Many have speculated about Obama’s seldom-discussed years at Columbia, where he was either a bomb-hurling radical or a boring bookworm. Yesterday Unqualified Reservations, a not-at-all-journalistically-sound blog read by tens, got the Ivy League blogosphere’s collective panties in a bundle by arguing that Obama may never have attended Columbia at all, and is making the whole thing up. UR’s rationale? Some guy who went to Columbia once didn’t know him personally:

What is the chance that a budding young politician of undeniable talent and promise spends his junior and senior years at Columbia, and no one remembers him?

My guess is that young Barry dropped out of Occidental in ‘81, not to go to Columbia, but to go to New York and be a black revolutionary bohemian. We know he was a red-diaper baby (no shame in that – my father’s parents were CPUSA members), and we know he was involved with an SDS splinter group at Occidental. Zombie has a very interesting timeline of his time in New York, during which it seems very probable that Obama met Bill Ayers. She also links to a completely unsubstantiated and irresponsible speculation that Obama was a roommate of Ayers and Dohrn…

So Barry wasn’t the most popular kid north of 114th Street. That means he’s a fraud? The proposition is so preposterous, even Volokh Conspiracy disputes it. Among Volokh’s evidence: Barry’s undisputed degree from Harvard Law School, where we hear they are pretty good at checking credentials. Also, no self-respecting Harvard grad would allow himself to be associated with Columbia— one of the lesser Ivies— if he didn’t have to. Case closed.

The interesting part of this story isn’t the No-lumbia accusation so much as the conspiracy-theorizing blogger behind it, Unqualified Reservations’ “Mencius Moldbug.” Not only is Mencius a fellow Ivy League transfer student (Brown ‘92) but he is… drumroll… an Obama supporter.

Has the world gone mad? Are Brunonians so crazed? My strangely sane correspondence with Mencius Moldbug, followed by a strangely less-sane conversation with Columbia’s Office of Public Affairs, after the jump.

I wrote to Mencius Moldbug and requested an interview. He (or ’she,’ since Moldbug gender is notoriously difficult to ascertain) replied:

From: Mencius Moldbug
To: Maureen O’Connor
Date: Nov 3, 2008 at 3:33PM
Subject: Re: Unqualified Reservations’ Take on Obama

Maureen,

Thanks!  As the update shows, I am slightly less convinced of my
hypothesis than I was earlier, but I still find the entire question
extremely mysterious.

I have a bit of laryngitis at the moment, though, so email is probably best…

Best,
Moldbug

I wrote back with a zillion questions.

From: Maureen
To: Mencius Moldbug
Date: Nov 3, 2008 at 3:53PM

Hi Moldbug,

I did see the update, it was very interesting. Why do you think Obama would lie about attending Columbia? You mention that “Obama was working for something when he was in NY in 81-83,” some organization with the power to force Columbia’s administration to falsify records to suggest that Obama had been there. What organization do you think that could be? Was Bill Ayers part of it? How did Obama get into Harvard Law if he didn’t go to Columbia; do you think he’s lying about Harvard, too?

Finally, are you a journalist? What do you do, and how did you become interested in this story? You mention being a transfer student at Brown in the 80’s — does that experience influence your theory about Obama, and how so? What was your major at Brown? Did you get a degree there?

Thanks again.
Maureen

Mencius’ reply was surprisingly rational and— dare I say?— persuasive for a conspiracy-theorizing wingnut. Had I contracted some strange Stockholm Syndrome from spending so much time reading Moldbug’s blog, or did the mindful citizen-journo actually have a point?

Date: Nov 3, 2008 at 4:30PM

Maureen,

Briefly, you see Obama connected with an SDS splinter organization at
Occidental, and there was just a very interesting post at the Volokh
Conspiracy which points out that Business International, the weird
business-newsletter company he worked at after Columbia, had a lot of
dealings with the SDS in the ’60s:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/surprise-obamas-first-public-speech.html
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_02-2008_11_08.shtml#1225663950

Coincidence?  Or conspiracy?  Ah, the eternal question.  But, I mean,
if the Weathermen (still active at the time) isn’t a conspiracy, what
is?  Basically, it’s plausible to imagine arbitrary nefarious deeds
anywhere in the vicinity of Billy Ayers.  And he was certainly in the
vicinity of Columbia at the time.

None of this can conceivably be proven.  But Barack Obama isn’t on
trial, he’s running for President.  The standards of evidence are
totally different.  There are – or at least, were – lots of plausible
candidates for chief executive who don’t have any kind of murky ties
to murderous political fanatics.  I mean, duh, you know, if history
teaches us any lessons, I think one of them is: “don’t elect leaders
with murky ties to murderous political fanatics.”  Can anyone
seriously argue with this?

No, of course he isn’t lying about Harvard, or Occidental, Punahou,
etc.  Lots of people remember Barack Obama from every other year in
his life besides 1981-83.  So far I count three people who claim to
remember him as a Columbia student – Michael Baron, a lecturer, and
two students, Michael Wolf and Michael Ackerman.  Counting the
Columbia spokesman, we have four.  For two years of someone’s life,
this is not exactly an army.  Am I convinced?  Well, maybe.  I don’t
know.  I go back and forth on the matter.

Another way to ask the broader question is: could Barack Obama get a
security clearance?  I am not an expert in this matter, but I did grow
up as a child of Washington bureaucrats and I have a vague idea what’s
involved.  My guess would be: “no.”

I graduated from Brown with a BS in computer science in 1992.  I’m
certainly not a journalist – I just have a blog.  I like to think of
UR as the Web’s premier anti-democracy blog – although starting this
sordid, silly rumor, which I now deeply regret (I should have brought
it up, if at all, after the election) may have taken us down a notch
or two.  But suffice it to say that when my sinister, jackbooted
minions come to power, the Columbia School of Journalism will rue the
day.

Best,
Mencius

A bit later, Moldbug sent a postscript:

Dear Maureen,

Also, if you write a piece on this, I really think IvyGate could
perform a useful service by using the superpowers of the Internet to
try and either quell or confirm, hopefully the former of course, the
rumor.

The whole issue rests on the job the MSM and Fox have done in trying
to track down people who were at Columbia with Barack Obama.  One
obvious possibility is that both the MSM and Fox are just crap, and
they have done a crappy job of legwork.  If so, I would like to think
people who were in class with Obama would be coming out of the
woodwork.  Find a few and this whole thing blows over.

Best,
Mencius

Well, there’s this article, and all the stuff from his books (which he wrote before he was running for president and/or trying to distance himself from Bill Ayers). All the same, let’s try an experiment. Readers: Did you (or anyone you know) know Obama when he was a student at Columbia? Tell us about him: tips@ivygateblog.com.

Around this time I saw fit to inquire about Mencius’ vote in the upcoming election:

From: Mencius Moldbug
To: Maureen O’Connor
Date: Nov 3, 2008 at 6:18PM

Maureen,

I’ve already endorsed Obama, and I’ll reiterate that endorsement.  I
think the Republican Party needs to just go away.

You heard it here first. And now, for your conspiratorial pleasure, a highly suspicious phone conversation with Columbia’s PR department:

Columbia Office of Public Affairs: Hello, how may I help you?

IvyGate: Hello. How do I know that Barack Obama actually went to Columbia?

COPA: I don’t have those records in front of me, but it’s public information.

IG: How do I know if it’s true?

COPA: I mean, you can type “Barack Obama Columbia” into Google and you’ll see for yourself.

IG: But how do I know if Google’s telling the truth?

COPA: It’s public information.

IG: But what if it’s a lie? Did you know him personally? Can I talk to the Registrar? Or to someone who knew him?

COPA: Please hold. [silence]

New Operator: Hello? [echo] [line cuts off]