Obama and McCain: Family Roots
Conventional wisdom maintains that when it comes to children, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That may explain the fascination with the family trees of John McCain and Barack Obama. So, what exactly do their family trees look like?
The Family Roots of Barack Obama
Barack’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was an extraordinary woman, and by all accounts, way ahead of her time.
I’ll say this not because it should matter, but because the sad fact is that race still does matter to a lot of people: Ann Dunham was born in Kansas to a white father and a white mother. Like 100% of the baby girls born to white parents in Kansas that year, Ann was pretty white.
Anyway, Ann Dunham grew up, graduated high school and then went to Honolulu to study anthropology at the University of Hawaii.
There she met Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who was a recipient of an economics scholarship, and also the University’s first black student.
The senior Obama was born in Kenya in 1936. He married at 18, and when he came to Hawaii on scholarship, he left behind an infant son and a pregnant wife.
Ann Dunham met Obama Sr. in a Russian language class in Hawaii. She didn’t know that he already had a wife in Kenya where it was acceptable for men to have multiple wives. When she was three months pregnant, against the objections of both hers and Obama Sr.’s parents, they got married. A few months later, on August 4, 1961, out popped little Barack.
Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at Harvard for graduate study and moved to Massachusetts. He and Ann divorced, he earned his degree at Harvard, and then he returned to his first wife and his family in Kenya. He only saw Obama Jr. once more, when his son was 10. Obama Sr. was killed in an automobile accident in 1982. Besides Obama Jr., he fathered six other sons and a daughter. Most of them live in the United States or Great Britain.
A few years after her divorce from Obama Sr., Ann married an Indonesian student named Lolo Soetoro.
In 1967, the new Indonesian dictator, Suharto, called all Indonesian citizens to return to their home country. At that time, Ann and her son, Barack, moved with Soetoro to Jakarta. In Jakarta, Obama attended local Catholic and Muslim schools. Both schools were open to people of all religious faiths, and only offered a few religious classes. Neither school taught radical Islam…nor radical Christianity.
When Barack Jr. was 10, he returned to Honolulu and lived with his maternal grandparents while he attended the prestigious private Punahou School from the fifth grade until he graduated in 1979.
Obama’s mother, Ann, returned to graduate school in Honolulu in 1974, while raising Barack and his new step sister, Maya. She eventually earned her PhD and become one of the world’s foremost authorities in micro finance before succumbing to Ovarian Cancer in 1995.
Obama’s half sister, Maya, received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2006.
Maya is married to a Canadian-born professor of Chinese descent with whom she has a daughter. She teaches high school, instructs night classes at the University of Hawaii, and recently took two months out of her schedule to campaign for her big brother.
The Family Roots of John McCain
Unlike Barack Obama, John Sidney McCain III was not born in the United States. McCain was born on August 29, 1936, in Panama.
McCain’s paternal grandfather, John McCain, Sr., was born in Carrol County, Mississippi, to proud parents who owned a 2000 acre former slave plantation. McCain Sr. grew up, attended Ole Miss University, then moved on to the Naval Academy where he graduated in 1906. He served in both World Wars and died soon after returning home from the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. He was posthumously promoted to four star admiral.
John McCain’s dad was also a four star admiral. He served in WWII and in later life was assigned to a series of posts at the Pentagon.
Unlike Barack Obama, who attended a small number of prestigious academically challenging grade schools in Honolulu and Jakarta, John McCain was frequently uprooted as his family (including older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe) followed their military dad around the Pacific, and he attended at least 20 different naval-base schools which were often substandard.
Despite being uprooted so often, McCain did get to spend many summer vacations back at the family’s 2000 acre plantation in Mississippi. After earning the nicknames “Punk” and “McNasty” due to frequent fights at school, he finally graduated and entered the Naval Academy like his father and grandfather.
Unlike Obama, who worked and studied hard to get into Harvard, then became the president of the Law Review, and then graduated first in his class, McCain was an average student who got into the Naval Academy on the name of his father and grandfather. McCain capitalized on his good fortune by graduating 894th out of 899.
Read More: Barack Obama, John McCain, Stanley Ann Dunham, family roots, University of Hawaii, election 2008
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Great post baby! Some more interesting things to read about McCain.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1214492529435
I did not know he adopted his first wife’s two sons, and then adopted a little girl from bangladesh.
I still lean towards voting for Obama, but I totally see McCain in a very different light.
Thank you! I have been getting a whole lot of racist, fear-mongering emails about Barak Obama — evidently alot of people are getting such emails because his campaign has set up an entire webpage dedicated to refuting the spew being passed around– and I am stunned and horrified how deep racial hatred remains in this country and how unwilling people are to question their fears.
I’m from IL and we’ve been hit very hard economically by the Bush years. Obama is our Senator and could really help us a bit financially as President, but people are so scared of having a black man run things, they’ll cut their own noses to spite their faces and instead of just admitting that it’s racism, they say it’s because we don’t really “know” who Obama is.
Yes, we do.. It’s called Project Vote Smart, google it, visit it and read where he gets his money, how he has voted over the course of his entire career, etc., etc., etc.
Then look up McCain and read about him. How well do we “know” John McCain? Pretty well, and I don’t think he is on our side.
Of course, here is the point in my diatribe that my son would stop me to point out that McCain (like John Kerry) is a war hero and a survivor of torture and that should command some respect.
But I don’t think that respecting McCain means he should be president.
Go Obama!
Great post. Amazing with so many opportunities to fail, Obama and his mother, thrived.
Wow! McCain that low in his class?!
I have to say this “hero” designation business has gotten completely out of hand. First of all when does ones job well, one is not a hero. When he screws up and crashes multiple planes, he is not a hero. Becoming a prisoner of war is still in the line of duty and an expectation, but I’ll grant it is on the upper limits. However, McCain himself says he “gave up” everything he knew under torture. Not giving it up would have been heroic.
Do what he had to do the survive is simply being human and what any one of us would have tried to do. Not heroic!
Now I was never captured from my nice little company clerk position and tortured. So my opinion is not fully informed. But I do know when my Dad charged up a hill in Korea, under sniper fire to rescue a guy cause the stretcher bearers got shot, is not required and so was heroic.
If that annoying character would just stand up for vets, in deed. I’d lay off and he could call himself whatever he wanted to call himself.
“McCain’s paternal grandfather, John McCain, Sr., was born in Carrol County, Mississippi, to proud parents who owned a 2000 acre former slave plantation”
LOL , I must admit as to McCain you have done a excellent job of some how making a incredible life seem sort of dirty.
Congrats
Thanks for the feedback everybody. I’ve seen the untruthful Obama emails, too, and after I started looking around for the truth, found that he came from a very interesting background that isn’t nearly as evil as the right-wing emails make it out to be. And at the same time, he’s not the saint everybody makes him out to be, either, but I think he’s many miles closer than BushCo.
JH: There are many people who have led incredible lives. John Kerry, for one. The Swift Boat Veterans and their ilk sure made his incredible heroic life seem dirty didn’t they? Maybe I shouldn’t stoop to the level of the Republicans who so often distort the truth by omission. And then, after the last two stolen elections, maybe it’s time liberal-minded people understood the real rules of the game being played and didn’t fight a bare-knuckles bout with gloves on.
Also, millions of people live truly incredible and heroic lives everyday. Doesn’t mean they’re all qualified to perform brain surgery, or sing at The Met, or operate heavy farm machinery. And just because I think McCain doesn’t have what it takes to be a good president in the 21st century doesn’t mean he’s not a truly extraordinary guy in other areas of his life. It just means I’m pretty sure he’d make another embarrassingly lousy president, as would most of us. ;-)
JoeC
You will find that no party has a monoply on people that get a tad nasty. I guess we could compare Laundry list of over things we found over the top as ot the party we did not exactly like do. In fact we know this. Oh and I will pass on the “stole two elections” thing and not gove comment.
Bush has had his tray full of unfair slams from the left and the right. Taking a punch is just part of it.
I don’t think Mccain is really going to run on the war hero thing. Both people will have ideas and they will be examined by the American people once they start doing their tuning in about Sept. That being said Obama will play on his image and his background just like McCain at times. It is a part of us learning who they are.
However I was giving a compliment because I did see the humor in it. I really didn’t take it seriously and at some point humor is a part of politics.
Ok I will let yall get back to making McCain look Imcompetent lol
Just had my typos in my previous post pointed out to me. Serves me right for reacting.
btw, saw a great line on Huffpost a bit ago.
“In wars of aggression there are no heros, only war criminals.”
Of course, I’m mostly speaking of the leadership.
Xman: Good quote/proverb.
I really used to like McCain, right up until I saw the “bomb bomb bomb Iran” bit. That did it for me, and I guess I see him more like an enemy now…as in somebody who would carelessly risk sending our country into another war while we’re still in the thick of quagmire.
Anyway, I really want to take the high road, but I’m afraid I probably won’t.
First, I want the people who tore down John Kerry over the size of his purple heart wounds while excusing Bush’s National Guard record…I want them to give to give their accessment of the medals and honors piled on McCain for losing 5 aircraft and getting preferential treatment in a POW camp and then, God forbid, telling the enemy military secrets under torture! Obama would never divulge info under torture!!! ;-)
Also, I want the people who tore down Kerry for marrying a ketchup fortune to show equal maliciousness to McCain for dumping his injured-and-not-so-sexy-anymore wife for a beer fortune.
The irony of the folks who assassinated Kerry for being an empty war hero who married his wife for money…now trying to get people to elect their own empty war hero who married his wife for money…well, it’s the very definition of irony, and it’s also the definition of psycho-level hypocrisy. I love it! ;-)
McCain has been skating through life since he was born. Wesley Clark was right and yet everyone including Obama is going nuts over it.
Cept me. ;)
Kerry probably married partly for money. But he also married a woman with brains who is not afraid to speak her mind. I was disappointed they shut her up during the campaign. Very attractive, in my opinion. But I guess it offended those who think the little “wifey” should walk behind her man and keep quiet.
Yeah, McCain used to say some good things…years ago. Now, age, consultants and “wanting it real bad”…have messed his character up.
Unfortunately, I’m seeing some evidence of Obama doing the “mush mouth” too.
Thank you for a very interesting article!
Seen from outside the USA, one other point could be made about Barack Obama.
He is often referred to as, potentially, “the first Black President of the United States”. I would propose a different perspective: Obama is perhaps the first presidential candidate who is neither White nor Black (unlike, say, Jesse Jackson or Condi Rice), but illustrates what the US, a country of recent immigration, has achieved beyond considerations of race. In this sense, he is more representative of today’s blended national reality, than of either of the 2 races mentioned.
If he were elected, he would be the first President to transcend the Black and White divide. Thus, rather than being part of the problem, he could, arguably, bring a fresh approach.
Another point, also from an outside perspective: whoever takes the oath of office on 20th of January 2009 will, in my mind, be faced with an overarching challenge: how to restore the trust of other countries and peoples in the US. It’s a pity, because the 20th century was, to a large extent, shaped by your country.
Regards,
JJS.
Dusty: Yep, I don’t see see anything wrong with Wesley Clark’s statement either. I guess folks would jump all over him if he’d said McCain can’t win the World Chess Championship or recite the complete works of Shakespeare from memory, too. He didn’t disrespect McCain’s ability to be tortured in a POW camp. He just stated facts: McCain doesn’t have the mental skills to be the Commander in Chief.
Xman: All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think you’re right…we’ve seen this with McCain getting a little taste of power. Of course, you have to wheel and deal and make compromises to do business, but he seems to have almost completely abandoned any earlier principles he had.
JJS: Good point. Obama is one of a small percentage of people who knows what it’s like to grow up both white and black in America. He’s got a unique insight that most of us can never have, and I think it’s serving him well in his current endeavors.
Hey,
Reading the JJS comment just made me think of something.
If Obama becomes president. how do we know for sure he will be the first black?
I refer to the ability of DNA labs to now test for ETHNIC dna.
No all at once now, but everyone run out to all the past presidents library’s, exhibits, etc. and pilfer a strand of hair. I’m sure all exhibits display a lock of hair, right?
Then we get it tested and see who was black.
If I was in Obama’s camp, I’d be doing this right now. It might take a little starch out of those Tennessee voters who seem to hate black so much, if they were to find out Lincoln was a black.
I’m sort of entertained by the thought.
If the DNA were examined, no doubt we’d discover we’ve already had our first Native American president, and probably the first African American too. As for Tennessee, somebody needs to tell the hatemongers that the “American Melting Pot” applies all the way to the tip-top job holder in the land, too.
Nice work, Joe. Excellent summaries, clearly unbiased. I wasn’t aware of the “Punk” and “McNasty” monikers. They seem to fit though, given Punk’s calling an especially significant family member a bad name that rhymes with runt.
More on “Punk” and “McNasty”, straight from McCain’s high school yearbook: McCain’s High School Nicknames.
True McCain wasn’t born in the United States but any military base is considered United States of America. And at one time Panama was part of the United States but not as a state. We gave them their freedom in the 1970’s.
Just because a person goes to several schools doesn’t mean they have a bad education. I personally went to over 10 schools and I don’t feel my education was deprived. If anything it was stronger because a lot of times I had to catch up to the school I was in.