I don't feel being educated abroad would negate Obama's knowledge about America. As a US citizen educated completely abroad until college, I am quite certain I know more about the history and politics of this country than many a person educated in this country their whole lives--Jay Leno's Streetwalking segments could testify to that. All of the knowledge one could learn in grade school could certainly be learned by someone who majored in polisci at Colombia. Not to mention, any of that information could be learned by someone who was literate enough to pick up a book and read.
Oh, definitely. The facts can be and are learned by millions, one way or another. I guess what I was getting at might be more of a gut-level thing; for me, patriotism isn't intellectual, it's an emotion. (I work hard to be reasonable, but at a gut level, insulting my country is only
slightly less objectionable than insulting my mother) Immigrants to the US learn the facts, too, and many of them have a highly-developed love of their adopted country. I don't see that in Obama, though, so I wondered if his grade school years in Indonesia might be a factor. I'm interested in this partly because my husband, a native US citizen, was brought up entirely in Canada, and it's colored (coloured?
) his responses on some things.
So where were you educated abroad? Sounds like it was in a number of places, but yeah, it was probably a better education than what's available to kids in some parts of America.
PJ
