WASHINGTON, 6 April 2007 — There’s a curious story making the rounds just when it’s been announced that Sen. Barack Obama

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=94633&d=6&m=4&y=2007 "WASHINGTON, 6 April 2007 — There’s a curious story making the rounds just when it’s been announced that Sen. Barack Obama has come in second in presidential campaign funding, with some $25 million, just shy of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign war chest of $26 million. The story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal, and was then picked up by ABC News. The story involves a good high school chum of Sen. Obama, Keith Kakugawa. But the story of their friendship is ultimately tragic — Obama’s friend is now an out-of-prison drug addict living on the street. Kakugawa is one of the most compelling characters in Obama’s best-selling memoir of his struggle with his racial identity. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama described Kakugawa, — half-black and half-Japanese and native Hawaiian — as an older-brother figure to Obama at their exclusive, mostly white Honolulu high school."