Who is David Garrow? Barack Obama biographer terms former president as 'insecure' as Donald Trump
WASHINGTON, DC: Historian and biographer David Garrow, who previously claimed former President Barack Obama had "gay fantasies," reiterated in a new interview that Obama’s first memoir, ‘Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance' was "fictionalized" and marked it as an attempt at "inventing a racial identity struggle that never happened." Referring to Donald Trump, Garrow further claimed that Obama is "as insecure as Trump."
In his latest interview with Tablet, Garrow gave an in-depth insight into his scholarship of the politics in Washington, DC, shedding light on Obama's personal relationships and termed him as "lazy" to serve on the Supreme Court despite having a Harvard Law degree, according to Daily Mail.
Who is David Garrow?
Born in 1953, Garrow is an American author and historian who has written notable books like 'Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference', 'Liberty and Sexuality', and 'Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama', among others. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Best Biography for 'Bearing the Cross' in 1987.
However, the biographer's later work on Martin Luther King Jr elicited controversies among King enthusiasts and scholars. In a 2019 article published in the now-defunct British magazine, 'Standpoint', Garrow wrote that he saw an FBI file with a controversial note. He claimed that in the handwritten note, King was accused of witnessing, failing to prevent, and encouraging a sexual assault by another minister. While Garrow claimed the source was credible, other historians critiqued the claim harshly. In his book on Obama, 'Rising Star', Garrow alleged that the former president had thoughts about gay relationships while in college, further claiming that Obama cheated on his then-future wife Michelle with his ex-girlfriend.
What did David Garrow say in the recent interview?
In his tell-all interview, Garrow said, "He has no interest in building the Democratic Party as an institution," hitting at Obama, before adding, "I think that's obvious." Speaking about the former president's decision to stay in the heart of Washington DC, even after the conclusion of his presidential term in 2016 when he was succeeded by Trump, Garrow stated, "I don't think he had any truly deep, meaningful policy commitments other than the need to feel and to be perceived as victorious, as triumphant."
He then went on to compare Obama and Trump, saying, "I've sometimes said to people that I think Barack is actually just as insecure as Trump, but in ways that are not readily perceived by the vast majority of people. I think that's probably my most basic takeaway." "He's not normal - as in not a normal politician or a normal human being," the biographer stated before talking about the narrative Obama apparently tried to propagate through his book 'Dreams from My Father'. Garrow claimed that the memoir in which Obama attributes his Black Kenyan father to be his inspiration for his embracing the "Black racial consciousness" is "fictionalized." The historian even shared a story from when he was interviewing Obama for his book, stating that he was supposedly advised by someone not to ask the former president about his father.
"It does go back to 'Dreams' being a work of fiction, that the absence of an actual personal story makes him need to compose one," Garrow commented, adding, "For every time he says, 'Oh, I spent years reading the history of the civil rights movement. I know he read [my book 'Bearing the Cross'], but I don't think he read much else. This is someone who … 98 percent of his reading has always been fiction, not history." "It's my story and I'm sticking to it. The book ['Dreams'] is so fictionalized," reiterated Garrow, according to Daily Mail.
The 'Rising Star' author then went on to critique 'Dreams from My Father's take on Obama’s race and sexuality, remarking, "It's so inaccurate, whether about the dynamics among the guys in Hawaii or what's going on in the community group on the far South Side [of Chicago]. And it completely omits women. I've always thought that there'd eventually be a feminist critique of Obama because his mother and all the girlfriends - they're not there. They don't exist." Garrow also talked about the very few mentions of Obama’s former girlfriend Sheila Miyoshi Jager.
"The bridge between the two accounts is Obama's emerging attachment to Blackness, which required him to fall in love with and marry a Black woman," Garrow expressed, continuing, "In Obama's account, his attachment to Blackness is truthful and noble. In Jager's account, his claims are instrumental and selfish; he grants particularism to the experience and suffering of his own tribe while denying it to others." Furthermore, the 'Bearing the Cross' writer opined about his view on Obama as a candidate for the new justice in Supreme Court, saying, "He'd be terrible because he's too lazy."