Sunday 15 August 2010

The Obama Diaries - Fact or Fiction?




According to the author, Laura Ingraham, she saw a thick manila envelope lying on the bonnet of her car at the basement parking of Watergate Complex. As she picked it up, a mysterious stranger "hidden in the shadows of a stairwell called out in a deep baritone voice, "Just read it. You'll know what to do." She shouted back, "Who are you? What is this?!" The mystery man stood silent for a few seconds before vanishing......"(page 9)

When she opened the envelope at the W hotel about a hundred yards from the White House (she claimed she didn't drive home as she was afraid to), she discovered that the enveloped contained the handwritten diaries of President Barrack Obama, Michelle Obama, her mother Marian Robinson, Vice President Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and others who are involved in the Obama's Presidency campaign.


And so she decided that the rest of America deserves to know what their President, the First Lady, The First Grandmother, the Vice-President and the entire campaign team had written in their diaries. 


My first thought was, isn't that rather convenient? The busiest people in the world actually has the time to write a diary and they ended up in her hands? I also thought that the part about the mystery man in the shadows booming out to her to read it and that she'll know what to do with it sounds a little bit like a bad script out of a B-grade movie.


Anyway, I decided to continue reading. And I think those "diaries" are not authentic. Why? Well, besides the suspicions I expressed in the paragraph before this, Barrack Obama has worked very hard in the campaign. It just didn't make any sense that he would trivialize his own inauguration. But most of all, it is the language used in the "diaries". The language use is that of a gossip monger passing on a juicy, slanderous gossip to another. To me, the style of writing is not the type one would use when writing a personal diary. 


Based on the above, I think the diaries are either planted, or Laura Ingraham cooked up the whole thing on her own as a publicity stunt at best, or worst, as a hatred campaign against Obama. 


She certainly comes across as very anti non-Americans, and considers being American as an exceptional and special race, and that America has a right to dictate to the rest of the world. But this is just my personal opinion. I'm curious to know what others think. 


So, if you have read the book, please share your opinion with me. I'd love to discuss it, even if you disagree with me. In fact, especially if you disagree with me. I'd like to know why you disagree and see it from a different perspective. And if you haven't read the book, but would like to, please let me know, and I'll email you a copy.  :)