Obama backer avoids DNC following Corsi book release

Barack Obama and Raila Odinga

WorldNetDaily staff reporter and columnist Jerome Corsi's book "The Obama Nation" contributed to a decision by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga not to accept Sen. Barack Obama's invitation to attend the Democratic National Convention, according to a prominent Kenyan newspaper.

"The cancellation of the trip by Mr. Odinga comes hot on the heels of the publication of a book that is being used to attack Mr. Obama in which the PM [Prime Minister] features," wrote Kenya's Daily Nation. "The book, The Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi depicts Mr. Obama as a covert sympathizer of radical Islam and communism."

"In the book, the PM, who is portrayed as a close relation and associate of Mr. Obama, is described as a 'Muslim sympathizer' with well-known communist political roots," the Kenyan newspaper continued.

"That Odinga stayed away from Denver during the Democratic National Convention is just one more indication that the Obama campaign is trying to manage the news to prevent close examination of Obama's current political involvement in Kenya and his support of his fellow Luo tribesman, Raila Odinga, in Odinga's attempt to become head of state," said Corsi.

Raila Odinga's father, Odinga-Odinga, or "Double-O," was a professed communist who allied with Obama's father in the administration of Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta, he said.

Raila Odinga attended college in East Germany, where he was so impressed hearing Fidel Castro speak that he named his son "Fidel."

Odinga has maintained he is a blood cousin of Obama, but Obama has objected, insisting instead that they are "cousins" only in the sense that both are fellow Luo tribesmen.

In Kenya, the Luo tribe is the second largest, with the Kikuyu tribe, of which President Kibaki is a member, being the largest tribe in the country.

"By supporting Odinga, Sen. Obama is trying to revenge the failure of his father and Raila Odinga's father to advance decades ago in the Kikuyu-dominated bureaucracy under President Kenyatta, who was himself a Kiduyu tribesman," Corsi said.

"Obama fears he will be politically damaged in his bid to be U.S. president if U.S. voters learn how deeply he was involved in supporting Odinga in last year's Kenyan election," Corsi said.

Chapter 4 of "The Obama Nation," titled "Kenya, Odinga, Communism and Islam," contains Corsi's allegations that Obama supported Odinga in the presidential election of December 2007 even after Odinga lost the election and Luo tribesmen in support of Odinga rioted, killing more than 1,000 Kenyans, displacing 350,000 people and engaging in massacres against Christians.

Corsi argues Obama began campaigning for fellow Luo tribesman Raila Odinga in 2006 when Obama was on a Senate-sponsored fact-finding trip to Kenya while Odinga was locked in a presidential election contest against Kibaki.

"The Obama campaign wants to maintain Obama played a 'neutral' role in Odinga''s presidential election campaign," Corsi said. "But the factual record is that Obama intervened directly, criticizing the Kibaki government, while traveling the country with Odinga constantly at his side."

WND previously reported Chicago WBBM-TV news reports show repeated clips of Odinga accompanying Obama at various speaking appearances in Kenya, so much so that the news broadcaster commented in the background that Odinga "has been at Obama's elbow here fairly often."

The WBBM news team also interviewed on camera Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua who accused Obama of meddling inappropriately in Kenyan presidential politics.

Mutua said politely but pointedly that, "I think Obama has to look at critically where he is receiving his advice from. Just because somebody wants to run for president, and he is using Senator Obama as his stooge, as his puppet, to be able to get where he wants to get."

In the same article, WND also posted a video of a press conference held during the Kenyan election campaign and broadcast in Kenya by Nairobi-based NTV.

The NTV news report shows Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, or NAMLEF, confirming a memorandum of understanding he signed with Odinga in which Odinga promised that within six months of becoming president of Kenya he would re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize sharia as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim-declared regions of the country.

In the post-election violence in Kenya, at least 50 people, including women and children, were killed when an angry pro-Odinga mob forced Christians into an Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in Eldoret, a village about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, and set fire to it, hacking with machetes any of the Christians who tried to escape flames.

On Jan. 8, in the final hours of the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Obama told reporters he had telephoned Raila Odinga in Kenya, remaining personally involved in Kenya's election controversy.

The post-election violence in Kenya only subsided after former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intervened and negotiated a power-sharing arrangement in which Odinga would become prime minister, sharing the head-of-state with Kenyan President Kibaki, the winner of the Dec. 2007 election.