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The Obama Seminar: The Quest for the Historic Obama

History was made recently with the convening of The Obama Seminar. Using the latest in modern scholarship as developed by The Jesus Seminar, a panel of leading thinkers examined the new messianic tradition, the Obama tradition, in three major areas: 1) The search for the authentic sayings of Obama. 2) Evidence for and against the existence of Obama. 3) Assuming Obama exists, evaluations of claims by the Obama movement that he is married.

What the scholars learned may shock you and change the way you look at Obama. These findings are presented here in “The Obama Seminar: The Quest for the Historic Obama”

Today we publish, Part One: The search for the authentic sayings of Obama.

Methodology: The panel of scholars were provided a list of the sayings of Obama, and a scholarly toolbox of methods to evaluate the sayings. A final debate and public vote on each saying determined the fate of the logia of Obama.

Toolbox criteria:

a) Environment: Is the material consistent with what we know about the geographical and cultural aspects of America.
b) Dissimilarity/Distinctiveness: Is the saying something new or merely a saying typical for a Democrat or politician of his day? It is possible that Obama said additional things, but these items are the indelible voice of Obama and not likely to have just developed through the oral tradition.
c) Embarrassment: An embarrassing saying is unlikely to have been attributed to Obama if he really didn’t say it.

The Authentic Sayings of Obama
(Sayings in this list which were actually determined NOT to have been spoken by Obama were included where some controversy exists in order to prove the rationale behind the omissions.)

*“Change We Can Believe In.”

Obama did not say this. While potentially embarrassing due to its platitudinous nature, it is for this very reason why criteria B, or Dissimilarity/Distinctiveness, was invoked by the majority of scholars. Writing for the majority, D. Pitney said, “This was probably written by a scribe from an earlier era when idealistic hippies roamed free, wearing their camel hair suits and smoking weed. Only later was it adopted by the Obamaites as an Obama saying.”

*”I’ve been in 57 states (with) I think one left to go.”

This fails test A fairly badly with many previous scholars believing it was actually written by a farmer from Uganda with no knowledge of either English or American geography. However, the statement is certainly distinctive and embarrassing, so the scholars were unanimous that this was authentic Obama.

*”On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes—and I see many of them in…in the audience here today.”

Many scholars automatically used criteria B and C to include this with the authentic logia of Obama. However, a majority of scholars argued that acceptance of this saying implied agreement with the concept of resurrection. Since sayings that imply miraculous events are automatically disqualified, this saying is not authentic.

*”In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed.”

This statement came up for debate right after the Memorial Day statement and was immediately dismissed since it showed miraculous foreknowledge of some future tragedy that has yet to happen even as of the time of the seminar. The seminar scholars would like to point out that this had no impact on their decision to move the seminar from Kansas as originally planned, as they don’t believe in such nonsense.

*”I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”

Another saying previously thought to orginate in Uganda, most Americans would know that “the Great Emancipator” is a nickname for Lincoln, which makes this Obama quote similar to saying, “I cannot swallow whole the view of Ruth as the Bambino”. So this doesn’t meet criteria A. However, it certainly would meet criteria B and C and would match well with Obama’s delusion of authority. Similar to the reliable tradition of his offer to negotiate parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, here he is merely reversing a nickname. This is an authentic saying.

*”We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.”

This is a perfect example of Obama taking the old liberal covenant laws and taking them one step more, a raising of the bar, if you will. Instead of a “fat tax”, he is limiting food. Instead of just looking for green energy, he’s establishing a threshold temperature for private homes. This saying was universally accepted as authentic, yet perhaps incomplete. Scholars suspect that portions of the saying dealing with flatulence were lost over time.

*”What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice. He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics.”

Obama’s Elijah, there were many “Pastor Wright sayings”, some of them quite negative. Given the reliable tradition that Obama was actually a disciple of Wright’s for twenty years and that this saying met all three of the criteria, this statement was considered an authentic representation of the Obama “Pastor Wright sayings”.

*”You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.”

Argued by some Obama apologists as representative of the sort of contradictory “secret knowledge” that developed during a later period, this statement was, however, found to meet all three criteria and was, as such, declared authentic.

*”I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.”

Previous scholars felt this was old liberal law squared and therefore authentic. However, by simply relegating pregnancy to the same category as dropping a glass vase, this saying is very typical of the times and does not pass criteria B, nor would it have been considered embarrassing to liberals of the day. It was a close vote, but this saying is not authentic.

*”Sen. Clinton is, I think, much better known (in Kentucky), coming from a nearby state of Arkansas.”

This was hotly contested. Traditional scholarship states that the writer of this saying was that same farmer from Uganda where the broken English and poor knowledge of simple American geography would be expected. However, some scholars felt that this saying perfectly met criteria B and C. In the end, this was voted as inauthentic by a narrow margin.

Final Results

While the scholars were near unanimous that Obama may have actually said more things than they could reliably place on the list, the following is the most complete and accurate list of Obama sayings so far compiled:

*”I’ve been in 57 states (with) I think one left to go.”

*”I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”

*”We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.”

*”What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice. He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics.”

*”You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.”

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