How did Obama afford college and his house? The same way we all did: loans and income
A smear recently discovered “in the wild” weaves together a few true facts about Barack Obama’s past with a boatload of lies and distortions to arrive at a complex conspiracy theory which bears no relation to reality.
When this smear was forwarded to you, it may have started with this:
This electdion has me very worried. So many things to consider. About a year ago I would have voted for Obama. I have changed my mind three times since then.
Or perhaps like this:
Around 1979 Obama started college at Occidental in California. He is very open about his two years at Occidental, he tried all kinds of drugs and was wasting his time but, even though he had a brilliant mind, did not apply himself to his studies.
There is very little in this smear that is true.
Snopes.com does an excellent job of debunking the claims that Obama’s education and house were paid for with money obtained from questionable sources, so we refer you to their article rather than repeating its contents here. However, there are a number of additional lies in this smear which merit rebuttal.
The characterization of Obama’s time at Occidental given in the smear and quoted above is simply false. See this New York Times article for proof.
The smear claims that Muhammad Chandoo and Wahid Hamid were Obama’s roommates at Occidental; in fact they were not. Incidentally, since when does having a Pakistani background, as Chandoo and Hamid do and as the smear is careful to point out, automatically make a person worthy of suspicion? Nowadays, Chandoo is a self-employed financial consultant, and Wahid is now a vice president at Pepsico, both living and working in New York. Are these people we should be worried about?
Finally, to answer the question of how Obama paid for his trip, the answer is, quite simply, that his mother paid for it so that he could visit her and his father.
Truly, the absurdity of this smear makes it clear just how low Obama’s detractors will stoop in their efforts to scare people out of voting for him.