Who Remembers Obama at Columbia University?

Wayne Root - Classmate

...in the same class, took the same major (political science and pre-law), and graduated in the same year (1983).

"What I witnessed at Columbia was classmates so extreme in their radical left-wing views as to make me physically sick. I saw classmates who literally hated America, hated capitalism, and rooted for the death of a conservative President. I sat in political science class in 1981 in stunned disbelief as my classmates cheered, high-fived and celebrated like it was New Years upon hearing the news that President Reagan had been assassinated (that was the first erroneous report we heard- that he was dead.). 

I debated my classmates for 4 long years about capitalism and free markets, and heard their views up close and personal. They weren’t moderate Democrats simply looking to protect the lower classes. They were radical Marxists and Socialists looking to destroy capitalism, tax and unionize businesses to death, and greatly expand government and the welfare state in order to hand power to “the disadvantaged.” I met classmates- both white and black- who seemed to openly despise and resent white people (and especially wealthy white people). And who openly hated policemen and called them “pigs.” This is the world that Obama hails from. It is a world view that disgusted me then, and now more than ever. 

(Obama wrote in his senior year about two antiwar groups on campus for a now-defunct student periodical called "Sundial.")

Phil Boerner - Room-mate (knew from Oxy in LA)

Barry and Phil only spent their first semester together as room-mates, but while they were together they visited museums, ate breakfast at Tom's Restaurant on Broadway, and took walks around Central Park. Sometimes they would have discussions about apartheid in South Africa and go to campus rallies together.

Siddiqi - Room-mate and best friend (knew from Oxy in LA)

Obama had first met Siddiqi when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. Obama was living with two wealthy Pakistani students when Siddiqi arrived was there to visit. What Siddiqi says of his and Obama's early days in New York - "We were both very lost. We were both alienated. Barack arrived disheveled and without a place to stay." Siddiqi was not a student and usually made his living working in restaurants. Once he had worked as a salesman at a "boutique"

Michael L. Baron - Teacher

Obama wrote at this time that “it was only now that I began to grasp the almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined; the depth, the ferocity, of resulting tribal wars; the bile that flowed freely not just out on the streets but in the stalls of Columbia’s bathrooms as well,” where the graffiti was both racist and anti-Semitic.

One person who did remember Mr. Obama was Michael L. Baron, who taught a senior seminar on international politics and American policy. Mr. Baron, now president of an electronics company in Florida, said he was Mr. Obama’s adviser on the senior thesis for that course. Mr. Baron, who later wrote Mr. Obama a recommendation for Harvard Law School, gave him an A in the course.

Columbia was a hotbed for discussion of foreign policy, Mr. Baron said. The faculty included Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser, and Zalmay Khalilzad, now the American ambassador to the United Nations. Half of the eight students in the seminar were outstanding, and Mr. Obama was among them, Mr. Baron said. (ONE OF EIGHT STUDENTS)

(Columbia's School of International Studies the same years for Obama 1982-83. The star professors of the program were Jimmy Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and JFK's Assistant Secretary for for East Asia, Roger Hilsman. If a student was serious about national security and international politics those were the two professors with whom they would have been sure to study.)

Google: Zbigniew Brzezinski and Zalmay Khalilzad

Former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton told NY1's Dominic Carter that he was asked to write a letter of recommendation to Harvard Law School on Obama's behalf by a man named Khalid al-Mansour (a former Black Panther) of Texas. Sutton's story is particularly difficult to follow at one point: that al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama. Obama attended Harvard with the help of student loans, as the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet reported in detail at one point, writing that he had $42,753 in debt.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/percy-sutton-reveals-association-between-khalid-al-mansour-and-obama/

Click here more in-depth details about Obama's room-mates and where he lived in NYC

Source: http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/07/wayne-root-obamas-waterloo-cambridge-police-controversy/