This is a review of two simultaneous releases from the Biography Channel: "Barack Obama" and "John McCain." Each program is 47 minutes long. The review has been cross-posted to be listed under each title.
Ann Coulter calls him B. Hussein Obama. Fox News likens his oratory style to Chairman Mao and Hitler, though in a fair and balanced way. But just who is Barack Obama? According to this puff piece from Biography, he´s just a plain old-fashioned family guy like you and me.
You probably know the story by now, and if you do you aren´t going to learn much more from this program. Obama is the son of a mixed marriage couple, Barack Sr. from Kenya and Kansas-born Ann Durham who met at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. You have probably heard through sound bites that Barack´s father left his wife and son which is true, but the more detailed version is that he returned to Kenya to work as an economist, ironically (considering his son´s campaign rhetoric) working for an oil company. He had a brief reunion with Barack Jr. before returning to Kenya once more and dying shortly after an automobile accident at the age of 46.
Ann Durham remarried and the family moved to Indonesia. In the warped universe of Fox News, this is where Obama attended a madrasah though the reality-based term for it is simply a school. To further complicate the picture, Obama then went back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents then moved to Los Angeles and eventually New York, Chicago and Boston, logging significant time in just about all the blue-state capitals. He moved to Boston to go to Harvard where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
Race is such a strange concept, a social construct with no biological basis. Obama is identified as Black presumably because his skin is dark, and because of our need to categorize people by race. Certainly Obama has identified with the African-American community through school and community work, and the identification appears to be both a boon and a potential negative in the current presidential race. Regardless, it is a testament to the shifting cultural norms that a man with a black father, a white mother and the middle name Hussein can be the nominee of a major political party in America.
The program briefly touches on a few controversies in Obama´s life such as his admitted drug use in college, but mostly soft-pedals a heroic image of the man. We hear from his friends and family what a great guy he is, and hear nothing from his critics. There´s not much surprising information offered here. The only thing I didn´t know about was Obama´s visit to Kenya and his reunion with his father´s family.
The McCain documentary is every bit as much of a propaganda piece as the Obama program. The show plays willingly into John McCain´s image as "The Maverick." Even when talking about his troubled time in school (both high school and the U.S. Naval Academy), he is portrayed as a romantic rebel like James Dean. Like George Custer, McCain graduated near the bottom of his class, and apparently didn´t give a damn about him.
This is a review of two simultaneous releases from the Biography Channel: "Barack Obama" and "John McCain." Each program is 47 minutes long. The review has been cross-posted to be listed under each title.
Ann Coulter calls him B. Hussein Obama. Fox News likens his oratory style to Chairman Mao and Hitler, though in a fair and balanced way. But just who is Barack Obama? According to this puff piece from Biography, he´s just a plain old-fashioned family guy like you and me.
You probably know the story by now, and if you do you aren´t going to learn much more from this program. Obama is the son of a mixed marriage couple, Barack Sr. from Kenya and Kansas-born Ann Durham who met at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. You have probably heard through sound bites that Barack´s father left his wife and son which is true, but the more detailed version is that he returned to Kenya to work as an economist, ironically (considering his son´s campaign rhetoric) working for an oil company. He had a brief reunion with Barack Jr. before returning to Kenya once more and dying shortly after an automobile accident at the age of 46.
Ann Durham remarried and the family moved to Indonesia. In the warped universe of Fox News, this is where Obama attended a madrasah though the reality-based term for it is simply a school. To further complicate the picture, Obama then went back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents then moved to Los Angeles and eventually New York, Chicago and Boston, logging significant time in just about all the blue-state capitals. He moved to Boston to go to Harvard where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.
Race is such a strange concept, a social construct with no biological basis. Obama is identified as Black presumably because his skin is dark, and because of our need to categorize people by race. Certainly Obama has identified with the African-American community through school and community work, and the identification appears to be both a boon and a potential negative in the current presidential race. Regardless, it is a testament to the shifting cultural norms that a man with a black father, a white mother and the middle name Hussein can be the nominee of a major political party in America.
The program briefly touches on a few controversies in Obama´s life such as his admitted drug use in college, but mostly soft-pedals a heroic image of the man. We hear from his friends and family what a great guy he is, and hear nothing from his critics. There´s not much surprising information offered here. The only thing I didn´t know about was Obama´s visit to Kenya and his reunion with his father´s family.
The McCain documentary is every bit as much of a propaganda piece as the Obama program. The show plays willingly into John McCain´s image as "The Maverick." Even when talking about his troubled time in school (both high school and the U.S. Naval Academy), he is portrayed as a romantic rebel like James Dean. Like George Custer, McCain graduated near the bottom of his class, and apparently didn´t give a damn about him.
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