Did Obama Misrepresent Grandmother's Fear of Black Men on the Street?

One of the more controversial statements from Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday was his reference to his white grandmother's "fear of black men who passed by her on the street."

Curiously, his most recent account of her anxieties doesn't mesh with what he wrote about this subject in his 1996 book "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance."

As neatly identified by Steve Sailer (h/t NB reader Rob Reardon via Power Line):

Obama's white grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was raising him and earning most of the money in the family while his own mother was off in Indonesia working on her 1067 page dissertation on peasant blacksmithing, rode the bus each morning to her job as a bank executive. One day, the 16-18 year old Obama wakes up to an argument between his grandmother and grandfather. She didn't want to ride the bus because she had been hassled by a bum at the bus stop. She tells him:

"Her lips pursed with irritation. 'He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."

So why didn't Obama's lefty grandfather not want to drive his own wife to work? Because to help his wife avoid the hostile, dangerous panhandler would be morally wrong, because the potential mugger was ... Well, I'll let Sen. Obama tell the story:

"He turned around and I saw that he was shaking. 'It is a big deal. It's a big deal to me. She's been bothered by men before. You know why she's so scared this time. I'll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.' He whispered the word. 'That's the real reason why she's bothered. And I just don't think that right.'"

Think media will be all over this little inconsistency?

Yes, that was a rhetorical question.