9, 2009 at 8:59 AM
lol, the truth, apparantly
bridgetown on July 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM
A Pittsburgh newspaper sums it up best in this article:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_632488.html
If he said it, you can confidently put your money on the reverse.
CC
CapedConservative on July 9, 2009 at 9:07 AM
In fact they do have film of the Obama’s first meeting. It’s a striking shot of Michelle.
Ampleforth on July 9, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Well, that’s your own fault. You need to make up a few more.
Daggett on July 9, 2009 at 9:09 AM
Why at the Hillary Clinton School of Southern Drawl, of course!
VibrioCocci on July 9, 2009 at 9:17 AM
Just another example of Obewon trying to establish common ground with the group he’s speaking to. So they will like him. BTW where was Totus when all this was going on?
Kissmygrits on July 9, 2009 at 9:17 AM
Ask Biden, he’ll know where they met. He’s the real source for all information in America.
Jeff from WI on July 9, 2009 at 9:23 AM
This screwball is braindead and dumber than a rock without his teleprompter.
bluegrass on July 9, 2009 at 9:24 AM
That’s not a film of when they met, that’s a film of her in Russia right now. Can’t you see her clutching her $5K alligator purse?
Jeff from WI on July 9, 2009 at 9:24 AM
I think he may be confusing her with the burly guy he experimented with in college.
RepubChica on July 9, 2009 at 9:25 AM
The important question is did O and Michelle meet before or after he was conceived through what happened in Selma Alabama?
I don’t know why people are surprised when he lies – he does it all the time.
katablog.com on July 9, 2009 at 9:25 AM
Jeff from WI on July 9, 2009 at 9:36 AM
My daddy told me that if someone will lie about the small stuff they are for sure to lie about the big stuff. Never seen that axiom proved wrong.
jukin on July 9, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Maybe he is planning on marrying someone else in the future.
exhelodrvr on July 9, 2009 at 10:01 AM
I think it is amusing (ok, not really) that all of Hillary Clinton’s lies were invisible to the media until they decided to take her down in favor of Obama.
All of a sudden, “landing in the middle of anti-aircraft fire” became the hot news item of the day, interspersed with pictures of Hillary accepting flowers from a peaceful girl, etc.
I truly believe the Democrat party doesn’t control the media — the media controls the Democrat party. Any time they want to take down Obama, they can. They won’t — but they certainly could.
bonnie_ on July 9, 2009 at 10:04 AM
Maybe Obama has or had a HUSBAND whom he met in class at Harvard or Columbia?
eaglewingz08 on July 9, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Show off.
ladyingray on July 9, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Dohrn worked there, but not as an attorney. IIRC, she didn’t have an Illinois license to practice law because of her past criminal history (not only was she a terrorist like boyfriend Billy Ayers, she was also a fraudster and should have been in prison for the thievery and other crap she was involved in in New York.
Sidley, Austin seems to attract (and hire) a lot of unsavory individuals.
AZCoyote on July 9, 2009 at 10:17 AM
I think most of Oboingo’s life story is a fabrication, hence the secrecy. He’s obviously hiding something, and little slip-ups like this are telling.
The alternative hypothesis is that he’s so spineless that he’s essentially a chameleon, changing his story to suit his surroundings, and can’t distinguish between his fantasy and reality.
Neither is particularly comforting.
mr.blacksheep on July 9, 2009 at 10:19 AM
They both went to Harvard (different times. Dang.)
He was a legal intern at the firm, isn’t that kind of like class? (Not really. Darn.)
I got nothing.
Except I find it interesting that Michelle was appointed as his mentor due to common racial factors (was the firm raaacist?) and ended up eventually marrying her intern.
cs89 on July 9, 2009 at 10:22 AM
I didn’t know what true happiness was until I got married. Then it was too late. /sarc
Lew_Lew on July 9, 2009 at 10:24 AM
I remember when I met my ex-husband.
txag92 on July 9, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Well crap’s sake, it’s seems like liberal politicians don’t even try to keep their stories straight anymore.
ynot4tony2 on July 9, 2009 at 10:44 AM
I remember during the presidential campaign while watching a news report on one of Michelle Obama’s speeches. She was giving a speech and during the speech stated that the first time she heard Barak speak was at one of those community organizational meetings. I believe she was repeating to the crowd something he was spewing from Rules for Radicals. She went on saying to the crowd that she was inspired and thought to herself who is this man. I believe she stated it was their first date.
Words Just Words and What Total B.S.
USMCDevilDog on July 9, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
- Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
UltimateBob on July 9, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Obama meant to say that he met Michelle at an Urdu Poetry class in Paahk-ee-staahn while they were cooking falafels together.
Also, now that Michelle is walking around in $600 dollar sneakers and clutching $7000 purses, she is really, really, really proud of her country (cue Jefferson’s theme song).
OxyCon on July 9, 2009 at 11:07 AM
If Obama’s lips are moving…he is lying.
Got that?
coldwarrior on July 9, 2009 at 11:09 AM
Obama is chronologically challenged. He met Michelle Ma Belle at school, but he started after she graduated.
Like his parents who met in the Selma marches four years after Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born. Must have been an Immaculate Conception, a couple having a child without meeting each other.
Or his father coming to America thanks to President Kennedy, who was inaugurated in January 1961, while Barry Jr. was conceived in November 1960, when Eisenhower was President.
One could forgive a son for getting facts wrong about his father who abandoned him as a 2-year-old. But a husband not remembering where he met his wife? Such an unforgettable experience…love at first sight!
To paraphrase Simon & Garfunkel, young Barry O was singing, “Here’s to you, Miss Robinson”–the Graduate.
Steve Z on July 9, 2009 at 11:46 AM
As Spock might point out, it is possible he did in fact meet his wife in class.
The conundrum created by his statement makes an assumption that the wife he met in class is Michelle.
If his statement is true, then the wife he is speaking about meeting in class is not Michelle.
Simple Boolean Algebra gives us the answer: There is another Mrs. Barack Obama.
BobMbx on July 9, 2009 at 12:02 PM
According to the article linked on Drudge…
If you count the 27th as the 1st night – then that was 10 days before the article was published
HawaiiLwyr on July 9, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Rule of thumb: Barack Obama will say anything that gets him through the next 5 minutes.
Jim Treacher on July 9, 2009 at 12:21 PM
…and at about that same time, Hillary Rodham was named after Sir Edmund Hillary to commemorate his great mountain climbing achievement…a couple of years after she was already born.
I wonder what she was called for those few years in the meantime? (I’d venture some guesses, but I don’t want to get banned)
DrAllecon on July 9, 2009 at 1:08 PM
OK…so he says he met her at a law firm, then says in class. Maybe the class was a Saul Alinsky disciple training class in Chicago teaching how to cause social unrest or something. Did he say a university class??? Maybe it was just some other type of class, right??? Someone ought to look into that. We don’t know much about him at all. She may have even been in those community organizer classes that he taught.
Babyhugger on July 9, 2009 at 1:12 PM
We’re not even sure that he was ever in any class to begin with!
Dr. ZhivBlago on July 9, 2009 at 1:38 PM
You are correct. I missed that date within the article but caught the erroneous date given in the caption under the accompanying photo.
It appears the Akron Beacon Journal can’t keep it’s story straight between the text and the photo caption.
Fooled again. :-(
Caption under photo:
Martin Marshall (right) recounts the attack by a group of teens on himself and his family while they were watching a Fourth of July fireworks display in Firestone Park. His daughter, Rachel Hopson, 15, (left) and wife, Yvonne Marshall, listen. (Michael Chritton/Akron Beacon Journal)
Yoop on July 9, 2009 at 1:46 PM
Barry makes so much stuff up about his life that it’s hard for him to separate the truth from fiction, and he may need to check with Bill Ayers to get some of his “facts” straight.
Buy Danish on July 9, 2009 at 2:03 PM
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