When a woman a few years older told a 22-year-old Barack Obama, "I
love you," he replied, "Thank you". In the journal she kept throughout
their roughly one-year relationship, the girlfriend, from Australia and
white, once noted: "The sexual warmth is definitely there – but the rest of it has sharp edges."
No one could say that revelations in a new biography about the
American President's pre-Michelle romantic life during his four years in New York, partly studying at Columbia University, from 1981 are exactly salacious. Rather they paint a picture of a much younger Barack Obama
that seems to jibe pretty well with the man we know now. They will
doubtless make him blush even so (and Michelle, too). We do find out he
would sometimes go shirtless in his apartment in the day wearing only a
sarong.
The titbits, which have drawn attention to Mr Obama's own
recollection of that time in his autobiography Dreams of my Father, in
which, by his own admission, he created composites of people he knew,
are contained in a biography by Washington Post journalist David
Maraniss. Due out in June and called Barack Obama: The Story, it is
excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair.
A much-respected
reporter, Mr Maraniss tracked down two of the President's old New York
flames, notably the journal-keeper. She was Genevieve Cook, who was 25.
The daughter of a prominent Australian diplomat, she, like Mr Obama, had spent part of her childhood in Indonesia, indeed they had overlapped
there. They met at a Christmas Party in 1983 in an East Village
apartment, began spending weekends together and for a while experimented living together, though they broke up soon afterwards.
Midway in
the relationship she put this in the pages of the journals, which she
made available to Maraniss. "Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open
and trusting, there is also that coolness-and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me." She also wrote: "Barack still intrigues me, but so much going on beneath the surface, out of
reach. Guarded, controlled."
Cook offered further analysis when
the fling ended. "I guess I hoped time would change things and he'd let
go and 'fall in love' with me. Now, at this point, I'm left wondering if Barack's reserve, etc is not just the time in his life, but, after all, emotional scarring that will make it difficult for him to get involved
even after he's sorted his life through with age and experience." She
added: "Hard to say, as obviously I was not the person that brought
infatuation. (That lithe, bubbly, strong black lady is waiting
somewhere!)"
Mr Obama perhaps laid the seeds of sabotage early in
the relationship with Ms Cook telling her, according to her journal,
about his "perfect ideal woman". She wrote that she imagined she would
have to be "very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher,
well-experienced – a black woman I keep seeing her as". Barack was not
to meet Michelle until 1989.
Friday, May 04, 2012
emotional scarring
Khadija Ismayilova was blackmailed by Azerbaijan government
filmed using a covert camera, has been released online in the latest
disturbing sign of the perils that activists and independent journalists face in the country.
Khadija Ismayilova, who works for Radio Free Europe, has exposed
corruption in Azerbaijan, including among the President's family and
inner circle. She received a chilling package in the mail last week,
with photographs from a video of her having sex, and a message that she
should stop publishing her exposés or the video would be released.
Instead, she made the threat public, and this week the video was
published online.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan will host the Eurovision
Song Contest in May, and is keen to project an image of a modern,
prosperous society that is developing fast. But critics say that beneath the shiny veneer, the government of President Ilham Aliyev is sinister
and corrupt. Ms Ismayilova says she is working on a story linking
members of the President's family to a huge construction project, and
suspects that it was this story that the blackmailers were hoping to
suppress.
"I am sure this comes from the authorities," Ms
Ismayilova told The Independent yesterday from Baku. "It is not just the online video: two newspapers close to the government have run stories
providing the link to it and containing texts insulting to my dignity."
She said the video was taken in an apartment that she used to live in,
meaning that somebody had broken in and installed a hidden camera in the bedroom.
Amnesty International yesterday said this suggested
official involvement, and urged the Azerbaijani government to
investigate. "This is a despicable attempt to discredit a journalist
investigating government corruption at the highest level," an Amnesty
spokesman said.
In a diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Mr
Aliyev apparently complained to a top US official that Ms Ismayilova was an "enemy of the government". Other government critics have been either assaulted or jailed in the country in recent years, and the political
opposition is marginalised.
"This is a very traditional society
where there are still a lot of honour killings, and they clearly
calculated that I would prefer to keep quiet and not have this made
public," Ms Ismayilova said, adding that the incident had only made her
"more determined to continue with my work".
Thursday, May 03, 2012
“Barack Obama: The Story”
David Maraniss, the Pulitzer
prize-winning journalist and biographer has unearthed a treasure trove
of love letters and journal entries from President Barack Obama's ex-girlfriends to paint a picture of the what the twenty-something Barack Obama was like during his largely undocumented years spent in New York City
An excerpt from the book published in advance by Vanity Fair focuses on his romantic relationships with Genevieve Cook and another woman, Alex McNear after graduating from Columbia Law School. According to the book, Obama was an intelligent and gentle man who
struggled with his own identity and constantly worked to define himself. Here are the juiciest bits:
1. Obama was a lady-killer in his day:
Describing her first date with the future United States president, Genevieve Cook wrote:
I'm pretty sure we had dinner maybe the Wednesday. I think maybe he cooked
me dinner. Then we went and talked in his bedroom. And then I spent the
night. It all felt very inevitable.
Clearly, Barry had 'the moves' as a young man, but what was the secret recipe to his success with Cook?
2. A distinct fragrance:
In her unearthed journals, Genevieve Cook described the specific mixture
of smells that overwhelmed her when she entered his room, and still
symbolize Obama so many years later for her.
I open the door,
that Barack keeps closed, to his room, and enter into a warm, private
space pervaded by a mixture of smells that so strongly speak of his
presence, his liveliness, his habits - running sweat, Brut spray
deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing.
3. The morning after...
After spending the night, Cook and Obama would often spend their Sundays
lounging around his apartment, only partially clothed. In Maraniss's
article he writes:
(Cook) remembered how on Sundays Obama would lounge around, drinking coffee and solving the New York Times crossword puzzle, bare-chested, wearing a blue and white sarong.
Despite this seemingly idyllic relationship, Cook wrote in her journal that
there was always something off about their relationship.
4. Was Obama too cool for his own good?
