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Originally Posted by Penske 2.0
Growing up the child of a single mom, (i) in part in Hawaii, which has a tangibly distinctive culture from the mainland US, and is in some part almost third worldish, and yet where he went to the most exclusive independent school in the Islands (and fairly exclusive by standards of independent schools, excepting the east coast, which has an intensified flavor of exclusivity), and (ii) in part in Indonesia, which is a third world country and, I'll go out on a limb here, definitely has a distinctive culture as compared with the US or other "western" countries; seems sort of unusual to me as compared with the average american born in the US and even in comparison to the fancy backgrounds of the presidents of the last 60 years or so.
I'm good with celebrating diversity, and in order to do that you have to acknowledge that it exists, and it seems to me that Obama had a diverse upbringing. No?
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More diverse than average kid in Peoria, but no more diverse than the average army brat. But apparently being abroad with the US military doesn't count. I'm sure being abroad in support of American corporate expansion doesn't count either.
Let's see. I grew up near FDR. He was world traveled from an early age, albeit on the grand tour. Most of the family money came from Chinese tea and opium, and they maintained holdings there. Next closest Presidential home to me was Kinderhook, where van Buren grew up speaking Dutch. The other Roosevelt had the same history of going abroad for a year or more at a time to Europe and the Middle East. Those are three president's where I have some knowledge of their personal history. They all have fairly interesting and uncommon backgrounds.
That is not to say Obama doesn't have an interesting background. But our President's often have interesting histories. I think you could attempt to defend Brooks by saying he's deeply biased by class (the grand tour with a french tutor isn't exotic, but a public school in Indonesia, well...) rather than race, but then you've also got to dismiss those army brats... I'm sure you can do it.
