An unlikely speculation about Mr O

Originally published on Los Thunderlads, 7 July 2009:

The BBC’s outgoing North America editor, Justin Webb, writes:

The other fascinating development in recent days has been the end – or not – of the Obamas’ search for a church.

I have suggested it before but let me lay it on the line here in black and white: THE MAN IS A QUAKER. He may not yet know it but that is where his search should end. There is a lovely Meeting House somewhere around Dupont Circle as well so he could get there easily.

I think the meetinghouse Webb is referring to is the one on Florida Avenue, which was originally built so that Herbert Hoover, the first Quaker to occupy the US presidency, would have a grand place to worship.

Elsewhere, Webb identifies himself as “the product of a Quaker school so am incapable of lying.” So I suppose he must be in earnest, though I can’t seem to find why he thinks that Mr O is a Quaker. Perhaps it has something to do with his ethnic background. The country with the largest number of the world’s Quakers is Kenya, B. H. Obama, Senior’s homeland; though virtually all of them are members of the Luhya tribe of western Kenya, not the Luo tribe from which the elder Mr O sprang. Despite the similarity in the names “Luo” and “Luhya,” the two peoples are quite unrelated. So I doubt that would be it.