Talk:Barack Obama

Redundant discussions

In case anyone is wondering if they have an original comment about one of the frequently-discussed issues for this article, here is a list of discussions at length which have taken place just in the past couple of months.

Race

• Talk:Barack Obama/race
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 47#Barack Obama is half-white
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Ethnicity in first sentence
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Media coverage of ethnicity controversy and the intro
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Mulatto, the term is Mullato
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#He's Multi-Racial.
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 43#Obama and race

Religion

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 47#Religon
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Religion

Citizenship

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Supreme Court Controversy
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 45#Still no mention on the birth certificate?
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 45#Donofrio v. Wells
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#Unverified Birth Hospital Needs Revision and Reference

Full name

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Article Name
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#Barack Hussein Obama JR, not II

Give this some consideration before deciding to start another one. Bigbluefish (talk) 14:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please skim this page first (and ideally the FAQ) before starting a new discussion on the "president elect" designation, or Obama's race/ethnicity. You'll probably find there's already a section there where you can add your comments. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

British citizenship

I WOULD SUBMIT THAT INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS APPROPRIATE. IT IS ACCURATE, NEUTRAL, INTERESTING AND SUPPORTED BY FACTUAL REFERENCE. IT IS IN NO WAY OFFENSIVE, DEFAMATORY OR PROFANE.

It does not dispute his USA citizenship or his entitlement to be president based on birth. In fact the proposed footnote says "Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC."

USA law does not prohibit dual citizeship (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753.html). Supreme Court rulings in United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark (1898), Perkins v. Elg (1939), Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 (1952), Kawakita v. U.S. (1952), Afroyim_v._Rusk 387 U.S. 253 (1967) and Vance v. Terrazas 444 U.S. 252 (1980), address citizenship.

Similar information is included in the William Henry Harrison article (and is usually included in any biography of President Harrison without controversy). It seems uncontroversal here as well.

The fact of the matter is that he held dual citizenship in the USA and the British Empire at birth. He lost the British citizenship on December 12, 1963 and became a citizen of Kenya. Thus from December 12, 1963 until August 4, 1982 he held dual citizenship in the USA and Kenya. He lost Kenyan citizenship on his 21st birthday.

Suggested Text:

Obama is the first President of the United States to have been born a British Citizen since William Henry Harrison.

Suggested footnote:

[2] When Barack Obama Jr. was born in 1961 Kenya was a British colony. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status and the citizenship of his children was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948 (Part II, Section 5): "Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth." Therefore, at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC.

see also http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_citizen

Natwebb (talk) 07:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The factcheck.org link that you provide does back up the gist of what you say. But you'd be more persuasive if you eschewed announcements in BOLD CAPITALS. Next question: Is this little matter of sufficient noteworthiness to deserve a mention in this article? Perhaps this article should be limited to material publicized in the mainstream media. (By the I mean newspapers that present news, not "Fox News", AM radio and so forth.) Has this been so publicized? If so, where? If not, what makes you think it's so important? Morenoodles (talk) 07:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Pass. You've got to have a reliable source to be able to include this stuff in Wiki. All you have is a link to a website that admits the Rocky Mountain News writer was wrong and some original research on your part, neither of which is sufficient grounds for inclusion. Newguy34 (talk) 07:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The website doesn't "admit" the RMN writer was wrong, it says he was wrong. It then goes on to say what Natwebb says above, pretty much. Where's the OR? Of course there are other objections to Natwebb's proposal. Morenoodles (talk) 08:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

He says "tomato", she says "round, fruitlike veggie". The simple fact is that the sole RS on the subject that has been produced by anyone is the since-retracted article from the RMN. If we had something from ABC, BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, etc. then we could consider. Newguy34 (talk) 08:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh, hello? The tomato is a fruit, so perhaps that wasn't the best rhetorical flourish. Here's what the RMN wrongly said: Holds both American and Kenyan (since 1963) citizenship. Here's one part of what the factcheck.org article says: at the time of his birth, Barack Obama Jr. was both a U.S. citizen (by virtue of being born in Hawaii) and a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (or the UKC) by virtue of being born to a father who was a citizen of the UKC. Factcheck.org, which is a highly regarded authority (to my mind, hugely more so than "Fox News"), is quite persuasive about this. And it's something close to this -- and not some discredited silliness about how Obama is British now -- that Natwebb wants to add. His most recent addition of it has an edit summary THAT'S ALL IN CAPS, which of course isn't the right way to win friends and influence people. But its removal had an edit summary with a completely unjustified charge of tinfoil nuttery. Let's cut the crap: the US has a small but energetic minority of far-right nutballs who are so utterly bankrupt of ideas that they'll seize on the most trivial ambiguity about Obama in order to hang a loony conspiracy on it; also, Natwebb's addition is compatible with their rubbish (just as his use of capitals fits their rhetorical style). However, Natwebb has been polite, his addition was sourced, and the mere fact that what he wrote is compatible with far-right idiocy goes no more to prove it is either far-right idiocy or "tinfoil nuttery" than my occasional appreciation of the convenience of (Hitler-dictated) autobahns goes to prove that I'm a Nazi. This doesn't mean that Natwebb's addition should stay; indeed, I think it should go, as not of demonstrable significance. Nevertheless, we should read, or at least spend several seconds glancing at, what it is that Natwebb asserts. Morenoodles (talk) 08:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

What I proposed was the simple statement of fact, much like the simple statement of fact in the William Henry Harrison article. I agree that the lead is probably not the place for it. Early life was suggested and I expect that it is a better place. I note also that this proposal seems to have resulted in revision (vandalism) of the William Henry Harrison article. Additionally the level of vigilance given to this article seems sufficient to avoid the slippery slope argument (unlike William Henry Harrison).--Natwebb (talk) 04:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

If there were a source that is more reliable and more to the point than those given, I think a brief mention of Obama's (possible) dual citizenship during his early life might be possible to include in "Early life". It's definitely not lead material or anything like that. But we need some sources that say this in clear, non-retracted, and factual manners... some WP:OR about what "must be true" is no good. LotLE×talk 08:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Factcheck.org says it, right here. (Please keep reading that page beyond the start, in which it debunks the sloppy newspaper article.) Never heard of factcheck.org? Here's Timothy Garton Ash praising it in the Guardian, and here's an approving citation of it by none other than Dick Cheney. (Well, that's the kiss of death for sure.) NB I'd like to see it stated somewhere else, and I'm not sure that it's all that important. Morenoodles (talk) 09:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

All very (slightly?) interesting trivia, worth perhaps 1/2 a sentence in a chronological account of the circumstances of his birth and childhood, if such can be integrated in a way that enlightens rather than distracts form a telling of the life story.Wikidemon (talk) 10:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

There are very few if any very reliable sources (I.E. ABC, CNN, NBC, AP, New York Times, Washington Times Post, etc) that mention his possible dual citizenship. The argument to include this boils down to this: we must include it so that people know that he had a dual citizenship. Boiled down even further and the true motives behind trying to include this is to enable those claiming the citizenship conspiracy is real. One thing that must remembered is that if something like this is included, then some person doing research, who is a little bit lazy, will come to this article and look at the information presented, then say that it is fact. Then we will start to see this in various places including news articles, editorials, etc because they saw it in Wikipedia. That is why we need at least a couple very reliable sources to back up the information before we even present it in the article. Just because it seems to you to be important, interesting, or recent, is not a good justification to include it into the article. Brothejr (talk) 10:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Washington Times a reliable source? Whew! You say: Boiled down even further and the true motives behind trying to include this is to enable those claiming the citizenship conspiracy is real. Maybe, maybe not -- either way, aren't we supposed to "AGF"? (Sure, my good-faith-assumption gland shrivels in the face of BOLD CAPS, but I try to be open minded. Yes, all right, "Obama was very briefly British too" is compatible with the obsessions of nutballs. But if you remove from Wikipedia everything that happens to be compatible with nutball obsessions, you remove some facts and material of value. However, I think you're right in one way: let's wait till this momentous fact (???) makes it to more news sources worth attending to (Die Zeit, Le Monde, NYT, Guardian, Washington Post, Reuter) before adding it to this article. Morenoodles (talk) 11:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is the old slippery slope. Analogous to the anti-abortion crowd who, having have failed to get abortion rights overturned outright, have gone pecking around the edges, proposing small bills to make things slightly more restrictive then build on that with more, etc... The citizenship conspiracy theorists, having failed utterly on the main front, are trying to slink in the side door, to try to establish that possessing dual citizenship can invalidate one from being a "natural-born citizen". What dual citizenship Obama may or may not have had...a citizenship lost at age 2 (British) and at then at age 21 (Kenyan)...is about as trivial as the left-handedness issue is. Summation; I cannot accept that this entry is being proposed in good faith. Bad faith does not automatically invalidate the proposed material, but that and the apparent trivial nature of the material is strike 1 and strike 2, IMO. Discussing the history of his birth and who his mother and father were is a natural part of history. Delving into the actually citizenship of any of the three is where ulterior motives here come into play. Tarc (talk) 15:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a bit of trivia too obscure to be worth mentioning. -137.222.114.243 (talk) 17:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - consider that the article is almost entirely sourced by references that deal with Obama biographically - that is, they assert some sort of notability to the facts even if implicitly. The source here very much approaches the subject from the perspective of slightly facetious trivia. Bigbluefish (talk) 22:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Tarc. this is the chipping away - if included, it will soon be followed by some whacked out 'you can't have had two citizenships and still be president' jazz, which is totally nonsensical in the face of the first dozen or so presidents, born before the start of the nation. This is the same racist right wing nonsense attacks we see all over the fringes of the net, and should be summarily rejected. Regrettably, we will spend the next 4 or 8 years dealing with this, as some people can't accept that a non-white person is president, or that he might actually succeed at fixing the economy. The rancor from the right is expansive, and will only grow over the next 4 years. ThuranX (talk) 00:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I share all yall's suspicion that the British thing is bogus, but we do decide things by reliable sources around here and not slippery slope arguments. To date I haven't taken any of this seriously enough to look at in detail but I suspect the honest sourceable truth may be that Obama originally had dual Kenyan citizenship or an opportunity for the same but chose by his actions to be solely a US citizen, which became irreversible at some point. If that's true and ends up being sourced to and not contradicted by plentiful major sources of the type we can accept around here (say neutral books about him, newspapers, whitehouse.gov, etc) then sure, it's worth a parenthetical or half a sentence in a chronological account of his life, something like "Born on xxxx in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and American mother, Obama was initially eligible for dual Kenyan citizenship but chose only to..." (totally made up - just laying out the kind of language that would be neutral, fair, and non-sensationalistic if true and sourced). Just from the look of things, one's citizenship trajectory even if a technical matter is of some nontrivial importance in one's biography. On the other hand any synthesis or digression into constitutional matters and eligibility for the Presidency belongs if anywhere on some article far removed from this one. If nobody seriously challenges his legitimacy (the conspiracy theorists so far do not count as serious, and it would be hard to imagine anyone will be serious) then all that stuff is trivia. Not a slippery slope, more like a gaping precipice of common sense and reason, with a cliff's rlim that's pretty clearly delineated. Wikidemon (talk) 00:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I had the same initial thought, right down to a similar premise for inclusion in a similar construction, but ultimately, without context to how it affected and shaped his thought processes, personality, and politics, it's just a wedge. IF such material can be found, then, and only then, could I accept inclusion, in the quiet manner you suggest. On its own, however, it's inflammatory material placed without context to create alarmist 'traitor president' nonsense. ThuranX (talk) 00:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There seems an extraordinary willingness to see far-right nutballs at work here, and to do the reverse of "AGF". It's analogy time. Can we accept for a moment that Obama's middle name is Hussein? No doubt the Limbaugh-listening demographic likes to use this fact to suggest that Obama is Muslim, that Obama is going to bring on the Caliphate, that Obama is the antichrist, or I don't know what. But the compatibility of this fact with nutball delusions doesn't make it untrue or (in the minds of moderately educated and open-minded people) even make it unfortunate. And now, back to the matter, or non-issue, of childhood nationality. An article in factcheck.org asserts that, while Obama has always been a US citizen, he long ago also had one or other of two other nationalities. I have several reactions to this, among them: (i) "Oh, that's (very mildly) interesting, if true." (ii) "Hang on, this is the kind of thing that sells US newspapers. Why isn't it there as well?" And so I'm in no hurry to add it. On the other hand, I warmly suggest that people here don't assume that a fact (if it gets more evidence of being factual) is inflammatory material placed [...] to create alarmist 'traitor president' nonsense: of course some morons will take it that way, but the mere fact that Obama is neither "white" nor a crony capitalist is probably enough to set them off without this additional titillating tidbit. Wikipedia articles should not be dumbed down in an attempt to avoid any risk of inflaming fools. As for the call for context to how [any additional nationality] affected and shaped his thought processes, personality, and politics, this is quite unreasonable, as you must surely know; it's also utterly unlike the way in which Wikipedia works: consider Nicolas Sarkozy, which is an article that's sure to be policed; yet after a paragraph about the Hungarian half of Sarko's family tree, and a Hungarian half of a graphic representation of this tree, the article says Sarkozy's father Paul did not teach him or his brothers Hungarian. There is no evidence suggesting that there was an attempt to educate the Sarkozy siblings about their paternal ethnic background. Morenoodles (talk) 08:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

← I'm with Tarc and Thuran on this. I find it hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to back-door bogus citizenship questions. In addition, this factoid has not been shown to have any relevance to the man's life and career, which is what this biography covers. We make decisions all the time about what goes in here or not - and I mean valid, verifiable, well-sourced points of interest - because of space and weight concerns, and we have left out many items from this biography for those reasons. This is trivia, and unless some relevance can be attached to how it affected his life, his thinking, his educational and career decisions, etc., and unless we have good sourcing for it, it doesn;t belong here. We don't even have a source that verifies that he even knew about this at his 21st birthday or any time later until perhaps the recent intense interest in his birthright. For example, does he talk in his memoir about deciding not to affirm Kenyan citizenship? Has he acknowledged this anywhere? Did it have any impact on his life whatsoever? Tvoz/talk 10:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

And by the way - my reading of the factcheck piece is that it itself is what we would classify as synthesis - they don't quote sources that confirm Obama's actions, inactions, decisions, or knowledge of any of this - they take the facts about Kenyan law and make an assumption about Obama's status. That's not the kind of sourcing we would accept even if we wanted to include this. Tvoz/talk 10:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick point of order: We can accept the syntheses of reliable third party sources, and do on almost every article on the project. We are only perscribed from making those syntheses ourselves, instead relying on reliable 3rd party sources to make them for us. That said, I have no opinion on this. Possible backdoor arguments have no place in countering properly reliably sourced material. The true argument seems to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is not a valid argument for non inclusion either.Die4Dixie (talk) 10:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

To add onto D4D's comment, this is also a WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT argument. No reliable sources mentions his dual citizenship if he truely had one. To garner any such information from other sources would be synthesis and original research. Brothejr (talk) 10:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This is an angle of the situation that I had not thought of. Perhaps we need to ammend the Harrison article to reflect this information. It is odd though to pick and choose sources to suit the POV. I wouldn't say that being born with dual citizenship would disqualify Obama, if the other articles on other presidents talk about it, then it should be added here.--Jojhutton (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

ThuranX wrote: [only with] context to how it affected and shaped his thought processes, personality, and politics [...] could I accept inclusion. I pointed out that such a stringent requirement is cruel and unusual, and showed how it's not observed--not just unobserved in this or that junky article but instead unobserved in the vigorously edited and carefully watched article on Sarkozy. So I thought I'd demolished that argument. But no, Tvoz followed up my comment with unless some relevance can be attached to how it affected his life, his thinking, his educational and career decisions, etc., [...] it doesn;t belong here. I'm perfectly willing to have my argument shown to be defective or wrong, but I sense that I am instead attempting in vain to argue with people who have already made their minds up. Morenoodles (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Under British law, he was a dual citizen. Since the USA does not abide by British law. The USA recognizes him as a Natural Born Citizen of Hawaii. It is a bit of interesting trivia that british law would regard him as a citizen until the early 80's, however since we go by US law in the US. It's not noteworthy. He was not born a British Citizen. He was born an American, seeing as how thats where he was born, in america. Had he been born in British governed land, then he'd be a British citizen. --DemocraplypseNow (talk) 18:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This kind of analysis is unnecessary. For a start, as I understand it US law doesn't allow you to be recognised as a British citizen (except under the age of 21?). So the UK diplomatic status would be relevant anyway. But this is about the article, and there is no reliable source for anything about this subject so let it lie. Bigbluefish (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, Wait until there is a reliable source.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

see British_Citizenship and British Overseas Citizen. The footnote I proposed makes it clear that this British citizenship was short-lived (as was that of William Henry Harrison) and I do not suggest it is an impediment to his presidency. What could be more reliable a source than reference to the laws of Great Britain on the subject? Frankly, as I composed the footnote it began much longer and was shortened as a three paragraph footnote seemed too much. It can also be footnoted to the text of the referenced British law: http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1948.htm and http://www.uniset.ca/naty/BNA1965.htm (European Nationality law finder at http://uniset.ca/). I have kept this non-partisan and hope others can too. --Natwebb (talk) 04:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

DN's kind of analysis isn't merely unnecessary, it doesn't even merit the term "analysis". First DN seems to concede that Obama briefly was regarded by the British as a British citizen. Then DN suggests something very bizarre about US citizenship. I suggest that the US recognizes Obama has a natural born citizen because he qualifies as a natural born citizen, and not at all because the US doesn't abide by British law. Then DN says that "he was born an American", a fact that nobody here has questioned and also one that's irrelevant to whether he was ever additionally British. Look, if Y is a nation, the question of whether person X has Y nationality is a matter for Y to decide, and not for X, let alone for nation Z. If the British briefly regarded him as British (as has been asserted), then he was British. If it can be shown that he was British (and I'm not certain that it has), then we have an additional fact t consider. All sorts of facts about Obama are too trivial to go in the article, and it's arguable that a fact such as this (if it is indeed a fact) is trivial too. There is no reliable source for anything about this subject says Bigbluefish. I agree says Jojhutton. There is a reliable source, and it's called factcheck.org. Whether factcheck.org is adequate as a single reliable source for an assertion, if true, one would expect to find in other reliable sources--now that is a good question. Morenoodles (talk) 08:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Citizenship laws are very complicated when it comes to dual nationals because often laws conflict and new born babies can't choose their citizenship. As I've understood it, US law has allowed for its citizens to hold dual nationality with no problems (although officials can be petty - British politician Boris Johnson was born in New York and once when travelling home from the USA with his family he was told he had to travel on a US passport - I think he's since renounced his US citizenship because of this). When Kenya became independent Obama's British citizenship transferred to Kenyan. Kenyan law does not allow for its adult citizens to be dual nationals - they have to renounce their foreign citizenship or lose their Kenyan citizenship on their twenty-first birthday. Kenyan law cannot take away US citizenship, only Kenyan and vice versa.

Obama was born a dual national - US by birth (and by his mother), British colonial as the son of his father, with the latter converting to Kenyan when he was 2. When he was a child each citizenship was held without any regard to the laws governing any other, as is standard. But because he failed to renounce his US citizenship by the time he was 21 (i.e. old enough to make a choice himself), his Kenyan citizenship automatically lapsed.

Now a lot of people around the world qualify for more than one citizenship - for example a lot of Australians qualify for at least one European Union country citizenship on the parent or grandparent rule and many will take out the relevant passport for ease of travel. And many national football teams have exploited the grandparent rule to sign up talented players from their diaspora - the Republic of Ireland team got a particular reputation for this a couple of decades ago. And one could go on. Most of the relevant articles don't cover this unless the individual in question has made use of it. Unless Obama ever actually made use of his non-US citizenships then the matter is utterly trivial and has no place here. Timrollpickering (talk) 09:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Same for William Henry Harrison. He never made use of his British citizenship by birth. --Natwebb (talk) 06:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Photo caption issue

In the caption for File:Five_Presidents_2009.jpg, it says "Presidents...[list of the 5]." My issue is that at the time of the photograph (January 7, as currently noted in the caption), Obama was not yet president. I think we should note it by saying something like "then president-elect Barack Obama (since inaugurated)" to have accuracy in the caption. It might not be the clearest wording, but something along those lines. Mahalo. --Ali'i 15:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It is his official presidential portrait, that's what the government says. The photo is in all government offices across the country. --DemocraplypseNow (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No, no no... the picture in the Cultural and political image section. Not the official portrait. Someone else? Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I changed it to paraphrase the image description found over at the Commmons, where it notes the electoral state of both Bush and Obama at the time it was taken. Tarc (talk) 18:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Brevity in captions is far more important than long digressions into pedantic correctness. LotLE×talk 21:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

But I'd wager accuracy in an encyclopedia article (especially where it can be verified) trumps saving a few words. ;-) --Ali'i 22:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Captions are special (along with infobox fields). Verbiage that can be placed into main body often should be. LotLE×talk 22:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

If you want to edit it down, no one is preventing you. I just changed it so it would reflect, y'know, the facts. Relax. Tarc (talk) 01:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Fully lock this article, please.

Considering what you see when you Google Barack presently (2009-02-17 ~5:35 PM GMT), I would suggest fully locking the article to prevent further highly public vandalism. Apeiron (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what Google has to do with this article. Why lock it? Be more specific please.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Likely referring to the fact that that Google search is unfortunately reflecting the state of the article upon this edit, which was only up for 2 minutes. It is a stupidity of Google's web page caching, not much we can do about it here. Tarc (talk) 18:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Locking the article will not fix that. Only time will fix it. Periodically the Google search bot moves around the net scanning page after page to use in the search. This bot will sooner or later come back to scan the article again. Locking the article will not fix what is being shown in the Google search. Instead the best solution is to continue to monitor for vandalism and hope that the Google search bot scans a good copy and not one that has been vandalized. Brothejr (talk) 18:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if that was on purpose, or just luck on the part of the vandal. Is it possible to predict or influence the timing of the google spider?Wikidemon (talk) 19:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, it was just the timing of the search and the vandalism.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, wait a minute, as Wikidemon implies, intentional vandalism timing can lock the vandalism into Google searches for a relatively long time. I'd expect smart vandals to start adopting this technique. Tempshill (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Looking back at the article history, the page has been in a state of blanked vandalism for between 5 and 9 minutes in the last month. This means there's a maximum 0.2% chance of getting a vandalised page at any one time. The same applies to Google, except the sample is more granular. If this search result lasts on search results for two days, the next expected occurrence would be in about 27 years. Or if Google updated their refresh rate to 1 per hour, it would be a year until the next one - and it would only affect an hour's worth of searches. Considering Wikipedia's vulnerability to vandalism is well known, it's far more valuable to have a consistently good quality article maintained by a substantial pool of registered users. Bigbluefish (talk) 19:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We've notified the Google search team about this and they've purged the cache for the page, but unfortunately it will take a while longer for the change to propagate.--Eloquence* 19:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for being on this, Erik. Bad PR of the political sort is not what we need right now. Avruch ^T 23:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This is precisely why I've always argued in favor of permanent or extremely long term semiprotection of this and all of the Obama subarticles (not full), and it brings into focus why something like flagged revisions makes sense. "Anyone can edit", unfortunately, too often means any asshole can edit. And we have a responsibility, I think, to prevent crap like that from representing the hard work that constructive editors do, at the high rate of pay we receive for our efforts. Tvoz/talk 02:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Not many people know that semi-protecton was implemented for the Bush article, back when Bush was in office. No protection would let in "idiot" vandalism, full protection would lock a lot of people out. This should be kept semi-protected for the same reason. Sceptre ^(talk) 04:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of why every page on Wikipedia should, also, be set NOCACHE for all search engines. rootology (C)(T) 05:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in light of what happened to our #1 most visible BLP here, I've written Wikipedia:Search Engine NOCACHE by default proposal. Please weigh in there. If this BLP article ain't safe, none of them are. rootology (C)(T) 07:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Archive glitch

Resolved

What happened to the Archive pages at the top, they are all zeros??--Punkrocker27ka (talk) 05:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The archives are back to normal, does anyone know what happened? --Punkrocker27ka (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I had a couple of notices that said "Server is having problems" during that time period

--Chaosdruid (talk) 07:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

See here for a fairly incomprehensible (to me, anyway) explanation - and now to fix any affected page. Tvoz/talk 07:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's all fixed now. rootology (C)(T) 07:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Free media relevant to Obama and stimulus plan

I just took a look at the Recovery.gov copyright info page and it appears that all content on the site - even the content produced by third-party vendors - is either public domain or CC-BY. In particular there's a high-quality video on the front page that would be a great demonstration of Obama's oratory style. Might be other media to dig out of there too, for this article and for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act article. Dcoetzee 01:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's nothing new; a good proportion of our free content is PD-USGov. I'll take a look, to see if there's anything juicy. Maybe Obama's first weekly address? Sceptre ^(talk) 01:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Which, incidentally, turns out to be about the stimulus. Awesome. Sceptre ^(talk) 02:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Neurolysis kindly converted Obama's first weekly address to Wikipedia format. The image can be found here. Now, the question is: where to put it? Sceptre ^(talk) 02:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. Off the top of my head, I'd say either Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Legislation_and_executive_orders or Presidency_of_Barack_Obama#Transparency. I'm not sure if it should go in this article too - if so I'd either put it in the section on his presidency, or add a section about his addresses and add it there. Dcoetzee 06:31, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The inaugural address is also public domain, also in HD, if you want an example of his crowd-working style. Bigbluefish (talk) 15:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Re Dcoetzee: part of this article, "Cultural and public image", talks about Obama's weekly addresses. Though I agree, it would also be suitable for the Presidency of... article. Sceptre ^(talk) 23:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

LEAD

Why is the lead so short all of a sudden? An article of this size should have 4 bulky paragraphs. — R² 22:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not a good encapsulation of the article, per WP:LEAD. Majoreditor (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering this too and tracked it down to this edit, [4], which removed the third paragraph of the lead. I undid that edit, his explanation is that it would prevent further reoccurring debates but it seems to me it would be better to debate and change that paragraph than simply delete it, which made the lead far too short. WP:Lead section#Length says three to four paragraphs, so three well-written paragraphs could probably be enough, considering it would probably cause a good deal of debate over what to include in a fourth paragraph if one was written. There's nothing wrong with a debate over that though. LonelyMarble (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Just want to add two more things. First, a similar lead with that paragraph was in place during the December 2, 2008, featured article review in which the article was kept: [5]. Second, lead sections generally don't have to be sourced at all because the same information is sourced elsewhere in the article, which is the case for the paragraph I just restored. LonelyMarble (talk) 02:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's what LonelyMarble added to the Introduction:

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for U.S. military personnel returning from combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now everyone can easily decide if that should be in the Introduction. As long as it's accurate, I don't have a problem with it being in the Introduction. SMP0328. (talk) 03:19, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I found this archived discussion regarding the removal: [6]. My response to that is the lead section is a summary of what is in the article. Considering a large portion of this article is about what Obama did as a senator and what his various political positions are, it seems to me a paragraph summarizing this should be in the lead, which is what that paragraph is attempting to do. LonelyMarble (talk) 03:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Reading the achieved discussion I have to agree with user:Brothejr. If we go into to much detail here we could scrap the election articles.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 03:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't get how briefly summarizing main points in the lead that are covered at length in the article is going into too much detail. Most articles of this size have four bulky paragraphs, as the first editor said. The lead has too little summary, not too much. LonelyMarble (talk) 03:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that the lead can be lengthen but the paragraph in question was written before he became President and therefore it will just take up space for his near future achievements, (positive and negative ones).--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 04:14, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Why not just update that paragraph to include a reference to Obama being President? SMP0328. (talk) 04:26, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's what I think might be a good layout of the lead:

• 1st paragraph: brief intro, current one looks good
• 2nd paragraph: summary of his career, current one looks pretty good
• 3rd paragraph: summary of his legislation and achievements as both senator and president and also any key political positions (however, we should avoid adding too much, if any, detail about his presidency to the lead since it will be hard to sort out the most relevant parts since his presidency just began)
• Additional 4th paragraph: summary of the last two sections of the article, the "Family and personal life" and "Cultural and political image" sections. Specifically, a summary of his unique cultural and political image should probably be summarized in a 4th paragraph. This could include a sentence or two about his presidential campaign, which also has a large section in the article. Remember, the lead should be a summary of the contents of the article. LonelyMarble (talk) 04:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the paragraph again. Per: WP:LEAD the lead is a very brief highlight of the major events on his career. It is not there to highlight his policy decisions or stances. Please keep the political stances and bills he has passed out of the lead. Plus to add upon this: while you may say that those things in the paragraph was very important that should have been in the lead, person X is most likely going to say that so and so other stance is more important then what's included in the lead. Because of this arguments will erupt as people argue over which is more important. Again, no political stances or bills due to the fact that they are not mile stones in his career. Getting elected as president is a milestone, being the first African American is a milestone, and so on and so on. Finally, wanting more paragraphs to lengthen the lead is a very bad excuse to add that paragraph back in. Before re-introducing any paragraph or material into the lead, place it here for discussion to build a consensus before adding material back into the lead. Brothejr (talk) 10:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Also to add on here: per WP:LEAD the lead should be brief and give an overview. Nothing in the policy says that the lead should be a certain length other then to say that it should be no more then four paragraphs. So conceivably the lead can be one or even two paragraphs. Also, something else to note: nothing in WP:LEAD says we need to cover current legislation, plus if we do try to cover current legislation it would violate WP:RECENT policy by not giving them a historical perspective. (I.E. waiting a long while before claiming it is a major miles stone of his career.) Finally we need to avoid topics in the lead that might lead to people saying that this position/act/etc would have been better in the lead or that act/etc. We need to avoid what we personally, as editors, feel as important and only focus on what the reliable sources have said are important. Wikipedia cannot claim that so and so is a milestone on it's own. Yet, if we have a variety of verified reliable sources that say that so and so was a milestone, then we can report it with refs to back that statement up. Brothejr (talk) 14:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:Lead says an article over 30 KB should be 3 to 4 paragraphs. This article is over 140 KB. It should have 4 good paragraphs. If you look at any other featured article of this length it will have three lengthy paragraphs at a minimum, but most likely four. If this was taken to featured article review right now the first thing to come up would be to lengthen the lead. So no, the lead could definitely not be one or two paragraphs. You can't take words like "brief" out of context, "brief" is relative to article size, as WP:Lead#Length explains. The main function of the lead is to give a summary and overview of the whole article, so naturally the longer the article is, the longer the summary will have to be. Right now the lead gives an overview of his early career and that's about it. I'd say at least 75% of the article is not summarized at all (not everything needs equal summary weight but there's still a large amount that needs to be summarized in the lead). The paragraph you are removing was attemping to summarize the political career section, which lists various legislation he passed and various things he did in the senate. Taking this paragraph out because people might argue over the contents is silly, why not let arguments happen, which would hopefully lead to a better summary (and I check this article from time to time and that paragraph had been there for a long while, so I don't think it is that contentious). Maybe that paragraph should simply be rewritten, but there needs to be a summary paragraph of his political career, which probably includes important legislation, and also somehow summarizing the political positions section with a sentence or two would be nice because these are large sections of the article. And like I said in the proposed layout above, a fourth paragraph about his political and cultural image would be good too. A quote from WP:Lead which I think this article fails to do at the moment: "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." LonelyMarble (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:Lead says an article over 30 KB should be 3 to 4 paragraphs. This article is over 140 KB. It should have 4 good paragraphs.

You can't and shouldn't "force" the lead to 4 paragraphs just because of the above. Extend it? Yes! But only with high quality, not just recent but up to date important issues that will "stick" for more than a few days or even weeks. Brothejr made a very good point above that I approve.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the removed paragraph possibly had some things that should stay, such as mentioning the two main bills Obama's name was attached to while he was senator. Summarizing what he did as a senator is certainly not a "recent" thing that won't stick, at least not for a long while. But, instead of arguing over having that paragraph inserted again I will attempt to rewrite another one or two paragraphs to add on to the lead and present them here. Or anyone else that wants to take on that task is welcome to as well. I'll probably work on that more tomorrow, I don't have much time tonight. I also just noticed Jayron32's recent addition to the lead. I think it's a good start, but I would like the fourth paragraph to mention his unique cultural/political image. And mentioning Hillary Clinton and the amount of electoral votes he won is probably too specific for the lead, but at least it's a start. LonelyMarble (talk) 00:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Even so I see a good point from your side although I think that Obama's time as a senator should (and is?) covered in a sub. Here in his bio we need to focus more on his presidency (as I stated earlier at some point) since it is now the main factor on how he is "judged" and "valuated". Although, from my point of view have no problem and won't reject some lead edit of his time as a senator as long as it is very short and briefly. So a rewrite (proposed here on talk if possible) would be a good thing to do. I now I'm going a bit for-and-backwards about this but it is just not a simple decision.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 02:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

One more thing before I have to go, I still think it is silly to delete a longstanding paragraph and have to prove why it should be there rather than the opposite. The paragraph summarizes his senate career, which is a big part of the article, which is what the lead is for. Thanks to Jayron32 for attempting to be neutral, but is mentioning the committees he was on any more neutral than mentioning the major legislation that he helped pass? My vote would be to add back in the removed paragraph with Jayron's new sentence about committees added at the end of it as well. Is there any better way to summarize his time as senator (and while doing so it shows his political positions as well)? Are you disagreeing that these things shouldn't be summarized in the lead? Because they are a big part of the article body. Where we disagree is I don't think the paragraph is perfect, and I'm open to having it improved, but I also don't think it is forced. I think it is a necessary paragraph that could be argued over for what content to use for the best summary, but shouldn't just be deleted. LonelyMarble (talk) 01:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

About "longstanding paragraph": December last year Obama wasn't President so changes from then to now are and where naturally to expected. What was then (important) is not anymore. I think I said something similar before.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 02:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

LonelyMarble, just a quick comment, before too much of this inclusion fest gets fussed over or trimmed, according to my toolbox Page size stats, the article size is currently only 32 kB (5293 words) of readable prose. Thus, per the lead guideline, this size translates to only two or three lede paragraphs. Modocc (talk) 03:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC) To anyone that wants to add the page size function to your toolbox, create a User:username/monobook.js page with the following added to it:

importScript('User:Dr_pda/prosesize.js'); //[[User:Dr_pda/prosesize.js]]

Your User:username/monobook.js page can be created by going to the Skins under your preferences, clicking on the monobook's Custom JS and saving the new page. --Modocc (talk) 05:47, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Most important is making sure the lead gives an overview of the whole article. It's right around 32 KB and 30,000 characters in readable prose. Three or four paragraphs seems good to me. I think the confusion of the contents of the lead is that it's not necessarily a brief overview of Obama's life, it's a brief overview of the contents of the article. These two things differ somewhat. LonelyMarble (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

President Obama

He is multiracial. His mother was caucasion. See NNDB for details.fjw75@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.9.65.17 (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Understood and agreed. This information is already included in the article. However, judging by the majority of sources we've seen and discussed here, history will record Obama as America's first African American president (or black president, depending on where you are) - not multiracial or biracial. Please see the FAQ at the top of this page for more information. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Part of Christianity

What sect of Christianity is Obama part of? I know that he used to be part of the United Church of Christ but right now it doesn't seem like he's really a part of any of them. Could someone elaborate on this? I know this might have been answered in the archives but I haven't a clue on which section it was. My President is Black (talk) 04:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Obama used to be a member of UCC, since leaving the church he has not yet made a choice publicly.With that I mean there is no news article or press release or anything that we could use, that says he choose one, he might have chosen one personally.So i guess that means that at the moment Obama is not part of any sect.Durga Dido (talk) 10:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I see, thank you, I'm hoping to find out if he does end up joining the same sect or if he chooses something different. My President is Black (talk) 02:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The term is denomination, not sect. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless it's a cult. PhGustaf (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That was my next comment. "Sect" is a cousin to "cult" as a pejorative. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Law school instructor (Constitutional law)

Note that in a recently archived discussion the contribution of a similar designation to the infobox was objected to for the professed (no pun intended) reason that it was unsourced (I think; it was hard to follow the objector's reasoning) -- so I've finally got around to adding "law school instructor (Constitutional law)" with a note. It's interesting/useful IMO to mention politicians' academic occupations, those who've had them (eg Moynihan as a scholar in sociology, Gingrich as a historian/untenured history prof, etc.). ↜Just me, here, now … 17:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Tvoz has now improved the phrasing and, rightly, also removed the footnote, since the assertion is already documented lower down in the article's text. I'd only included a ref to forstall another claim that it hadn't been documented adequately: In the archived thread I'd argued, "[A]s for [the contention] 'It's expected that prominent lawyers lecture' I hope upon reflection you'll admit this undocumented line of attack is a bit bizarre!" -- the response to which was, "[T]hat's funny considering you accused me of violating WP:OR after deleting your addition of unsourced content. You are the one with the bizarre thinking[...]." ↜Just me, here, now … 04:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

To be clear - the exchange above was not with me. That he was a constitutional law professor has been in the article for a very long time, well-documented, and I see no need for a footnote in the infobox on this point, although I understand why Just put it in. This is not in contention by anyone who can read. I am not 100% convinced that we really should be listing all of these items in occupation, but I'm not strenuously opposed, so I can go along with it. Tvoz/talk 07:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tvoz; your sentiment seems reasonable.

(In any case, if all here agree on the appropriateness of an occupation blank in politicians' infoboxes, what would remain to be decided is whether O's career in legal education was notable enough to be included there, right? (Not Tvoz's but... ) the user in question's argument was, "Bill Clinton just has 'Attorney' as his previous profession, And I guarantee you he has given lectures[...]."

(But such reliance on a corollary listed at Wikipedia:Other stuff exists logically actually fails since a quick click over to Bill Clinton shows no career in legal education notable enough for mention! Whereas clicks to the bios of pols who have had notable careers in post-secondary education show such phrases as at Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in its lede, "an American politician and sociologist," and on down the page, "In addition to his career as a politician and diplomat, Moynihan worked as a sociologist" -- and at Newt Gingrich, in its lede, "college history professor, political leader, and author," and on down the page, "Gingrich taught history[...]".) ↜Just me, here, now … 09:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet if someone were to argue, "We shouldn't mention Moynihan as having a career as a 'scholar,' since such a policy wonk as Bill Clinton isn't mentioned as having one, separate from politics" -- a good response might be, "But the historical record shows that along with Moynihan's long and distinguished career as both a governmental policy advisor and legislator, Moynihan also conducted and directed academic research on sociological and policy issues as a tenured professor at Harvard, hence there's ample evidence for Moynihan's career as a scholar distinct from his career as a politician and until we document similar circumstances for Clinton, to set up the two cases as being purely parallel would be faulty." ↜Just me, here, now … 19:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

That's quite right - Moynihan was well-known long before his political career as a scholar. Tvoz/talk 21:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

State legislator: 1997–2004 - repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits

Kauffner's latest repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits to an Obama-related article:

An out-of-context State legislator: 1997–2004 section sentence:

While serving in the state senate, Obama voted "present" 129 times out of the 4,000 votes he made as a state senator.[7]

of Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008#South Carolina trivia

that has been discussed in Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 13#"Present" Votes.... Again

and included in the South Carolina section of the Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 article

has been inappropriately and disruptively repeatedly added 6 times by Kauffner to this WP:Summary style article:

1. 11:38, 6 February 2009
2. 06:17, 7 February 2009
3. 15:53, 14 February 2009
4. 02:51, 15 February 2009
5. 03:53, 16 February 2009
6. 16:42, 20 February 2009

and reverted 6 times by Newross[8][9][10][11], Scjessey[12], and Brothejr[13].

Kauffner's only other contributions to Obama-related articles have also been repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits to The Audacity of Hope, Dreams from My Father, and Project Vote.
See: Talk:The Audacity of Hope#Reception - repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits

Please immediately cease and desist making repeated inappropriate and disruptive edits to Obama-related Wikipedia articles. Newross (talk) 23:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Although I agree, I think the place for this is Kauffner's own edit page, WP:AN/I, or the administrator he just called a troll for warning him to stop edit warring at Audacity of Hope. I think he's been warned enough times and shown that he won't quit.Wikidemon (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikidemon is (as often) right about this one. Don't bring it up here but where s/he suggested.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I notice here a total refusal to engage in the issue and a focus on attacking me personally. If you read the archive discussion, you'll find that most of the participants favored some mention of Obama's present voting. We now have a situation where the article can discuss whether or not Obama is a distant relative of Jefferson Davis, but one of the top issues in the primary elections is tagged as too trivial to include. Kauffner (talk) 03:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because it'd be more relevant to an article about the primaries or the candidacy of Obama, rather than the main biographical article? Tarc (talk) 12:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there a candidacy/senate article? I have looked through Kauf's suggestions and have concluded there is some merit, though his trollish history is definitely a turn off. It is true Obama was tardy 100+ voting days out of a possible 4000, but so were other Senators: Obama's voting record and John McCain's voting record. I'm reviewing through several Senators and none seem to have the record of Obama, but I still don't think this is a "critical" point for the article. I do endorse senate voting summary (including # times voted) if there isn't already in there. I do not understand the reasoning behind the resistance, it really isn't a *huge* deal. However, I predict Kauf will get blocked/banned before anything matriculates...lol. My sources however could be wrong and I don't feel like looking at 100 senator profiles. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

There is an article, Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama, and it is not presently in that article. If true and sourceable it would have to be worked into that article in a relevant, neutral way in due proportion to its significance to the subject. Wikidemon (talk) 02:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me or does that article read like a promotion? Wikifan12345 (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

• Criticism by Hillary Clinton of Barack Obama voting 'present' in the Illinois Senate was added to the South Carolina subsection of the Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 article 26 hours after the conclusion of the January 21, 2008 CNN/Congressional Black Caucus Institute Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.[14]
  
  Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 trivia does not belong in this WP:Summary style biography article—it belongs where it has been for more than a year—in the Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 subarticle.
  
  
• The Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 13#"Present" Votes topic started by the anonymous 136.167.114.140 / 68.160.0.182 Boston College editor on March 7, 2008, and the redundant and repetitive Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 13#"Present" Votes.... Again topic they started four days later on March 11, 2008 when they didn't get any favorable responses to their original topic, are difficult to read because they never signed any of the dozen posts they made to their two talk page topics.
  
  None of the eleven other editors who posted to the two topics "favored some mention of Obama's present voting" (76.25.115.99 [15], Jons63 [16], jpgordon [17], Bellwether BC [18], Lid [19], HailFire [20] [21], K. Kellogg-Smith [22], Yahel Guhan [23], Newross [24], 70.245.162.75 [25], Downix [26]).
  
  Which prompted the anonymous 136.167.114.140 / 68.160.0.182 Boston College editor who never signed their talk page posts to rant:"It seems as though editors of this page are getting their direction from the Obama campaign."[27] "Is Obama's campaign manager in the house? Has money exchanged hands here? I've never seen such a biased, one dimensionally positive article of a public figure."[28] "Just include the facts and let his record speak for itself without ignoring and hiding those aspects of his record which make you and the other Obamaniacs that administer this article a little uncomfortable."[29]
  
  
• The misleading December 20, 2007 front-page New York Times article by Raymond Hernandez, its Washington-based reporter covering the Hillary Clinton campaign, and Christopher Drew, a New York-based investigative reporter:

  Hernandez, Raymond; Drew, Christopher (December 20, 2007). It’s not just ‘ayes’ and ‘nays’: Obama’s votes in Illinois echo. The New York Times, p. A1.

  is an exceptionally poor source because it completely omits the most basic information that a 'present' vote in the Illinois General Assembly—where a constitutional majority (absolute majority) is required to pass a bill—is in effect a 'no' vote:

  Mikva, Abner J. (February 16, 2008). 'Present' perfect. The New York Times, p. A19.
  Zorn, Eric (September 9, 2008). Obama’s foes fire same old cheap shot. Chicago Tribune, p. 1 (Metro).

  basic information not omitted from articles by Illinois reporters who covered the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield for several years,[30] like: Dan Vock [31], Rick Pearson [32], Ray Long [33], and Chris Wills [34]:

  Vock, Daniel C. (January 25, 2008). 'Present' votes defended by Ill. lawmakers. Stateline.org.
  Pearson, Rick; Long, Ray (February 3, 2008). 'Present votes emerging from the past. Chicago Tribune, p. 13.
  Wills, Christopher (Associated Press) (September 23, 2008). Parsing the political present tense.. USA Today.com.

  Newross (talk) 07:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC) Newross (talk) 19:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Broken link

I thought I'd notify some of the page regulars... The link about his smoking is broken. It was here but the url doesn't seem to work. I removed it and replaced it with a cn. --Happyme22 (talk) 04:21, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is he in the category "german-americans"?

I never heard, that Barack Obama is german descent. His sister from Kenya lived many years in Germany and speak perfect German. 77.22.172.233 (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Probably someone making a point about his white side. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

His heritage is German-American as much as it is African-American. rootology (C)(T) 16:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think his white side is 100% German. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

What do we do on other BLPs as precedent if someone is say (using parents>grandparents as a vector) 50% one thing, 25% one thing, and 25% as another, but self-identifies as one? rootology (C)(T) 18:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually he's primarily of English descent, the assumption is, as a majority of Caucasians in the Americas, he is of German descent(like myself), but his mother was actually of clear English descent, Ann Dunham, as can be seen there, so if you were going to include "primary" descent, he would be under "English-Americans" I suppose. Revrant (talk) 04:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Obama_family#Extended_family_-_maternal_relations, I'd say just the English American cat is justified, but the underlying source describes itself as a first draft, neither authoritative nor exhaustive [35] and anyway seems to be from a freelance genealogist. Is there a better source establishing his mother's heritage that we could use to more definitively determine which cats belong?--chaser (away) - talk 05:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Details of his ancestry aren't important enough to include. So Obama had a German great-grandparent. So do I. But she was dead before I was born; his was likely so too. In any case, neither Obama nor I were raised in a German culture, and neither of us have an identifiable Teutonic weltanschaaung. The $COUNTRY-American categories are for people who identify with, or were acculturated to, $COUNTRY. His mom's family has been in the US for a couple centuries; mine too. Virtually every such family has ancestors from many countries. But this has nothing to do with who I am, or who Obama is. (Well, actually, if my Mom's very doubtful research is sound, my great^n-grandmother was thrown out of Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1680, for "entertaining gentlemen in the evening". I've survived that bad gene.) PhGustaf (talk) 06:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense, if they weren't important there wouldn't be an entire article dedicated to just that subject, as Chaser pointed out. I have to say, now that I am being made fully aware of the Obama Family article, I don't think it's necessary to include it, as it is already covered in depth via aforementioned article. Revrant (talk) 07:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change to wording of HLR election

“ Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations. ”

ought to flow better

“ Having been elected as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama's volitive editorial focus upon black women in history made headlines and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations. ”

Ottre 14:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The sources say nothing about Obama's editorial focus being upon black women in history, do not say it was "volitive", do not say that is why he made headlines, nor do they say that it lead to a publishing contract. What they do say is that him being the first black president of HLR is what made headlines and that his presidency of HLR, his background, and being a good writer is what attracted the publishing contract. The Age article does mention a review of a biography of Fredrick Douglass being critical of the biographer's failure to mention black women, but the writer of The Age article acknowledges that Obama is not bylined anywhere in the HRL edition and that he suspects a hint of Obama in the review. You're also focusing on what is probably a couple of sentences or paragraphs in a book review that is part of an almost 2,000 page journal edition. Your wording is so incorrect it makes me wonder if you even read the sources.... --Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I read the article months ago. Would you care to suggest an alternative summary? Ottre 23:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The one that's there now is concise, clear, and encyclopedic. Your suggestion is worse in every possible way. Leave it as it is. PhGustaf (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

That's outrageous.
* Turgid prose: "elected first black president... which gained national media attention"
* Points to an article which has nothing to do with legal history
* Does not even attempt to promote a worldwide view RE the HLR: circumstances of his election "led to a book deal about race relations" -- Why not go into some detail here, and give a topical overview of his editorship? Have you read the Age article?

Ottre 13:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The referenced articles are great; thanks, Ottre. ↜Just me, here, now … 16:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

British citizen

I just removed some "material" about him being a british citizen. This is probably the usuall nonsense. If so, can somebody please delete this section as not being a forum or advise such and I will delete this myself, thanks in advance. --Tom 17:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily nonsense, but I was going to revert it because it is entirely original research. It might well be true - seemed reasonable enough to me - but we need cites, not a collection of links to piece together. If it's printed elsewhere in a reliable source, it's OK...but not as it was presented. Note that the text stated he was "born" a British citizen, not that he is a British citizen. Nevertheless, still original research as it was presented.  Frank  |  talk  17:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I actually equate OR to nonsense, but thats just me :) --Tom 17:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama's status under the laws of a country where he has never resided is not relevant. If the claim is true, then every child born of a British citizen is (in the eyes of the UK) a British citizen, a common and not terribly notable curiosity. Likewise, every child (of a Jewish mother?) is eligible for Israeli citizenship. There are a number of these things.Wikidemon (talk) 20:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

See above, asked and answered, consensus was NO. ThuranX (talk) 01:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

OR does not equate to nonsense, nor vice versa. However, there can be significant overlap. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed in item 8 above. I do not understand why it upsets so many people here. It is a simple fact. no more or less controverial than the fact that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison were at birth British citizens. Why is the FACT that Barack Obama was at birth a U.S. & G.B. citizen. That fact does not have any bearing on what is so obviously under the surface in the minds of those who keep removing this information. The "original research" in the foot note is mainly there to support the simple statement of fact (more than just interesting trivia in my estimation) and not because original research was needed to find this information. The fact of the matter is that if Prince William of Wales and some future bride were visiting the USA when she went into labor and The child bron in the USA would be both a US & GB citizen. I suspect such child would NEVER use the US citizenship, but I would bet it would be mentioned in any biography, including a wikipedia article. --Natwebb (talk) 05:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Wikidemon makes a really excellent point and analogy above. Who Britain may or may not consider a citizen is really of little weight to Obama's life, having never done anything to claim or utilize that citizenship to which he was (purportedly) eligible. The analogy with Israel is a good one here. Their laws give automatic citizenship to "Jews" (defined under a specific religious theory of what that means). Who would editors feel about adding to the Al Franken article that he "Has automatic Israeli citizenship" (even though he has no particular association or allegiance with that country)? It just wouldn't seem remotely relevant there. In any case, the citation for the British citizenship claim is a bit weak. We only have one source, which isn't a terrible one, but seems to be engaging in a bit of amature lawyering. If the British Government had made some official statement that Obama, specifically, was formerly a citizen, and sources reported that, it would be quite a bit stronger. But what we have is a source giving its own (not unreasonable, but not legally binding) interpretation of British (and Kenyan) law. Moreover, there aren't any wealth of other source rushing in to mention the importance of this same "fact". It doesn't add up to something currently worth including. LotLE×talk 05:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Hence it may be a fact or it may not be, but it is not a notable fact either way. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's be honest here, this is completely non-notable. Is there a reason you (Natwebb) want to include this information other than the fact that it's annoying (understandably) to have your edits reverted? LonelyMarble (talk) 06:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I smell a conspiracy camel trying to get its nose in the tent. PhGustaf (talk) 06:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That was my initial assumption also. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Factually, I am right. On some emotional level some of the people undoing here cannot accept a simple well documented fact. All I can conclude is that there is a lot of worry from those who fear "a conspiracy camel trying to get its nose in the tent." And I thought I had drafted this to simply state a simple fact WITHOUT REFERENCE to any of the controversial things that have been on the internet (birth certificate, Phillip Berg (aka Nut Job), birthplace, Indonesian citizenship). I thought I made it non-controversial. I give up! Have it your way. Let me know if you collectively change your minds. --Natwebb (talk) 07:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith --Natwebb (talk) 07:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Even if you are right factually, which is by no means certain, you have yet to demonstrate that this bit of trivia has any notability. And given all the recent sockpuppetry here, you should be sensitive to concerns about the conspiracy theorists that continually pop in here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Natwebb, don't you realize it is a bit offensive to call someone born in Kenya around that time a British citizen? Kenya was a subject of imperialism, they don't necessarily even want to be associated with this. Why does this have any relevancy to Obama? If anything an argument could be made about Kenyan citizenship, but British citizenship is just completely irrelevant. LonelyMarble (talk) 07:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I never said he was born in Kenya. Never even implied it. --Natwebb (talk) 07:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll take it on faith that you're not trying to weasel a conspiracy theory angle here, and that it's just an interesting bit of trivia. Which it may be. First, where's the evidence that no one else since W.H. Harrison had "theoretical" British citizenship. Second, assuming that's true, you need to prove it's true for Obama, which so far is questionable. Third, and perhaps most important, you need to demonstrate why it matters. If verifiable sources don't think it matters, neither can we say it does. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment: isn't this the same as when including genealogical information? Trivia may be difficult to relate to the political biography for some time, but it is almost certainly of interest to future generations (especially in regards to genetics) and so government records (?) are sufficient? Ottre 14:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

If there's any evidence that he is or was theoretically a British citizen (which is questionable at this point), then maybe it could be casually mentioned in the family page. Since he's never tried to do anything with such alleged citizenship, putting it in his bio page is inappropriate. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

There are two issues here which must both be addressed. First is notability, which is being debated above, but the more important issue is verifiability. We must keep in mind that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. The most recent restoration of this point is a series of breadcrumbs leading a reader on a path of original research, which is not appropriate for any Wikipedia article, much less a high-profile one. Even if we accept the breadcrumbs at face value, it's simply not enough, because the first reference is not independent, the second is a Wikipedia page, and the rest are citations of law which would require us as editors to be asserting that we are qualified to interpret applicable law, which we not only aren't qualified to do, but are not allowed to do under existing policy. This tidbit may be true, and it may be interesting...but it cannot be included in the article as it is currently written.  Frank  |  talk  14:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there a RS that calls Obama a British citizen? --Tom 20:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is closer[36]. It says everything that has already been implied, but is by the BBC (reliable source). Although rejected by the court to be too British, it does put the pieces of the puzzle together that he was a British citizen at birth.--Jojhutton (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

All that source says is that D'Onofrio impugns British citizenship to Obama. We knew that already. PhGustaf (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought that would be the reaction, although i was a bit hopeful that there could be some agreement. What type of source would be preferable? And what must it actually say?--Jojhutton (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a neutral source that would actually evaluate D'Onofrio's opinion, as opposed to simply reporting that it is his opinion. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is one source that is not exactly nuetral, but Ill let you all decide. [37].--Jojhutton (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

If it's considered a reliable source, then it's what I was referring to. So, where to put this info, if anywhere? He was born both a U.S. citizen and British citizen, apparently - and it expired when he turned 21, if I'm reading that right. So he was not a British citizen when he was elected President. So, why does it matter? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 22:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a minor trivia point and I wouldn't think it is particularly "worthy" enough to be mentioned in the main article, particularly in the manner Natwebb is trying to get it included. Obama has never acted upon his British or Kenyan citizenship and they have had no impact upon his biography, so if they are to be included, I would think the best way of doing so would be as a footnote in his early life article and then only mention that he qualified to be a British subject at the time of his birth and then qualified to be a Kenyan citizen in 1963 when Kenya became independent, but lost his Kenyan citizenship when he turned 21. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Yeah. Note that most of this discussion has concerned notability, and that most editors are arguing "no" on that issue. Should we point out in the lede that he's the first President to speak Indonesian? For all I know, he's the first President to play the euphonium. Should we mention that, if it's true? PhGustaf (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Most Editors? Who, name them. I can look up and down the talk page and see that there may be a split on this issue. I am aware that consensus is vital, but do not claim consensus when there is none.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

One note, Obama did not lose his status as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (UKC) when he turned 21, he lost his Kenyan citizenship. UK allows dual citizenship, so he would still qualify to be a UKC by virtue of his father having been one at the time of Obama's birth. Claiming that Obama was the first president born a British citizenship since Harrison would be OR because it is not verifiable. It may be true, but there isn't a reliable source that says he's the first since Harrison. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) Also it may not be 100% clear that other Presidents in the interim weren't notionally British citizens under the parent and, I think, grandparent rules. Remember that it wasn't so well codified in the nineteenth century. It is amateur lawyering to retroactively apply the laws, especially if none of them ever availed themselves of any such entitlement. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

There is one possible area that this is of interest, and that is that it's just another example of one of the most multi-cultural Presidents we've had. Multiple ethnicity, multiple citizenships at birth, world traveler at a young age, etc. I wonder if any good sources have picked up on that point? He does have one flaw though - he apparently learned to dance through a correspondence school. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

This is why OR is a problem. To begin with, what evidence is there that Barack Obama Sr. was a British citizen? Assuming that we can take Wikipedia articles at face value, he was probably either a British subject or Commonwealth citizen. Kenyans living in Kenya would have become Kenyan citizens at independence. Did this apply to Kenyans living outside of Kenya? Well, if Obama had (and lost) Kenyan citizenship, then presumably Kenyans living outside of Kenya at independence also became Kenyan citizens at independence. At best, and this seems doubtful, he might have been a British subject at birth, but chances are that would have ceased when he was 2 years old. Guettarda (talk) 06:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Prior to 1983, British subjects allowed for those that were citizen's of other countries, i.e. a citizen of Australia was also a British subject. So Obama didn't lose his UKC citizenship when Kenya became a country. The Kenyan constitution also granted Kenyan citizenship to everyone that was born in Kenya and to all the children born outside of Kenya if their father met the criteria to be a Kenyan citizen, so Obama would have also been a citizen of Kenya starting 1963. However, Kenya does not allow dual citizenship for those over 21(understandable considering they wanted to break their ties with the UK), so Obama's father did lose his UKC in 1963, but as a minor, Obama would have technically qualified to be UKC, Kenyan, and American. But when Obama turned 21 and didn't drop his American citizenship, he lost his Kenyan citizenship. But all of this is OR as I doubt there is any reliable sources that will say anything other than Obama lost his Kenyan citizenship when he turned 21. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 07:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Obama's place of birth

Collapsed due to WP:BLP and WP:FRINGE. Not even worth discussion. --Bobblehead (rants) 23:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As has been said previously, Wikipedia is not a place to discuss politics and your opinion of politics. The fact is that it has NOT been verified that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and has not been verified in which hospital he was born in. This is what all those pending lawsuits concern. I move that the text claiming him to be born in Hawaii is invalid and should be removed until undeniable proof has been brought forward that he was born there. Do not point to the "Certification of live birth". That document has been proven by Dr. Ron Polarik to be a fraud. If Wikipedia truly exists to be a hub to receive factual information, only valid information that has been proved and is irreputable should be valid on this site. Tom, with all due respect, the concern about him being a citizen with inherited loyalty to the British Crown, and being a citizen to the jurisdiction to the Crown, is valid. To suggest otherwise would be an example of political views interfering with an article. Not putting such a thing on here is not a good execution of NPOV. Read right below the edit box. "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable". Him being born in Hawaii in the hospital mentioned is not irreputable, and for all intents and purposes, and to remain pursuant to Wikipedia's policies, should be removed unless proven to be accurate verifiable. Refusal to do so would be to voluntarily break Wikipedia's Terms of Service. --Axmann8 (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Caps on "2008 presidential election"

As "presidential" is not a proper adverb, the first letter shouldn't be capitalized. It's not capitalized elsewhere in the article, so, let's go for some stylistic consistency here with the subsections. --Kudzu1 (talk) 21:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I removed the caps. It was probably collateral damage in Scjessey's reversion of your previous edit. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I wish Twinkle wasn't so heavily used; it's really a pretty flawed gizmo. Thanks Bobblehead. --Kudzu1 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't like twinkle, it's actually quite nice when dealing with vandalism and people who just "feel/know" that so and so information "has" to go into the article. Also, I removed both additions due to A) they were not first added to the presidential article and B) they smell of politics then substantive/important additions. This article is written in summary style. What that means is that it only summarizes what the daughter articles go into detail. So that means all the trivia, all the smaller things, any recent actions, etc first go into the daughter articles. Then the information is posted on the talk page where it can be debated to as if it is important enough by consensus to be added to this article. Please do not try to re-post the information without discussing it here first. Brothejr (talk) 10:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

One of the more annoying things I've noticed about certain editors on this article is that when they complain about an addition not being in one of the child articles, they just remove the content from this article and don't move it to the child article. Is it really that difficult to cut the content from this article and paste it into the appropriate location in the child article. ;) --Bobblehead ^(rants) 18:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

And the same can be said for those who add them in the first place, including those who also over look them. Brothejr (talk) 19:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Creating (yet more) links on the page

A number of organizations that Obama was involved in or acted on the board of directors for don't have hyperlinks. Example, the Center for Neighborhood Technology. I think it would be beneficial to give people access to that kind of thing, and most of them have either their own webpages or wikipedia pages, so why not link to them? Unfortunately because of the (necessary) lock on the page, it's difficult to add those links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stealintomorrow (talk • contribs)

Barack Hussein Obama II

I'm sorry, but, is that actually his real name? It seems like vandalism to me (considering all the fake rumors about him being a terrorist), and I was about to revert it, when suddenly I saw that, in the edit history, several recognizable editors (clearly not vandals) made constructive edits to the article while ignoring the name. I would like to know whether this is vandalism or otherwise. Thanks in advance, Dogcowsaysmoof^Talk_Guestbook^{Barnstar Gallery}_Sandbox 00:46, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Ther is a lot more that you may not be aware of too, but you can't read about it here. I actually learn more about Obama from reading the talk page than from the article.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is his name. Grsz¹¹ 00:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

See the article Hussein for a discussion of the many interesting and reputable people who have carried that popular name. Dcoetzee 06:05, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Why isn't he called "Barack H. Obama"?

Like Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and so on? 203.211.75.108 (talk) 07:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Pure stylistic choice, as far as I can tell. George W. Bush employed the middle initial primarily to distinguish him from his father. The others did it because it mainly because it sounds good (compare "John Kennedy", "John F. Kennedy"). Dcoetzee 05:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan & Bill Clinton aren't called by their middle names. We name articles by the most common usage. Barack Obama is more common than Barack H. Obama. Burner0718 ^JibbaJabba! 05:12, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Quick, without peaking, name the middle initials of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, or James Madison. I can't do it, but I'm sure some editors can. However, in any case, the simple fact is that different presidents (or those who write about them) have made slightly different choices about which parts of their names to use most commonly. Obama happens to be one with "middle name/initial usually omitted." LotLE×talk 05:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

None of those presidents had middle names.TomCat4680 (talk) 02:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

And, in a practical sense, there's no Barack W. Obama or Barack Q. Obama out there he's likely to be confused with. PhGustaf (talk) 05:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Just as an aside, many early presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, did not have middle names at all. Tad Lincoln (talk) 06:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Meanwhile, imagine how silly we would look if we had "Jimmy E. Carter" and "Bill J. Clinton". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent reversion

I reverted some apparently unnecessary changes by Bratz angel14. Most reliable sources refer to Obama's earlier occupation as a "lawyer", and not an "attorney"; moreover, shortening Hawaii to "HI" would confuse non-Americans. These are typical of the changes I reverted. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for edit

Under "Family and personal life," it says: "in 2005 the family moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6 million house"... no longer "their current"! Perhaps it should read "to a $1.6 million house"?