Behind Obama's Identity

Ronald Kessler

As his presidency unravels, Americans are asking themselves just who the real Barack Obama is.

“No one seems to know who this guy is,” Edward Klein, a New York Times best-selling author, tells Newsmax. “In fact, I don’t even know if he knows who he is.”

Together with former New York Republican Congressman John LeBoutillier, Klein has just come out with a brilliant and funny satirical novel exploring that mystery. Called “The Obama Identity: A Novel (Or Is It?),” the book addresses such questions as where Obama was born, who is behind him, and his real agenda. A former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine, Klein previously wrote “The Truth About Hillary,” and most recently, “Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died.” His co-author, LeBoutillier, is a Newsmax columnist.

For the new book, which Vanity Fair online is excerpting, the authors conducted research into Obama and his past.

“The reason people are questioning his identity is because he is an unknowable person, and when people are like that, it means they don’t know themselves what they stand for,” Klein says. “I don’t think he knows what he stands for. He’s a total mystery to us, to the public, as well as to himself and those around him.”

Although the mainstream media gave rave reviews to Obama’s memoirs, Klein says that even they failed to explain who he is.

“In fact, they prove that he is a rootless guy, a rootless man who has been searching for himself all of his life,” Klein says. “And when he said during the campaign we are the people we’ve been waiting for, what he really meant to say was that he’s been waiting for himself all his life. He doesn't know who he is and, therefore, he’s unable to project a clear identity to the American public.”

That uncertainty about himself and what he stands for accounts for Obama’s inconsistent and often illogical policies, Klein says. He cites Obama’s decision to approve a surge in troops in Afghanistan while setting a deadline of next July to begin withdrawing.

“For a president to ignore the best advice from his military and not send the necessary troops to Afghanistan in order to do the job, and then on top of that to put a deadline on the generals to accomplish a mission which is not accomplishable, sends a message to the enemy that they can bide their time and then eventually take over,” Klein says. “It’s self-defeating.”

Obama’s healthcare legislation and stimulus spending are also self-contradictory, Klein says. “The president says that the healthcare law is going to save people health insurance premiums, when we know that it is only going to drive up healthcare premiums, and they already are going up. He has spent over $800 billion on a stimulus bill that has done virtually nothing to drive down unemployment.”

“Obama doesn’t have a consistent vision because he is not a whole, integrated personality,” Klein continues. “That’s why people have doubts about him. He projected one personality during the 2008 campaign, and he’s projected several different personalities since he assumed office.”

The president’s comment in Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s War” that “We can absorb a terrorist attack” is another example of his lack of core values, Klein says.

“The 9/11 attack ‘absorbed’ 3,000 lives,” Klein says. “Which 3,000 lives does he think we can ‘absorb’ this time? That comment is horrifying.”

Co-author LeBoutillier observes, “‘The Obama Identity,’ while humorous, has a serious message: America cannot and will not be saved by any one man or messiah. The idea that a savior will be parachuted into D.C. to rescue us from evil is in itself un-American. It is the American people themselves who will fix things. Thus the rise of the tea party movement.”

In sum, says Klein, “I don’t think Obama has a real set of beliefs. I think he has an attitude that he’s special, that he’s different, that he is somehow above the common man to a degree that makes him an historic figure. I think he truly believes in all of that, but I think behind that, it’s sort of like the straw man. There’s nothing behind it.”