Old Friends Say They Don't Remember Barack Obama as a Drug User

Olds friends from some of the years Barack Obama writes about in his book "Dreams From My Father" say he never really seemed to be much into drugs and alcohol though he mentioned some use in its pages according to a report in the New York Times "Friends Say Drugs Played Only Bit Part for Obama ". 

True to type a NY Times journalist suggests that maybe the presidential hopeful wanted to play up his younger years drug usage to make the obstacles more pronounced, or maybe he was a secret drug user or even that his friends look at the past through heavily tinted rose colored glasses.  

I'll tell you what I got from reading the book.  I seemed to sense a highly developed moral complex that was disturbed by whatever little drug use he may have participated in.  That could possibly made  occasional drug and alcohol use seem a bigger deal to him than to a writer of the New York Times .  In fact, I think you might notice that not only presidential candidates, but all kinds of public servants have a high need to be living to make the world a better place, unless like so many Republicans, they are in it to spend a few years in public service to jump out and make money from fat cats based on their ties to insiders. 

I don't think the best public servants could stand the horrendous hours and exhausting workloads, not to mention the worry and pressures if they didn't have that strong ethic and desire to do whatever they can to better the world.

So I believe Mr. Obama probably did few drugs, but felt worse about it than most of us would and that guilt naturally magnified his perception of the problem. The candidate's fear that drug and alcohol usage would dull the need to help others would fit right into that scenario.

The book, written after the became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, is a good look at Mr. Obama's history, and a look at both racial, community, family issues.

While other young men were concentrating on getting rich in the '80s, Barack Obama was working with poor people, trying to get them the basic amenities they should be able to expect in their homes, communities, and schools.

tags: obama  ny times  mainstream news  dreams from my father  

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