Who paid Obama's tuition at Harvard? Was it Khalid al Mansour, former official with the PLO who taught at Columbia when Obama was a student?
Who is Khalid al-Mansour, and why was he backing Obama in the 1980s?
September 1, 2008 by texasdarlin
Who is Khalid al-Mansour? And more importantly, why was he promoting Barack Obama in the 1980’s and raising money for him, when Obama was in his twenties?
I caught this story, first, over at Atlas Shrugs, where this odd thing jumped out at me:
Townhall links to a video in which civil rights activist Percy Sutton claimed he was asked by a certain “Dr. Khalid al Mansour”, adviser to ‘one of the richest men in the world’ to write a letter of reccomendation on behalf of Barack Obama to help him gain acceptance to Harvard many years ago. Mansour was raising money for Obama at the time, according to Sutton, which is strange in itself.
And inside the Townhall link, I found this:
In the above video Sutton says: “I was introduced to him by a friend who was raising money for him and the friends name was Dr. Khalid al Mansour from Texas. He is the principle adviser to one of the world’s richest men. He told me about Obama. He wrote to me about him and his introduction was ‘there is a young man that has applied to Harvard and I know that you have a few friends left there because you used to go up there to speak, would you please write a letter in support of him?’…I wrote a letter in support of him to my friends at Harvard saying to them I thought there was a genius that was going to be available and I sure hoped they would treat him kindly.”
The story gets even stranger when you try to figure out who this guy al-Mansour is. In one of several updates, Atlas offers this:
“Al Mansour represents OPEC? No wonder Obama doesn’t want the US drilling anywhere.” Check it out! He’s the preacher.
He’s the preacher? You mean, this guy??
And is that guy this person:
Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years. Dr. Al-Mansour was also responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s investment company. During his distinguished career, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Bombay University, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Kenya, London School of Economics and the University of Ghana.
In addition to Africa Venture Partners, Dr. Al-Mansour sits on the Boards of: Saudi African Bank; Kingdom Holdings, Africa; Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia); Space Tech Inc.; AmNet Corp. International; New Avenues Fund Ltd; United Bank for Africa; United Networks; and Landmark Entertainment.
Dr. Al-Mansour has authored 24 books and is listed in Who’s Who in the World; International Who’s Who in the Arab World; Two Thousand Men of Achievement; Royal Blue Book of London; World’s Who’s Who of Intellectuals and American Hall of Fame. Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University (Phi Beta Kappa) and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jack Cashill of World Net Daily believes that al-Mansour may have been a “political godfather” for Obama, responsible for promoting his entry to Harvard Law School and launching Obama’s political career by engineering his first autobiography, “Dreams From My Father.” Cashill writes:
A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, “Who Wrote ‘Dreams From My Father’?” My research led me to the conclusion that a literary neophyte like Obama could not have written the memoir on his own. It was simply too well crafted.
I was also suspicious about his claim that publishers had sought him out, while still unknown, contract in hand. I doubted, too, that the publisher would have paid him a hefty advance.
And I refused to believe that his publisher would have invested the hefty ghostwriting fee needed to rescue the project after four years of amateurish dithering, a dithering that included an extended stay for Barack and Michelle on Bali.
So, who is Khalid al-Mansour, how did he know Obama 20 some-odd years ago, why was he promoting the young Obama’s entry into Harvard Law School, and why was he raising money for him?
This is a story under development on many blogs. I will continue to report updates as they come to my attention.
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READ these REFERENCES:
Richard Fernandez, Belmont Club, The Wrong Man, Sir. (Aug. 26, 2008).
Amanda Carpenter, Townhall, Are Khalid as-Mansour and Obama Friends? (Aug. 26 2008).
Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs, Obama’s Benefactor: Dr. Khalid al-Mansour. (Aug. 27 2008).
Jack Cashill, Cashill.com, Is Khalid al-Mansour the Man Behind the Obama Myth |
