Obama's president relatives, Hillary's crooners

FOR anyone wondering why Barack Obama's demeanour looks so presidential, the answer is simple: through his mother Obama is related to six US presidents! Hillary Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent, is related to three famous female singers. There is also evidence to support the case for Obama and Clinton making good running mates: they are related to Hollywood heartthrobs, actor Brad Pitt and actress Angelina Jolie respectively, who are mates in real life. Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, as are Hillary and Jolie.
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society have found that Barack Obama is related to US Presidents (are you ready for this?) George W. Bush, George H. W, Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison.
Apart from Jolie, Hillary Clinton counts famous singers Madonna of the US, and Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette of French Canada among relatives from her mother's side. Camilla Parker- Bowles, Prince Charles' wife, is another of Hillary's famous relatives.
Presumed Republican nominee Senator John McCain is a sixth cousin of the current first lady, Laura Bush.
A Hillary Clinton senior advisor wondered: "You'd think with all that singing talent in the family she'd be able to carry a tune." Hillary's critics complain that she cackles, which is the opposite of crooning. The advisor added: "But now it makes much more sense how she snagged a Grammy." Clinton won the best-spoken word Grammy in 1997 for her book, It Takes a Village.
Barack Obama is no slouch at winning Grammies either. If one was looking for additional proof for bad blood between the Clintons and Obama, here is another one: the freshman senator for Illinois was honoured for the audio version of his second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, in this year's Grammy in February, beating out Bill Clinton, who had been nominated for Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, his best-selling guide to how individuals can contribute to worthy causes!
It was Obama's second Grammy, having won the same spoken word award in 2005 for first his book, Dreams From My Father. Obama has won twice as many Grammies as Hillary, just as he has won twice as many primaries and caucuses as Hillary!
Obama's pedigree casts a wider net. For Obama's good looks and sexiness, one needs look no further than cousin Brad Pitt, with whom he clearly shares the appealing masculine gene. Obama is related to three recent US Republican presidents: two moderates (Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush) and one right-winger (George W. Bush).
Although the Democrats are supposed to be less rash, two of Obama's Democratic presidential relatives were pugnacious: Lyndon B. Johnson, who started the Vietnam War, and Harry S. Truman, who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tugged in opposite directions, no wonder Obama wants to be a moderate unifier.
If Obama appears nuanced at times, it is perhaps because he is also related to Robert E. Lee, the Civil War general, a patriot who reluctantly led the Confederate army. If Obama looks statesman-like at times, it is perhaps because he is distantly related to Sir Winston Churchill, the statesman who led the British and the allies to victory in World War II. Obama's silky voice and mastery of oratory are perhaps due to his sharing the oratory gene with Sir Winston, the greatest political orator of his time ("We shall fight them on the beaches ...").
To the hate-mongers Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world, who make their living by peddling "guilt by association" theories vis-à-vis Obama and his controversial former pastor Rev. Wright: how about Obama acquiring presidential pedigree through heredity?
Inevitably, there are black sheep in the Obama family tree too. Vice-President Dick Cheney, also known as "Darth Vader," is Obama's cousin. Recently, Obama lamented: "One wishes one had cool ancestors, like Paul Revere, not cousin Cheney!" Ironically, Vice-President Dick Cheney is a hero to the rightwingers of Limbaugh and Hannity's ilk.
What about Obama's pedigree from his father's side? Barack Hussein Obama, Obama's father, was a brilliant man from Kenya, and was a doctoral student at Harvard University in the early 1960s. In Barack Obama, America will not be electing the descendant of a former slave as president.
What distinguishes Barack Obama from most blacks in America is that his African ancestors were never slaves in America. They were free and proud Africans. Although most black Americans use the same hyphenated designation, with an actual African father and a free-spirited white American mother, Barack Obama is a genuine African-American!

Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed is a Rhodes Scholar and a Daily Star columnist.