A Singular Woman - Janny Scott [36]
Obama impressed men as well as women. “The tall, well built African,” as the student reporter described him, had a powerful presence. Even amid the racial and ethnic diversity of Hawaii, his coloring stood out. Pake Zane, who became a friend of Obama’s at the university and later visited him in Kenya, knew Tongans, Fijians, and Samoans whom he thought of as dark, but he had never seen skin as black as Obama’s. Charming, sociable, and loquacious, Obama talked politics and drank beer with a group of graduate students and intellectuals of vaguely bohemian leanings, who included Pake Zane; Chet Gorman, later known for his work as an archaeologist at Ban Chiang and Spirit Cave in Thailand; and Neil Abercrombie, who went on to represent Hawaii’s First District in Congress for ten terms before being elected governor in November 2010. Obama was ambitious and opinionated, and some said he was brilliant. “He was one of the brightest Kenyans I dealt with,” said Richard Hook, who worked with Obama years later in Kenya. “He had a very quick mind—a good numerical mind.” He had the kind of personality that commanded attention. When he spoke, people listened. He was one of a few hundred students whose names appeared on the dean’s list published in the campus newspaper, and, when he left, he was described as “a straight-A student.” Bill Collier, who, like Obama, was studying economics, noticed that their economic-development professor fell uncharacteristically silent and respectful when Obama spoke in class. To Americans, his accent suggested Oxbridge, and his booming baritone brought to mind Paul Robeson. His voice was seductive, almost hypnotic. “He had the most charismatic voice and accent I’ve ever heard in my life,” Pake Zane said. “The most mellow, deep voice with slightly African articulation and maybe a flavor of Oxford. No matter what you were doing in the room, if you heard this voice, you would turn around.” It was, Hook said, Obama’s “instrument of choice.”
Not everyone was charmed. Some found Obama arrogant, egotistical, and overbearing. Mark Wimbush, born and reared in Kenya with a Scottish mother and an English father, arrived at the University of Hawai‘i the same month as Ann Dunham, after getting an undergraduate degree from Oxford. He and Obama became acquaintances, if not quite friends. “We were the ugly colonialists,” he told me, referring to the attitude of some black Kenyans toward white Kenyans like him. “Part of the tension between Barack and me might have been that fact.” They both followed the news from Kenya enthusiastically. Independence was coming, the country was preparing for transition, and Obama kept Wimbush filled in. “I’m sure he envisioned being a big shot in the Kenyan government,” Wimbush said. “That’s probably why he was studying politics and economics—in preparation for taking a cabinet position.” Wimbush found him “almost a domineering man. He was certainly not a wallflower in any way. He was an impressive person, but it wasn’t always a favorable impression.” In political discussions, they were often on opposite sides. “He would tend to put forward his views and not spend any time listening to anybody else’s, because he didn’t think they were worth listening to, unless they agreed with his,” Wimbush said. Judy Ware, a family friend of the Dunhams who recalled meeting Obama with Ann sometime later in Port