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Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until November 2008, when he resigned after his election to the presidency.

(Right-to-left: Barack Obama and half-sister Maya Soetoro, with

their mother Ann Dunham and grandfather Stanley Dunham, in Hawaii)

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His parents (mother American and father Kenyan) separated when he was two years old, and they divorced in 1964. In 1967, Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. From ages six to ten, Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, including Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi School.

Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind." Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear." Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind". At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency in 2008, Obama identified his high-school drug use as his "greatest moral failure".

(Obama stands on stage with his wife and two daughters just before

his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois.)

Obama was known as "Barry" in his youth, but asked to be addressed with his given name during his college years. Besides his native English, Obama speaks Indonesian at the conversational level, which he learned during his four childhood years in Jakarta. He plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team.

In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial requests to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Throughout the campaign, Obama emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence and providing universal health care.

(Obama delivers his presidential election victory speech in Grant Park.)

After McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate, three presidential debates were held between the contenders spanning September and October 2008. In November, Obama won the presidency with 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%, and 365 electoral votes to 173, to become the first African American president, as well as the first born in Hawaii. In his victory speech, delivered before thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, Obama proclaimed that "change has come to America".

(Obama playing basketball

Michelle Obama)                                    with U.S. military)

Obama's family history, early life and upbringing, and Ivy League education differ markedly from those of African-American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement. Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough", Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong." Obama acknowledged his youthful image in an October 2007 campaign speech, saying: "I wouldn't be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation."

Obama's international appeal has been described as a defining factor for his public image. Polls show strong support for Obama in other countries, and he has met with prominent foreign figures including then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italy's Democratic Party leader and then Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Obama won Best Spoken Word Album Grammy Awards for abridged audiobook versions of Dreams from My Father in February 2006 and for The Audacity of Hope in February 2008. His "Yes We Can" speech, which artists independently set to music, was viewed by 10 million people on YouTube in the first month, and received an Emmy Award. In December 2008, Time magazine named Barack Obama as its Person of the Year for his historic candidacy and election, which it described as "the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments".

Vocabulary

senator: n.参议员

varsity: (=university)（英口）**

campaign: n.竞选运动

contender: n.竞争者，角逐者

proclaim: vt.正式宣布，公布

poll: n.投票，民意测验

abridged: a.削减的，删节的

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