Obama’s Mother and Food Stamps

A poor upbringing?

Following Obama’s recent dumb comment about small town Americans clinging to guns and religion, he defended himself by claiming that the notion of elitist is absurd because of his poor upbringing. He claimed that his http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3814 was on food stamps, so how could he be an elitist in his upbringing? For a while, that bothered me a good deal. Why? We all know that Obama has repeatedly lied in the past on certain issues, and will do again in order to get by. Do we dare to take his word at face value?

Read on…

The real issue here is about his upbringing, and if it was in fact a poor one. I did a little amateur research on the Internet (may God bless Al Gore, the “inventor” of Internet! Just kidding) to find out more about his mother living on food stamps. What kind of circumstances did lead his mother to apply for welfare checks?

Here is the key excrept from a http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4221 article written by Joe Klein in 2006:

“For example, I was going to a fancy prep school, and my mother was on food stamps while she was http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3407 her Ph.D.”This is what Obama said. He went to a fancy private school, and his mother was studying for a Ph.D. So, please do tell me was his upbringing a poor one? Please. I’m begging, no, make it daring, you to tell me otherwise.

What kind of fancy private school did he attend? Punahou Academy in Honolulu, Hawaii. The tuition at that school today costs over $15,000. So, how could he attend this school if his mother were on food stamps? Where did his mother get that kind of money? Scholarship? I don’t know.

But that’s not the real issue here, again I do emphasize Obama’s claim that he grew up in a poor household. I suppose it depends on what definition of poor you use. If Obama didn’t get his favorite toy, did that mean he is automatically poor? Of course not. Equally valid is the fact her mother was studying for her Ph.D, that meant she had money to pay for tuition and fees. Did that mean she wasn’t actually poor as Obama may have claimed though for a while they did live on food stamps?

http://www.redstate.com/blogs/cheetah772/2008/apr/16/obamas_mother_and_food_stamps_a_poor_upbringing

2008-04-17