XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.media, alt.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.elections, talk.politics.guns, alt.journalism   
   From: zucker_open-news-network@freedyn.de   
      
   NEW YORK – One person who wasn’t surprised by media reports about   
   Barack Obama receiving $400,000 for a speech to Cantor Fitzgerald   
   employees was historian and author Prof. David Garrow.   
      
   Open gallery view   
      
   Until then, says Garrow, the Obamas lived in a very small apartment   
   in Chicago, had just paid off their university loans and were living   
   a very modest middle class life. “What I started to notice during   
   his presidency, we saw not only this odd pattern of playing golf   
   every weekend, but we also saw this increasing obsession with   
   Hollywood celebrities and musicians and billionaires, inviting all   
   these celebrity-types to the White House.   
      
   “When he was in the Illinois State Senate, he was so sensitive. He   
   always talked about immigrants collecting bottles and cans from the   
   garbage, and during the presidency he would mention how being in the   
   White House you get increasingly out of touch with real life. That’s   
   what I think happened,” observes Garrow.   
      
   Genevieve Cook also told Garrow that cocaine use was a key part of   
   their relationship at the time, although Obama was much more   
   moderate in his use than she and her friends.   
      
   More evidence of this can be found in the Obamas’ decision to move   
   to a spacious home for which they are paying monthly rent of   
   $22,000, claims Garrow, noting with evident disgust, “When Barack   
   was in Illinois, his annual salary was $57,000 a year.”   
      
   After working on the book for nine years, can you understand where   
   this need to be around celebrities comes from?   
      
   “For me, that’s the hardest part about him,” says Garrow. “I believe   
   this reflects a need for approbation from these celebrities. I would   
   tell you that when Barack ran for the Senate in 2004, his most   
   important financial support was from Jewish families – particularly   
   the Crown family, who are a big deal in Chicago. And in 2012, one of   
   the main members of the family, Susan Crown, switches and endorses   
   [Mitt] Romney and complains to the U.S. press that when Barack was   
   in New York [at the opening session of the UN General Assembly], he   
   refused to see [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu but went instead   
   to some very expensive private event with Beyoncé and Jay-Z.”   
      
   Some would attribute this need to be loved to the fact that he grew   
   up without a dad and later on, when he was 10, was abandoned by his   
   mom.   
      
   https://www.haaretz.com/life/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-biographer-with-   
   no-regrets-about-uncovering-obama-s-sex-life-1.5477977   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)