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The audio version of Barack Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, omitted a key element found in the original print version from 1995: numerous references to a mentor he called "Frank." The audio book was recorded in 2005, when the newly elected Senator Obama was already considering himself for the presidency. No doubt he was anxious to please voters - but why did he choose to remove a key character from his personal story, a man whom the Associated Press had called "an important influence" and a "father" figure? Perhaps he did it because he knew that even his most devoted followers would find Frank's identity hard to swallow. The Obama campaign admitted in the course of the 2008 election that "Frank" referred to the poet, pornographer, Kengor, a professor at Grove City College, is careful not to argue that Obama's friendship with Davis necessarily led to his current White House policies. Rather, he presents the facts about Davis, points out the many similarities in the two men's work, and asks readers to draw their own conclusions. The similarities are remarkable. For example, Davis argued for the nationalization of General Motors in 1950, saying that the company's profits were proof "that the tentacles of Big Business control just about everything they think they need to insure continued profits." He also advocated wealth redistribution from "greedy" corporations to "health insurance" and "public works projects." The words "change" and "forward" were favorite slogans used repeatedly in his writings. Kengor's extensive research is drawn from declassified FBI files, Soviet archives, and Davis' own newspaper columns. "Frank Marshall Davis was a decisive influence in the life of the young Barack Obama," he writes. "So much so that he could not escape frequent mentions throughout Obama's memoirs, even as an older and more politically savvy Obama surely understood the risk of repeatedly invoking a closet CPUSA member pursued by Democratic committees in Washington." (Mercury Ink, 2012, 388 pp., $27.00) |
and card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), Frank Marshall Davis. Paul Kengor's meticulously researched new book, The Communist, offers the first complete examination of Davis' life, writings, Communist Party affiliation, and relationship with the young Barack Obama. Few Obama biographers have written about Davis, writes Kengor, because "they do not want their president to be tainted by such a radical association."
