JERUSALEM – "Senator Barack Obama is hiding mediocre grades." "He's covering up his acceptance into Harvard Law School utilizing a boost from an affirmative action program."
"The presidential candidate is disguising his involvement in radical black organizations or that he first met Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers much earlier than he's publicly admitted." These are just a few of the explanations from newspaper editorials, pundits and bloggers as to why Obama refuses to release his undergraduate records and has disclosed almost nothing about his days at Columbia University. Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to Columbia in 1981. It has been confirmed Obama graduated Columbia in 1983 with a major in political science and that he did not receive honors, but further information, including transcripts, are sealed by the university. In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father," Obama goes into detail about certain periods of his life, including his early education and his days at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated magna cum laude and led the Harvard Law Review. But the Illinois senator just barely touches upon his Columbia days. Obama wrote he "spent a lot of time in the library. I didn't socialize that much. I was like a monk.” He then immediately moved on to a general philosophical discussion about race in New York, but didn't return to his Columbia experience nor mention any associations with friends or professors at the university. It is known Obama lived off-campus with a roommate identified as "Sadik," who was not a Columbia student. Obama describes Sadik as "a short, well-built Pakistani" who smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine. The AP tracked down "Sadik," whose real name turned out to be Sahole Saddiqi. Obama first met him when the two attended Occidental and Obama was living with a group of Pakistani students. "We were both very lost," Siddiqi told the AP of his days in New York with Obama. "We were both alienated, although he might not put it that way. He arrived disheveled and without a place to stay." Obama had earlier traveled to Pakistan with his college friends, staying there for three weeks in 1981 at a time Pakistan was under military rule and it was difficult for U.S. citizens to travel to the country. His Columbia days are particularly mysterious because there is almost no trace of him among students who attended the same year and studied the same major. Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him. Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party's vice president, told WND he graduated from Columbia the same day as Obama with the same major, yet he never spoke to a single former Columbia student or faculty member who remembered Obama. Root speculates Obama is keeping his Columbia transcript under wraps so as not to reveal a less-than-stellar record, which would raise questions as to how he was accepted to Harvard. Root said at Columbia he personally achieved a B+ average with a good score on the Law School Admittance Test, but he says he was told he would not get accepted to any Ivy League graduate school. "Yet, Barack was accepted to Harvard Law School. Was it because of his grades, test scores and college record? Or, was it because of the color of his skin?" asked Root. http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76504 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
