Obama Strikes Out in Kenya

You can never go home again....

Rising Democrat star Barak Obama had a brilliant PR stunt planned out. Having achieved considerable political success in the US he would return to the land of his father, Kenya, be welcomed as a hero, and would receive tons of favorable publicity back home in Illinois.

Well, it hasn't worked out quite that way.

At first things went according to plan, but then Obama made some critical remarks about corruption and ethnic violence, and his Kenyan hosts reacted to them badly.

AFP reports:

NAIROBI (AFP) - Kenya stepped up criticism of US Senator Barack Obama, accusing him of insulting the Kenyan people and trivializing their achievements during a visit to his father's homeland.

Two days after abruptly changing its tone on Obama, who had been welcomed as a returning hero but incurred official wrath with blistering criticism of corruption and ethnic divisions, Nairobi launched a new attack on the lawmaker.

Less than 24 hours after the rising US political star left Kenya to continue an African tour, government spokesman Alfred Mutua blasted Obama for choosing "to dwell on non-issues" in a nationally televised speech on Monday.

"Senator Obama made extremely disturbing statements on issues which it is clear, he was very poorly informed, and on which he chose to lecture the government and the people on how they should manage their country," he said.

Mutua said the government would write a formal protest to the junior senator from Illinois who he suggested had falsely claimed his trip to Africa was intended to "nuture relations between the continent and the United States."

Noting the government had "spared no effort in making his stay and travel ... enjoyable and fulfilling," Mutua said Obama's criticism of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's administration was unfair, unwarranted and unjustified by facts.

Read it here.

Interestingly, the criticisms voiced by Senator Obama are pretty much the same as those made by President Bush and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, for which they were roundly denounced by transnationalists and other lefties in this country. Will Obama be targeted with charges of "insensitivity" as they were? I doubt it.