Paul Kengor

Kengor: ‘I Feel Bad for Obama’ Because He Didn’t Have a ‘Wholesome, Norman Rockwell Upbringing’

Historian Paul Kengor has been doing a circuit of right-wing talk shows, promoting his new book, “The Communist” which ties President Obama to a childhood family friend, the labor activist and writer Frank Marshall Davis. Although Kengor refuses to comment on filmmaker Joel Gilbert’s hypothesis that Davis is actually the president’s biological father, he argues that a direct line can be drawn between Davis’ Communist writings and the president’s support of universal health care, advocacy for the middle class, and even his “Change” and “Forward” slogans.

In an interview with Janet Mefferd this week, Kengor painted Davis as a sinister and strange influence on the young Obama’s life. Echoing Mike Huckabee’s accusation that the president has a “different worldview” because he grew up with “madrassas” rather than “going to Boy Scouts,” Kengor marveled that Obama’s grandfather chose Davis as a mentor for his grandson rather than “a Boy Scout troop master, a little league coach.” Not only that, but Obama’s grandfather and Davis “would even smoke dope together.”

“So I tell people, I honestly feel bad for Obama. This wasn’t exactly a wholesome, Norman Rockwell upbringing,” he added.

Kengor: In 1970, Stanley Dunham was looking for a black male father figure, mentor, role model for his grandson because the father was gone. So, right there, Janet, you or I, we have sons, grandsons, we’d probably pick as a mentor a boy scout troop master, a little league coach.

Mefferd: Yeah, someone upstanding.

Kengor: I mean, to think that you’d pick a card-carrying member of Communist Party USA, called to Washington to testify on his quote-unquote Soviet activities by the Democratic-run Senate Judiciary Committee, is kind of remarkable and kind of revealing.

Mefferd: Sure.

Kengor: But that’s who Stanley Dunham picked. And Stanley Dunham and Frank Marshall Davis were real close. They’d play cards together, Scrabble, drink together. One person named Donna Weatherly Williams, who was there when Dunham introduced Obama to Davis in 1970, says that Davis and Dunham would even smoke dope together.

Mefferd: Oh boy.

Kengor: And, I mean, here you’ve got, at that point Frank Marshall Davis would have been about 65 years old. So I tell people, I honestly feel bad for Obama. This wasn’t exactly a wholesome, Norman Rockwell upbringing.

Mefferd: No, awfully dysfunctional.

Kengor: Very dysfunctional, very.

Later, Kengor revisited the right-wing meme that President Obama somehow hates Winston Churchill because he removed George W. Bush’s bust of Churchill when he redecorated the Oval Office. This hatred of Churchill, according to Kengor, could very well have been instilled by a drunken rant of Frank Marshall Davis:

Kengor: If you would have asked me five years ago, or anybody in America five years ago, name one American who doesn’t like Winston Churchill…

Mefferd: Now we know!

Kengor: Nobody, yeah. Then suddenly in January 2009, well we have one: Obama. And now we know of another: Obama’s mentor. And actually, I should add, as a Cold War historian, I did know of Americans who didn’t like Churchill. It was members of Communist Party USA and the Daily Worker. So Davis was towing the Soviet line, the Communist Party line. Does this mean that Obama doesn’t like Churchill because of Davis? I can’t say that for sure, but I mean these guys met many times together, at least over a dozen times together, and late evenings. And you know Davis was always very political, always talking about politics, drank a lot, could be very incendiary in his comments. And I’m sure that Obama must have heard a few diatribes against Winston Churchill by Frank Marshall Davis.

 

Miranda Blue's blog

Kengor: Obama 'Change' Platform Appeared 'Almost Verbatim' in Frank Marshall Davis Column

Grove City College historian Paul Kengor had the good fortune this year to release “The Communist,” his biography of President Obama’s early mentor Frank Marshall Davis, just as director Joel Gilbert started promoting “Dreams From My Real Father,” a mysteriously well-funded film claiming that Davis was in fact Obama’s biological father. Gilbert has not only helped boost interest in Kengor’s object of study, he has succeeded in making Kengor by far the most reasonable person on the Right’s Frank Marshall Davis beat.

In an interview with Phyllis Schlafly on Eagle Forum Radio this week, Kengor declined to comment on the veracity of Gilbert’s “real father” hypothesis. But like Gilbert, Kengor is convinced that Davis was a bigger influence on Obama’s thinking than the mainstream media will admit. One example, he told Schlafly, are Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan of “Change” and his 2012 slogan of “Forward,” in which he sees “remarkable” similarities with Davis’ writing. He points to a 1946 column by Davis which contains “almost verbatim the Obama platform for 2008”:



Schlafly: I want to be clear about this, Paul. Nobody’s saying President Obama is a Communist, but there’s no question about the man who had the biggest influence on his life, Frank Marshall Davis. He was a real, honest to goodness Communist who had a membership card issued by the Communist Party. And in those days, a certain number of people actually did that. But today, when you read and hear Obama’s speeches, it’s kind of like it’s an echo of the many things that Frank Marshall Davis wrote in communist publications. What are some of those, and do they remind you of Frank Marshall Davis and you kind of think those are wordings that, goals that kind of hung around in his subconscious for years?

Kengor: They do, Phyllis, they remind me very much so of Frank Marshall Davis. And I have to say, as a scholar, I can’t say that, ‘Well, Obama said A and that’s because Davis believes in B.’ But, well, you look at these things and they’re remarkably similar. The constant use of class warfare, of class rhetoric. Some of these seem to be beyond the sort of standard similarities that you would see, just because Obama and Davis are both on the left. I’ll give you just another example. Obama, of course, ran under the mantra of ‘Change’ in 2008, ‘Hope and Change.’ Well, the very first column that Frank Marshall Davis wrote for the Chicago Star…

Schlafly: A Communist paper.

Kengor: Yes, a Communist paper. This is the kick-off column, and he wrote a piece, this was July 6, 1946, and it was called “Those Radicals of ’76.” And in that column, Frank Marshall Davis talked about the importance of advancing, quote, ‘fundamental change,’ unquote, in America. America needs to be ‘transformed through fundamental changed.’ And that’s almost verbatim the Obama platform for 2008. And Obama’s 2012 campaign slogan, which is simply, ‘Forward,’ I found on the front page of the Chicago Star, very top, right below the masthead, Frank Marshall Davis using that same slogan. One of them says, ‘Bravely Forward!” exclamation mark. So, could this just be a coincidence? Yeah, sure I guess it’s possible that it’s a coincidence. But you look at all the long list and the rhetoric and you look at that and you say, ‘Well, it seems like it might be more than just a coincidence.’

Miranda Blue's blog

Author of Obama Exposé Repeats Debunked Churchill Bust Myth, Says Churchill ‘Rolled Over in his Grave’

Grove City College professor Paul Kengor is out with a new book, The Communist, which examines President Obama’s relationship with his grandfather’s friend Frank Marshall Davis, who has become the nexus of several right-wing conspiracy theories.

In an interview with American Family Radio’s Sandy Rios this week, Kengor went into detail about the “amazing” similarities between Davis and Obama, including what he claims is their “hate” for Winston Churchill. Kengor and Rios went on to recount the favorite right-wing story that “one of the first things” Obama did as president was remove a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and send it back to England.

Kengor imagines that when this imaginary diss of the British leader took place, “Churchill rolled over in his grave” and “Frank Marshall Davis leapt up in his grave and laughed and saluted.”

Kengor: Well, I dug into the Chicago Star writings, the Honolulu Record writings, and you see here in Frank Marshall Davis a man who constantly bashed Wall Street, excess profits, capitalism, the rich, GOP tax cuts, General Motors, was calling for taxpayer funding of public works projects and universal healthcare, was trashing Winston Churchill. I mean, here’s a thought for you: name two Americans who hate Winston Churchill. Well, I couldn’t have done that five years ago. Now I can give you two: Barack Obama and Frank Marshall Davis. The similarities are amazing.

Rios: Well, and evidenced by, you know, one of the first things Barack Obama did, you and I both know but others might not, that he removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House. Sent it back to Great Britain!

Kengor: Yeah

Rios: Unbelievable!

Kenger: Unbelievable. Unbelievable and so many Americans just yawned when that happened. I mean, Churchill rolled over in his grave when that happened. Frank Marshall Davis leapt up in his grave and laughed and saluted when that happened, because Davis despised Winston Churchill, called him, like Harry Truman, called him a ‘fascist,’ a ‘racist,’ an ‘imperialist,’ a ‘colonialist,’ every name in the book. And to imagine that today, Frank Marshall Davis must be looking at the results of November 2008 and seeing all these young people that voted for Obama and all these old, one-time Cold War anti-communist Democrats and all these moderates and independents and he must just be laughing so hard that he can hardly control himself at what’s happened.

For the record, here is a photo the White House posted today of Obama and British Prime Minister looking at the Churchill bust outside the Oval Office in 2010:

Update: White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer clarifies that there were at one point two busts of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office area. One, which was a gift to George W. Bush, was removed when President Obama took office to make room for a bust of Lincoln. The other, which has been in the White House since the 1960’s, remains. And the argument that President Obama’s change of Oval Office décor signals a “hatred” for Churchill remains absurd.

Miranda Blue's blog
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