http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/22/bts...ther/index.html

HURUMA, Kenya (CNN) -- We found Barack Obama's half-brother living in a Nairobi slum.

George Obama, whose birth certificate shows that he is Barack Obama's half-brother, lives in a small house in Huruma that he shares with his mother's extended family, far away from the presidential campaign circus.

In his memoir, "Dreams for my Father," the Democratic presidential candidate describes meeting George as a "painful affair." Barack Obama's trip to Kenya meant meeting family he had never known.

In the book, which is popular in Nairobi and can be found in almost any supermarket, Obama looks back at his personal story and his struggles to reconcile with a Kenyan father who left him and his mother when he was just a child.

Barack Obama Sr. died in a car accident when George was just 6 months old. And like his half-brother, George hardly knew his father. George was his father's last child and had not been aware of his famous half-brother.

"I think I wanted to learn about my father the same way he did," George Obama told me about why he read the book. "He came here searching for his roots, and I was also trying to find my roots."

Unlike his grandmother in Kogela, in Western Kenya, George Obama had received little attention from the media.

But reports surfaced in the past few days, springing from an Italian Vanity Fair article saying George Obama is living in a shack and "earning less than a dollar a day."

from the link above .

I have 3 half brothers I never met until I was 25 and only once . I went to private collage on scholarship and they went to jail . Just because we had the same father did not make me responsible for their lives.

This non-issue has been brought up, I assume, to discredit Obama by implying he comes from a bad family. It's typical of the type of low grade character assassination that some politicians and news people indulge in.

What's the point? Obama should withdraw from the presidential race and dash over to Nairobi to help his brother? Obama must be an inferior human being because he has a disreputable half-brother? Obama can't possibly have good values because some relative of his generated a family problem? Obama's going to rip America off and devote our economy to bailing out his brother?

What a pointlessly stupid story. This confirms my impression that CNN has totally gone to hell as a news source. I'll have to make a special effort to avoid CNN when I watch the news on Monday morning. The combination of tabloid journalism and Robin Meade showing off her tanned legs and augmented boobs while she giggles through the headlines would ruin my week.