The Associated Press has a story, linked on Drudge, that updates us about President Obama’s Aunt Zeituni Onyango. She is the Aunt who was living illegally in the US and almost became an election-eve nightmare for candidate Obama. According to this story, only George Bush saved Onyango and Obama from a major political trainwreck days before the November 2008 election.
We reported previously, here, here and here, about Auntie’s deportation order and her life in Boston subsidized housing. Actually we have a bunch more posts on her case, but those three links should give you adequate background.
From time to time Rush Limbaugh will point out how Obama (now rich from his Bill Ayers written book), the defender of the poor and downtrodden, has left his impoverished brother in a tiny hut in Kenya and this story about Obama having nothing to do with Aunt Zeituni further demonstrates the point. Leftwing leaders talk a good game about helping the poor but don’t do a whole hell of a lot personally.
At this point Aunt Zeituni is not a political liability to Obama because she is not hiding out, she is pursuing remaining legal options.* Therefore, Obama’s apparent abandonment of her only serves to make Obama look like a chicken and a cheapskate.
How many readers, even those of you who think she was wrong for skirting the law, would object to Obama paying for her housing and food rather than the US and Massachusetts’ taxpayers footing the bill? And, heck, he should have had her to Thanksgiving dinner! (Since she says she hasn’t seen Obama since his inauguration we assume she was not among the “extended family” at the White House dinner.)
BOSTON – President Barack Obama’s aunt buried her face in her hands and sobbed as she described her anguish over no longer having contact with him and his family after the revelation she had been living illegally for years in the United States in public housing.
Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUH’-nee awn-YAHN’-goh) told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that she is troubled that her immigration woes have made her a political liability to her nephew.
Onyango, the half sister of Obama’s late father, said she has exiled herself from the family after attending Obama’s inauguration because she didn’t want to become fodder for his foes. Obama and his family have not reached out to her either, she said.
“Before, we were family. But right now, there is a lot of politics, and me, I am not interested in any politics at all,” said Onyango, whose appeal for asylum from her native Kenya is before an immigration judge in Boston.
There is no way Obama didn’t know her immigration status when they were previously so close.
Onyango said she previously had no trouble visiting Obama when he was a state senator in Illinois or after he became a U.S. senator, though she declined to discuss details of how often she had contact with Obama and his family. Her tiny apartment in a modest subsidized public housing complex for seniors and the disabled is adorned with photographs of her with Obama at the Illinois Statehouse, the president’s official portrait, his family, the inauguration, her children and African wildlife.
George Bush is her number one man!
Onyango reserved special words of kindness for former President George W. Bush for a directive he put in place days before the election requiring federal agents get high-level approval to arrest fugitive immigrants, which directly affected Onyango. The directive made clear that U.S. officials worried about possible election implications of arresting Onyango.
She said she wants to thank Bush in person for the order, which gave her a measure of peace but was lifted weeks later.
“I loved President Bush,” Onyango said while moving toward a framed photo of Bush and his wife standing with Barack and Michelle Obama at the White House on inauguration day. “He is my No. 1 man in my life because he helped me when I really needed that help.”
I’ll betcha George Bush would have invited her to his Thanksgiving dinner if she had been his Auntie.
* She will have a hard time convincing a judge she would be persecuted in Kenya where the Obama’s are rock stars!