LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - In the latest scandal, readers are learning that Obama essentially revised his personal history to make himself seem more black than he actually was. He also glossed over any past relationships by making it seem that he had no time to develop meaningful, romantic relationships with women until meeting Michelle in 1989. 

But Maraniss has found several of Obama's exes and found that his relationships were more than just casual affairs. Two women stood out as significant love interests, Alexandra McNear and Genevieve Cook.

Obama first dated McNear in 1981, the daughter of wealthy parents - her father had inherited a substantial real estate empire. The pair moved to New York and dated for at least two months.

Then, McNear returned to Los Angeles. The two exchanged frequent letters. McNear said in her diary that she loved Obama, but was worried about any prospect of a functional relationship saying that Obama appeared self-obsessed and insensitive to her feelings. "A few months later, while Obama was visiting his mother in Honolulu, he wrote to inform McNear with cold detachment that he felt their relationship was changing from romantic love to 'the more quotidian, but finer bonds of friendship,'" the Daily Mail revealed.  
 In Mariniss' book, Alexandra Cook, a young woman from Australia now living in the US, explained how she met Obama. She described drinking and chatting with Obama at a mutual friend's apartment in New York. Within days she was invited to spend the night at his apartment, an invitation she accepted. 

Cook was three years older than the young Obama and the two shared many common interests. Like McNear, she confided her thoughts to a diary, which she shared with Mariniss. The Daily Mail article explained Obama's Sunday routine "'he would lounge around in his cheap, cockroach-infested flat in the less salubrious end of the Upper West Side, bare-chested in a blue and white sarong as he drank coffee and did the New York Times crossword. His bedroom, she recalls, smelt of 'running sweat, Brut spray deodorant and smoking'." 

Cook said she was impressed with his intellect at age 22, but that she also found him self-obsessed. When she would say "I love you" he would simply thank her. 

Cook added "his warmth can be deceptive. Though he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness." 

She recounted that Obama confided in her that he felt he was more white than black and that he felt like an "imposter."

The pair later moved into an apartment together, but intellectual discussions soon disappeared and were replaced by fights over who would do the cleaning. Cook broke up with Obama in 1985. 

Mariniss also recounts other relationships, but that Obama generally ended relationships when he was ready to make his next career move. Eventually Obama would reinvent himself as a fully-fledged black man, downplaying his Caucasian roots and fully embracing the African-American struggle as his own. He wanted to be seen, as the Daily Mail described, "as a pioneering race warrior." Part of that image required him to cut his white exes out of the picture. 

Conversely, Mariniss believes Obama has been playing up his "black credibility" by emphasizing the role other blacks have had in his life.  

Ultimately, it is a tragedy that Obama would substantially edit the truth about his white girlfriends and his past in general, all in an effort to advance his personal agenda. The issue drives to the heart of what Americans expect a president should be. Should a president display at least some virtue? Should there be at least a shred of credibility in what a president says and writes, especially about himself? 

It is a fact that none of us can choose our past - it is set in stone and cannot be undone - that is unless you are Barack Hussein Obama. 

© 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.