Why is Obama avoiding Kenya? ~ By Jerome Corsi

By Jerome Corsi Posted: July 08, 2009 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Why did President Obama decide to skip Kenya, the homeland of his father, on his return visit this week to Africa? Phone call to the White House When I telephoned the White House looking for an answer, I was referred to Thomas F. Vietor, whom I was told was the White House spokesman on issues pertaining to the president's Africa trip. In a long series of e-mails between the White House and WND, Vietor reverted back to campaign mode in his attempt to explain why President Obama has decided to skip Kenya. This was particularly important to me since I traveled to Kenya during the presidential campaign to track down reports that then-Sen. Obama had been born in Kenya, not Hawaii. In researching my 2008 campaign bestselling book "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," I devoted Chapter 5, "Kenya, Odinga, Communism and Islam," to Kenya, focusing on Sen. Obama's extremely close relationship to Kenya's then-presidential contender Raila Odinga, a perennial Kenyan politician whose father Odinga-Odinga, better known as "Double-O" was a professed communist. Raila Odinga himself had been educated by his father in East Germany and had emerged from the experience to name his son "Fidel," after Cuba's communist dictator. At that time, Raila Odinga was claiming his fellow Luo tribesman, Sen. Obama, was a blood cousin. Vietor referred me to an interview President Obama gave to All Africa. In that interview, President Obama expressed that his disappointment with the pace of democracy in Kenya was a key reason he chose not to include Kenya on his trip. "In his most pointed comments on the country of his father's birth, the U.S. president tore into Kenya's leadership saying that 'political parties do not seem to be moving into a permanent reconciliation that would allow the country to move forward," All Africa reporters Oliver Mathenge and Kevin Kelley wrote in an article titled "Obama Scolds Kenya." White House reverts to campaign mode Sen. Obama had traveled to Kenya in 2006 and made a DVD about that trip that he used extensively in his 2008 presidential campaign. When I pointed this out to Vietor, he responded, "I don't understand why the president's visit there in 2006 would determine his travel in 2009, one way or the other but feel free to explain." I tried to explain. "As a U.S. senator, President Obama enthusiastically visited Kenya, the homeland of his father," WND pointed out to Vietor. "Now that he is president, President Obama is going to Ghana without any planned visit to Kenya. What as president does President Obama know about Kenya that makes him not want to go to Kenya that Sen. Obama did not know in 2006?" Vietor's next e-mail answered: "The president looks forward to traveling more widely in Africa in the future, but on this trip he wanted to visit Ghana. I don't understand what a trip in 2006, during which he visited more countries than just Kenya, has to do with his itinerary this week." To be more specific, I then noted: "The reports from Kenya are that President Obama is disappointed in Kenya's progress with democracy under the co-head of state relationship between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga." I continued: "Also, we are told President Obama does not to bring up questions sources such as WND have identified (and I myself identified in "The Obama Nation") regarding extensive ties with Raila Odinga, including Sen. Obama's campaigning in Kenya for Odinga in 2006 and Sen. Obama telephoning Odinga in Kenya, while Sen. Obama was in New Hampshire campaigning in the primary, after the post-election tribal violence in Kenya began." Vietor took this as an opportunity to attack from the White House the critical biography of Obama I wrote during the campaign, "The Obama Nation," a book that was No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for a month, beginning immediately after it was published in August 2008. "I think our thinking on your book was well documented during the campaign," Vietor wrote from the White House. In response, I pointed out to Vietor that I had the last word on "The Obama Nation" because the presidential campaign had not answered the rejoinder to the Obama campaign criticism of the book I wrote and published. Vietor had no response to that point. [CONTINUE READING]