Obama, Last Election Behind Him, Plans First Visit as President to Kenya
WASHINGTON — For years, Kenya has been a political headache for President Obama and a geopolitical headache for the United States. But now in his seventh year in office, with his last election behind him, Mr. Obama has decided to embrace his heritage by visiting the land of his father for the first time as president. Mr. Obama will travel to Kenya in July to co-host a forum on entrepreneurship as part of an effort to support economic development in Africa, the White House announced Monday. In the process, the president may hope to exorcise some of the ghosts that have haunted his relationship with his family’s home country — so much that he once felt obliged to produce a birth certificate to prove he was not born there. Until now, Mr. Obama has resolutely avoided stopping in Kenya while in office, bypassing it during three previous presidential trips to sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the chattering such a stop would presumably provoke among those who still r...