By Wayne Allyn Root
My life has crossed paths with President Obama on multiple occasions. According to Obama, we were Columbia University classmates, both Pre Law and Political Science majors in the Class of ’83. I also ran against Obama in 2008 on the Libertarian Party Presidential ticket. What are the odds?
But something about “the Obama at Columbia story” has always bothered me. Earlier in the week right here at The Blaze I wrote about having just returned from New York, where I attended my 30th Columbia University reunion. I celebrated with my esteemed classmates. Everyone except Barack Obama. As usual- he wasn’t there. Not a trace. Not a video greeting. Not a letter. I could not find any classmates who knew him.
I called Obama “the Ghost of Columbia University.” I pointed out (as I’ve said in the media for many years now) that Obama may have been registered at Columbia, may have graduated from Columbia, but he was rarely (if ever) seen for the two years in-between. It’s a strange, mysterious and frightening story.
Is he the real-life “Manchurian Candidate?” What explains Obama having just enough skeletal proof that he was there (one photo, one roommate, one professor, one friend)…but never seen in a class, never on anyone’s radar screen, almost invisible. A total 2-year blackout. It’s like a story straight out of a novel about the CIA or KGB. He graduated Columbia, but it’s almost as if he never went there.
To make matters more mysterious, Obama’s college records are sealed. He’s had plenty of opportunities to authorize the release, to clear the air. He has never chosen to do so. But why? What has he got to hide? Funny enough Obama has never had a problem ripping open the sealed records of his political opponents. Every step of his career Obama has beaten his opponents by having sealed documents just happen to be publicly exposed by anonymous sources. But not Obama. His records are always unavailable (and never leaked). Obama always seems to have powerful forces on his side.
Did he attend Columbia as a foreign student? That was the educated guess I made in my appearance on “Hannity” on Fox News a year ago. The only photo of Obama from his Columbia days was in his off-campus apartment with a roommate described by USA Today as a Pakistani national, pot smoker, and cocaine abuser. If you’re a foreign student, you live in housing off-campus with other foreign students.
That would also explain how he transferred into Columbia. Transferring into an Ivy League school is all but impossible. I did a little digging and found out only 3 transfer students in all of America were accepted into Columbia in the past academic year. Three students out of 315 million Americans. Yet those who knew Obama at Occidental called him a pot smoker and partier who rarely attended class. You’re telling me that a poor student, with that record, at an average college, was accepted for transfer into prestigious Columbia University? Only if he was an exotic Indonesian foreign student transferring into a college that desperately wanted to claim an ethnically and globally diverse student body.
Still that might explain how Obama got into Columbia. But where was he for those two years? My gut instincts say something is wrong with “the Obama at Columbia story.” Very wrong. Rancid.
But until now, I was the only one publicly voicing my suspicions. That just changed in a big way. Meet Professor Henry Graff, perhaps the most legendary and honored professor ever at Columbia University. He was THE American History and Diplomatic History professor at Columbia for 46 years. And he is more emphatic than yours truly that there are no Obama footprints at Columbia.
I was put on Professor Graff’s trail by another Columbia classmate, skeptical about Obama’s story. He told me that Professor Graff had been the speaker for the Class of ’53 last weekend at Columbia. My friend was watching Graff answer questions from the crowd when he was asked about Obama at Columbia. Graff said, “I have my doubts he ever went here.”
I did some digging and located Graff’s home phone number. I called him yesterday. Now retired, he was delighted to hear from me. He agreed to go on the record about Obama. Unlike Obama, Professor Graff clearly remembered me. He was thrilled to hear from his former student. I was in several of Graff’s classes and he remembered me like it was yesterday. He sounded great- like he hasn’t lost any of his trademark sharpness in 30 years since we last met.
I was honored to learn that this legendary historian has been following my political career for many years. But he had no such cheery things to say about the President. Graff said, “I taught at Columbia for 46 years. I taught every significant American politician that ever studied at Columbia. I know them all. I’m proud of them all. Between American History and Diplomatic History, one way or another, they all had to come through my classes. Not Obama. I never had a student with that name in any of my classes. I never met him, never saw him, never heard of him.”
Even more importantly, Professor Graff knew the other history and political science professors. “None of the other Columbia professors knew him either” said Graff.
Graff concluded our interview by saying, “I’m very upset by the whole story. I am angry when I hear Obama called ‘the first President of the United States from Columbia University.’ I don’t consider him a Columbia student. I have no idea what he did on the Columbia campus. No one knows him.”
There is something wrong with Obama’s story- I know that. Many of my classmates at last weekend’s 30th reunion knew that. Now the most beloved Professor ever at Columbia joins us in publicly questioning the story. Obama is either the ghost of Columbia, or the perfect Manchurian candidate. But something smells rotten at Columbia.
Wayne Allyn Root is a Capitalist Evangelist, serial entrepreneur, and Libertarian-conservative media commentator. He is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee. He serves as Executive Vice Chairman of the Conservative Caucus in Washington DC. Wayne’s latest book is the National Bestseller: The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: How to Survive, Thrive and Prosper During Obamageddon. Wayne’s twitter: http://twitter.com/WayneRoot/
