Obama’s excessively deferential grandmother

There is an interesting profile of Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama’s grandmother, in the Honolulu Advertiser, focusing on her successful career as a banking executive in Hawaii and the fact that, in a state with a great deal of racial diversity and racial consciousness, no one ever heard her making a racial statement.The story has a nice photo of the Dunhams and their grandson at Columbia University when he was an undergraduate there, sitting together on a bench that looks as though it’s either on Riverside Drive or Morningside Drive.

Here’s an enticing but frustrating tidbit:

Dunham has repeatedly declined to comment to reporters. Dunham did want to be interviewed for this story, Soetoro-Ng [Obama’s half-sister] said, but declined because it would be unfair to other media who have made requests.

Isn’t that silly? The whole world wants to know more about her, and she herself wanted to speak, but she wouldn’t let herself be interviewed by the local newspaper that she preferred to give an interview to, because that would be unfair to all other newspapers! Obviously a total liberal. If people consistently followed Mrs. Dunham’s logic, no interviews would ever be given (because that would mean selecting one interviewer over others), no one would ever hire anyone for a job (because that would mean choosing one applicant over others), no one would ever have a friend (you get the idea), and no one would ever get married.

The story closes with this:

Dunham, however, still finds simple pleasures in her apartment, Soetoro-Ng said, “listening to books on tape and watching her grandson on CNN every day.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 30, 2008 04:01 PM | Send