April 29, 2011: Conservative Blogger: Obama a ‘B_stard, Both Literally and Figuratively’

Pamela Geller, the conservative blogger who has for years attacked President Obama’s parentage and his citizenship (see July 20, 2008, October 24, 2008,August 4, 2009, and April 27, 2011), now calls Obama “a b_stard, literally and figuratively.” Geller’s characterization is part of a long tirade about Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., based on information about the elder Obama cited by the Arizona Independent, which obtained the Immigration and Naturalization Service file on Obama Sr. (see April 28, 2011). Geller accuses Obama’s father of “impossible philandering, multiple wives, and bad behavior,” says the elder Obama was forced to leave Harvard University and the United States itself, and blames his “polygamy” on his Muslim faith. She also says the portrait Obama has painted of his father in his first memoir, Dreams of My Father, is completely false, though Obama never knew his father and depicted his father in an unflattering light. Geller writes: “He was a terrible man—immoral and irresponsible. His treatment of women was incredibly callous and cruel—not to mention the abandoment of his children and his multiple wives. President Obama is indeed a bastard, literally and figuratively. What a horrible man. Dreams of My Father. Indeed. Perhaps this explains President Obama’s animus towards the United States” (see November 8, 2007, Before October 27, 2008, January 16, 2008, April 9, 2009, June 5, 2009, June 25, 2009, June 29, 2009, September 14, 2009, November 17, 2009, February 2, 2010, June 11, 2010, September 12, 2010, September 12, 2010 and After, September 12, 2010 and After, September 16, 2010, September 17, 2010, September 23, 2010, September 23-24, 2010, March 2011, April 15, 2011, and April 27, 2011). A New York Times analysis of the same information concludes that Obama Sr. had a tribal wife in Kenya at the time he married Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and explains: “We call this ‘polygamy’; they see it as moving on with life. First marriages fizzle out in Africa, as they do everywhere else. The difference is that culturally, legal divorce is very frowned upon: It’s viewed as shirking financial and familial responsibilities. Epidemiologists, who have studied this cultural pattern because of its impact on the spread of HIV, often say that Africans tend to have ‘concurrent’ relationships, while Americans have ‘consecutive’ ones. That’s a wild generalization, but the point is that Obama Sr. would not have viewed his first marriage back in Kenya as something disreputable. It clearly became worthy of investigation to school and immigration officials, though, after he started fooling around with white women.” Geller calls the hints of racism towards Obama Sr. ridiculous, and cites fellow conservative blogger Jack Cahill as providing “proof” that Obama Sr.‘s marriage to Dunham was possibly invalid, making Obama the “b_stard” that she accuses him of being. [Pamela Geller, 4/29/2011] The progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters notes that Geller’s attack on Obama and his father is part of a new initiative by “birthers” to besmirch Obama by attacking his father (see April 29, 2011). [Media Matters, 4/29/2011]