Dr. Drew Reacts: Debunking Leftist Fogbow Propaganda

I thought it would be a good idea to debunk the false statements made about me at the famous Fogbow website.  For a look at the real people and the real names of the folks posting anonymously at Fogbow, please check out the excellent YouTube video at LiveLeak called Who's Who of Blog Talk Radio and The Fogbow Obots aka Obama's Brown Shirts.

First, the Fogbow Obots assert that I have described myself as a "classmate" of young Obama.  This, of course, is completely untrue.  I have always made it clear that I was a graduate student from Cornell who was visiting friends from Occidental College when I met young Obama.  Nevertheless, this initial lie tells you a lot about the ruthlessness and disregard for the truth which seems common at the Fogbow website.

On the basis of this untruthful claim, the Fogbow people pretend to catch me in a lie simply by repeating my basic statements.  For my full report on meeting young Obama, see my first article in American Thinker called Meeting Young Obama. 

Second, the folks at Fogbow try to make me look foolish by saying that I believe Obama is still a Marxist socialist simply due to the brief exposure I had to his ideas when Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College.  They write:

Based on spending just a few hours with the President when he was 19 years old, in a relaxed social setting at an age when most students enjoy exploring and trying new ideas and thoughts, Drew concluded the President was and still is a radical Marxist.

I would have to be mentally ill to say that I base my take on Obama today simply on my face-to-face exposure to young Obama's ideological extremism.  My take on President Obama's abiding commitment to Marxist socialist thought is based on a combination of factors including 1) his ties to Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Sen. Alice Palmer in the 1990s, 2) the lack of a conversion story in the Obama presidential history which would indicate he dropped his youthful radicalism, and 3) the continuing rhetoric coming from Obama - as a candidate and as president - which indicates a profound commitment to a class conflict model of economic development and an out and out hostility to our traditional U.S. economic system. 

I have also provided detailed rebuttals to the inaccurate information being promoted by one of the members of the Fogbow website, Anna Stoddard, who is the blogger at "Oh For Goodness Sake."  For example, I immediately responded to Stoddard initial attack on me - which she posted on February 17, 2010 - where she made the bizarre suggestion that I worked for Ann Coulter while she was an undergraduate student at Cornell University.  You can see my response in this article at my own blog site. 

In addition, I also responded immediately to further bizarre comments made by Anna Stoddard on March 10, 2011 which made the even more bizarre suggestion that I should have known that Obama drove a red Fiat when, in truth, I made it very clear in my own work that the fancy car I saw Obama riding in when I first met him was owned by his wealthy Pakistani friend, Hasan Chandoo.  You can see my rebuttal to this silly idea in this article at my own blog site.  As far as I can tell, Stoddard is an elderly retired lady currently living in Mexico.  I think the silly mistakes in her blog show that she is spending too much of her retirement money on things that are killing her brain cells.

The folks at Fogbow like to position themselves as journalists who have a more accurate take on reality than their conservative opponents.  All I can say is that the Fogbow folks have a history of creating false documents and conducting dirty tricks.  Based on the gap between my real story and their out and out lies, I would think no one should take the folks at Fogbow seriously when it comes to getting the facts out about the young Obama.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.

Catching Up with Mistake Prone "Oh, For Goodness Sake" Blogger: Dr. Drew Defends Himself, Again

I see that Anna Stoddard at "Oh, For Goodness Sake" has published a third article attacking my eye witness report on young Barack Obama's commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideology. See, http://ohforgoodnesssake.com/?p=16905 The good news is that I have moved up the scale from "...yet another bull-jiver" in February 17, 2010.

For the full story of my meeting with young Marxist Obama, see http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/meeting_young_obama.html

In response to the OFGS blogger, I feel a responsibility to report that I also remember I bumped into him in The Cooler on campus, I visited the apartment he shared with Chandoo and I saw him around the campus mail boxes. As I recall, on this last encounter, Obama and his roommate - Hasan Chandoo - asked me if I would be attending a graduation party with them. I think this minor increase in my reported contacts, from two to maybe five, is largely consistent with my earlier statements, particularly my statement that my insight into young Obama's true ideology depended on my role in the same "intense cultural sub-group" and not on the amount of time we spent together.

Aside from this admitted error, the Anna Stoddard relies heavily on quotes from David Remnick's book, The Bridge to attack my credibility. This is curious to me because Remnick's book came out on April 6, 2010. This was after my report on young Obama's Marxist-Leninist perspective was first published by Ronald Kessler at http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/obama-college-marxism-occidental/2010/02/08/id/349329 on February 8, 2010.

Ironically, Remnick - a liberal Democrat - confirms my take on the young Obama's ideology, relies on the same people I report hanging out with, and verifies the same social connections - including Obama's ties to Ms. Grauman-Boss and Mr. Mohammed Hasan Chandoo. Remnick's book added to my credibility because he verified the gist of my story. This is probably how I moved up Stoddard's credibility scale from "bull-jiver" to exaggerator. I suspect that the correspondence between my report and the testimony in The Bridge is the major reason my story on meeting young Obama later appeared in books by Michael Savage, Stanley Kurtz, Paul Kengor and Jack Cashill.

Strangely, Stoddard has never corrected the absurd suggestion that Ann Coulter was teaching at Cornell and that I was employed as her teaching assistant. I'm shocked Ms. Stoddard never corrected this error. I think a contentious reporter would have figured out that Coulter was a student in my discussion section, a discussion section where I was a TA for Prof. Lowi.

Stoddard suggests that I tweeted that I "attended college" with young Obama. This, of course, is not true. I think it is obvious to any one familiar with Twitter that the tweet in question did not come from me. It came from another person who was asserting that I attended college with young Obama. (Democrats, however, may not fully understand how Twitter works in the wake of the Rep. Weiner scandal.)

There is considerable irony in the fact that Margot Mifflin, Chandoo's college-era girlfriend, is quoted on page 107 of Remnick's book confirming my take on the upper class look of young Obama. She reports that some students at Occidental College did not care for young Obama because he was "too GQ." Since Anna Stoddard's quotes from Remnick's book, I should have gotten more credit for the fact that my take on Obama appearance was later verified by Mifflin's comments in The Bridge.

Stoddard also reports Obama drove a “a funky red car, a Fiat” and suggests that I missed that fact. The reality of the situation is that I report in the American Thinker article that the owner of the luxury car was Obama's friend Chandoo. Stoddard's silliness is apparent in her own words:

In a recent article on American Thinker, makes a huge deal over Obama riding in a friend’s BMW, while Obama’s friend, Paul Carpenter recalls Obama drove “a funky red car, a Fiat.” Drew probably wouldn’t have known that small detail, because Drew was not a friend of Obama’s at Occidental, as he claims.

I will also stand by the report I have made that young Obama was not particularly close to the African-American community while he was at Occidental College. Stoddard cites the statements of Eric B. Moore. However, Moore did not stay in touch with young Obama after his transfer to Columbia University. Moore did not attend Obama's wedding. Chandoo, however, was there.

Meanwhile, Remnick's own book indicates that young Obama moved in with a white male friend when he transferred to Columbia University. Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, reports that he maintained ties with Hasan Chandoo. After leaving Occidental College, however, Obama does not mention continuing ties with even one of the African-American friends he supposedly made at Occidental College.

As an eye witness to the facts surrounding young Obama's ideology, I'm not surprised that the best the left can do to challenge my story is to launch inaccurate attacks on my credibility.  These attacks are easy to refute simply by referring to the research done by one of their own - David Remnick in The Bridge.  I'm thinking that this information will be helpful on the day that I become a target of Obama's new http://www.attackwatch.com/ website.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.