First Quiz and Suggested Answers

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

First Quiz and Suggested Answers

Post by johnkarls »

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First Short Quiz – 20 July 2008
(based on “Obama: From Promise to Power”)
Suggested Answers


Question No. 1

When and where was Barack Obama born?

Suggested Answer No. 1

Hawaii - August 4, 1961.

Question No. 2

How old were his parents and how had they met?

Suggested Answer No. 2

She was 18 and he was 23. She was an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii and he was a graduate student there.

Question No. 3

Why would you guess, as reported by our author, that Barack Obama never bothered to check whether his parents had had a marriage ceremony and that he was so bitter toward his father?

Suggested Answer No. 3

Barack’s father was a Muslim from Kenya. Under Islamic Law, Muslim males may take four wives. Barack’s mother was the second wife of Barack’s father (he never divorced his first wife though he may have told Barack’s mother that he had). Upon returning to Kenya, Barack’s father took two additional wives – for a lifelong total of four, though Barack’s mother divorced him so he never had more than three at any moment in time.

Our author discloses that Barack was extremely bitter toward his father in addition to never bothering to check whether his parents had had a marriage ceremony. It would appear that Barack was well aware that under Hawaiian law, a marriage ceremony involving a party that already had a wife was invalid.

By way of background, the legal systems of most of the 50 states are based on English-American common law which provided that bigamy is a felony and the second spouse of the bigamist is also guilty of bigamy as an “accessory before/after the fact” (depending upon when the spouse learned of the bigamy and did not report it to the authorities).

Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. Prior to that time it was subject to U.S. territorial law which, inter alia, provided that bigamy in general and polygamy in particular were prohibited – as a result of Mormonism in Utah (Utah was part of Mexico when the Mormons fled the United States in 1847 in the middle of the American-Mexican War sparked by the U.S. annexation of Texas, but how could the Mormons have foreseen that with victory over Mexico in 1848, the U.S. would impose on Mexico the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which transferred from Mexico to the U.S. all of California, Nevada and Utah, the bulk of Arizona, and slivers of Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico).

Barack’s mother and father “apparently married” (our author’s description) in 1960, the year after Hawaii became a state. However, upon becoming a state, Hawaii’s statutory law governing marriages provided that neither party could still be in a pre-existing marriage.

Question No. 4

Since Barack's mother was the plural wife of his Islamic father and bigamy would invalidate under Hawaiian law any marriage ceremony in which they had engaged, why would you guess that Barack's mother bothered divorcing his father?

Suggested Answer No. 4

Our author makes clear that as Barack’s father was leaving Hawaii and abandoning Barack and his mother, Barack’s mother was in the process of marrying another University of Hawaii graduate student – a Muslim from Indonesia.

It would make sense for Barack’s mother to “divorce” Barack’s father even though they were not married under either Hawaiian law or American law, because their marriage was legal under Islamic Law and she was marrying another Muslim. Certainly if she planned to live with him in Indonesia (as she in fact did for many years following their marriage), she would be a bigamist under Islamic Law which does not permit women to have simultaneously multiple husbands.

Question No. 5

How old was Barack when he and his mother were abandoned by his father?

Suggested Answer No. 5

Two years old.

Question No. 6

Since Barack's father had been a graduate student at the University of Hawaii for at least three years, for what kind of "study program" at Harvard was he abandoning Barack and his mother?

Suggested Answer No. 6

Who knows??? It doesn’t seem credible unless he was abandoning the degree toward which he was working at the University of Hawaii and started a completely different program (for example, an M.B.A. or law degree) at Harvard.

Question No. 7

How long did Barack live in Indonesia? What kind of schooling did he receive there?

Suggested Answer No. 7

Five years. He attended both Islamic and Roman Catholic schools. However, our author does not clarify whether the Islamic and Catholic schools were simultaneous (for example, he attended one and then received religious training afterwards in the other) or sequential.

Question No. 8

How old was Barack when he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents and attend prep school at Punahou.

Suggested Answer No. 8

Ten years old. He had been two when his father (Barack Obama Sr.) left and his mother married Lolo Soetoro, the Indonesian who was also a Muslim and a graduate student at the University of Hawaii. Barack and his mother lived with Lolo in Hawaii for two more years following which there was a one-year delay before they were able to join Lolo in Indonesia.

Question No. 9

What was the character of Punahou?

Suggested Answer No. 9

It was the most prestigious Prep School in Hawaii. It had an outstanding academic reputation and was virtually all “lily white.”

Question No. 10

How did Barack afford to attend Punahou?

Suggested Answer No. 10

He attended on a scholarship.

Question No. 11

Was Barack a basketball star at Punahou?

Suggested Answer No. 11

No. He was a substitute for his entire stay at Punahou.

Question No. 12

Did Barack play any other sports at Punahou?

Suggested Answer No. 12

Yes. He played football as a freshman. Barack had already attained full height and was considerably bulkier than he is today. Accordingly, he was quite a promising lineman, but did not play after his freshman year.

Question No. 13

Did Barack have any siblings?

Suggested Answer No. 13

Barack did not have any full siblings.

However, he had 9 half-siblings. There was a half-sister resulting from the marriage of his mother to Lolo. Meanwhile, his father already had two children with his first wife before Barack was born, had two more with his third wife and, if my arithmetic is correct (our author says Barack Sr. “fathered nine children by four wives” and we have now accounted for five including Barack Jr.), had four with his fourth wife.

Question No. 14

Was there any substance to the claim frequently made during the recent primary campaign by both Barack and his campaign officials that Barack had been "raised by a single Mom"?

Suggested Answer No. 14

Barack’s mom was never “single” since she married Lolo upon the departure of Barack Sr.

However, she did manage Barack alone during her third year of marriage to Lolo before she and Barack were able to join him in Indonesia. And a year after Barack returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents while attending Punahou, Barack’s mom returned to Hawaii for a year during which Barack lived with her and his step-sister in an apartment; however, at the end of that year, his mom and step-sister returned to Indonesia and Barack returned to living with his grandparents for his final six years at Punahou.

Although Barack’s mom technically was never “single,” nonetheless she did care for Barack without Lolo present for a year when Barack was four, and returned to Hawaii to care for Barack for one year when he was eleven without Lolo being present.

Question No. 15

Why did Barack attend Occidental College in Los Angeles for his first two years of college?

Suggested Answer No. 15

Barack had met a young woman who was already a student at Occidental College. They met while she was vacationing in Hawaii with her parents.

Question No. 16

Why did Barack transfer to Columbia University for his last two years of college?

Suggested Answer No. 16

Our author does not provide an answer (and Barack did not provide one in his two autobiographies).

Question No. 17

Was Barack active in any student activities at Columbia?

Suggested Answer No. 17

No.

Question No. 18

What did Barack do for the first two years after graduation from Columbia?

Suggested Answer No. 18

He graduated in 1983 and worked in NYC for corporations for two years.

Question No. 19

How long was Barack a community organizer on Chicago's South Side?

Suggested Answer No. 19

Three years after moving to Chicago in June 1985.

Question No. 20

When did Barack attend Harvard Law School, serving as President of the prestigious Harvard Law Review?

Suggested Answer No. 20

September 1988 to June 1991 during which he served as President of the Harvard Law Review during his final year.

Question No. 21

While at Harvard, for what famous Harvard Law Professor did Barack serve as a research assistant? What was the reaction of the famous professor to Barack's work?

Suggested Answer No. 21

Laurence Tribe – Harvard Law’s foremost authority on Constitutional Law who for decades has championed liberal causes before the U.S. Supreme Court including representing Al Gore in ALL THREE U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with the 2000 Florida vote.

Laurence Tribe’s reaction is recorded as having been that he hoped to see Barack Obama elected President of the U.S. some day!!!

Question No. 22

How did Barack meet his wife who is also a Harvard Law School graduate?

Suggested Answer No. 22

Although Michele is 2.5 years younger than Barack, she graduated from Harvard Law School in June 1988, three months before Barack began Harvard Law School (because, unlike Barack, she had not worked for NYC corporations for 2 years and as a community organizer in Chicago for 3 years).

Upon graduation, Michelle went to work in her hometown of Chicago for Sidley Austin LLP, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious law firms with offices around the world.

One year later during the summer of 1989, which followed Barack’s first year of law school, he was a summer intern at Sidley Austin’s Chicago office and Michelle was assigned to be his mentor.

Question No. 23

What is the nature of the Chicago law firm that Barack joined after graduation? How long did he remain there?

Suggested Answer No. 23

Miner Barnhill is quite remarkable since it was, when Barack was an associate, a 10-attorney law firm engaged solely in providing legal services to residents and community organizations in Chicago’s worst slums. Its web site today shows that it has grown to 17 attorneys, some of whom are now located in Madison, Wisconsin.

Barack joined Miner Barnhill 6 months after law school graduation. During those six months, he headed “Illinois Project Hope” that registered 150,000 voters.

Barack then spent 2.5 years at Miner Barnhill at which point he was elected to the Illinois state legislature. Thereafter, he only spent summers at Miner Barnhill when the legislature was not in session.

Question No. 24

Among Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 8,000 congregants, who was more famous than Barack?

Suggested Answer No. 24

Oprah Winfrey, who featured 21 months ago Barack’s two autobiographies on her TV program and, at the same time, endorsed Barack for President thereby launching (unofficially) his campaign!!! (Which is why, during the period we took turns each month suggesting a book to read and then hosting our discussion, I proposed Barack’s two autobiographies for our Jan 2007 meeting 19 months ago.)

Question No. 25

How did Barack win the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 2004? The general election?

Suggested Answer No. 25

Blair Hull, a self-made multi-billionaire, spent $28 million during his primary campaign for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate – in contrast, his 6 opponents combined spent $12 million or an average of $2 million.

Because Blair Hull was so well known and was spending so much money on his primary campaign, he had no well-established or well-known challengers.

Shortly before the primary election, negative campaign ads were aired claiming that Blair Hull had abused his ex-wife prior to their divorce. Inexplicably, he promptly withdrew his candidacy – “inexplicably” because polls immediately after the negative ads showed that he would still have won the nomination handily.

Barack was 1 of the 6 candidates running against Blair Hull who were not well established and not well known.

When Blair Hull suddenly withdrew only a few short weeks before the primary vote in the face of the negative campaign ads, Barack came in first with 52.8% of the vote.

It should be noted that Blair Hull’s name was still on the ballot, even though he had announced his withdrawal several weeks earlier. After his withdrawal became widely known, his support collapsed (even though, as mentioned above, polling had showed that the negative campaign ads would not have prevented his election if he had remained a candidate) but he still polled 10.8% as a non-candidate.

In the general election, Barack had similar luck. The Republican incumbent and his Republican predecessor declined to run. Jack Ryan won the March 2004 Republican primary election, but withdrew the end of June when negative publicity was released about embarrassing allegations from his ex-wife. On August 4, 2004, the Republican State Committee asked Alan Keyes, a Maryland resident, to accept the nomination. He accepted and established Illinois residency by renting an apartment there less than 3 months before the general election.

It should also be noted that Barack was given quite a boost when on July 27, 2004 (during the period when Barack had no opponent because Jack Ryan had withdrawn as his Republican opponent and the Illinois Republicans had not yet invited Alan Keyes to run), Barack gave the Keynote Address to the Democratic National Convention that nominated John Kerry.

Question No. 26

Given Barack Obama's background, what kind of a U.S. President do you think he would make?

Suggested Answer No. 26

This will be a prime topic for discussion at our August 13th meeting.

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