Obama's radical associations at Occidental College

I met Barack Obama face-to-face later that same year in late December 1980. By then, I was in my second year of graduate school at Cornell. I was doing my first, official teaching. The young Ann Coulter was a student in Theodore J. Lowi's Introduction to American Government course in 1980 and I was the teaching assistant responsible for guiding her small group discussion section. Back on the West Coast for Christmas break, I was visiting a girlfriend who was still attending Occidental College who introduced me to "Barry" Obama and his housemate Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, a wealthy Pakistani student.

My most vivid memory of my time visiting with Obama was the way he strongly argued a rather simple-minded version of Marxist theory. I remember he was passionate about his point of view. As I remember, he was articulating the same Marxist theory taught by various professors at Occidental College. Based on my more detailed studies at Cornell, I remember I made a strong argument that his Marxist ideas were not in line with contemporary reality - particularly the practical experience of Western Europe.

In 50 years, it is possible that some post-grad candidate will write his thesis on Obama's radical associations, and how his radical ideology was formed in his youth. It will be a curiosity piece, no more.

Meanwhile, the president's contemporaries will be left in the dark as a result of a concerted effort - uncoordinated but effective - by most of the major media at the time. Whether it would ever have made any difference to voters is unknown. But citizens should at least have had the opportunity to decide for themselves.

Hat Tip: Michael van der Galien