“…buy your own damn fries!” (NSFW)

Feb 7th, 2009 | By Ara Rubyan | Category: Barack Obama

Unlike most people who own the book, I actually read Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father from start to finish. Obama is a terrific writer — articulate, honest, introspective and perceptive to the max.

And as a memoir of someone who later became a major figure in American politics, the only other book to which I can compare it is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Because Obama wrote it when he was still relatively unknown, having just become a podunk state legislator from the south side of Chicago, he was free of all the constraints that politicians are under when they have far more to lose. In fact, if I could ask him just one question, it would be this: “If you knew where you’d end up, would you have written a different kind of book?”

Anyway, you should pick it up and read it. It’s a great story, even if you don’t realize the guy who wrote it later became President of the United States.

Why the audio book was never used against him on the campaign is beyond me. Not sure what I mean? Play the audio clips below and marvel that this man is our President.

Granted, Obama is reading someone else’s words here (although it is a character that he himself has largely created). In the clips below, he is reading the lines he wrote describing Ray, a fellow classmate of Obama’s, who was also bi-racial, and who was also trying to define himself. But what set Ray apart and made him so, um, entertaining, was his colorful manner of self-expression.

Give a listen: Obama is way beyond Harry Truman territory here, let alone Urkel: