NAIROBI, KENYA — During an emotion-packed visit to his father's homeland in 2006, Sen. Barack Obama took time from family reunions and official visits to chastise Kenya's government for failing to stem corruption and tribalism, irking his hosts in the process.
It wasn't the first time an Obama had taken Kenya's elite to task. Forty years earlier, a rising star named Barack Obama -- tall, elegant and impeccably dressed -- attacked the nation's post-independence government, accusing leaders of betraying their ideals and replicating the nepotism of departing colonialists.
"It must be something in our family," observed a smiling Said Obama, younger brother of Obama Sr.
Although the lives of father and son scarcely intersected beyond a few letters and a 1971 visit in Hawaii when the younger Obama was 10, friends and family see similarities in the men's charisma and eloquence, even if their lives took dramatically different turns.
Both achieved success at a young age. Both advocated change. And both displayed a self-confidence that friends described as bordering on cocky.
"The father was full of life, ebullient and arrogant, but not unpleasantly so," recalled Philip Ochieng, a former drinking buddy of Obama Sr. and veteran Kenyan journalist.
"But in many ways, the son is quite the opposite. He has self-control. The ambition is controlled. And he has a more sober mind."
The elder Obama was one of Kenya's most promising sons, rising from the goat pastures of a western village to the study halls of Harvard, eventually taking a coveted spot among the nation's post-colonial government leaders.
He often introduced himself as "Dr. Obama," though there is no record of him completing a doctorate. He was a heavy drinker, ordering straight scotch by the "double double," or four shots at a time. Beer, he said, was a "child's drink."
He is best remembered for his booming baritone, which intimidated opponents and charmed women, friends said.
One of those was Ann Dunham, who met Obama Sr. while both were studying at the University of Hawaii in 1959. They separated a few years later when Obama got a scholarship to Harvard, leaving Dunham to raise their son, Barack Jr.
Sen. Obama has spoken often of the effect of his father's abandonment. At first, he said, it pushed him to try to live up to the expectations of an absent, almost-mythical figure. Later, as he learned the details of his father's troubled life, he said that it propelled him to try to make up for Obama Sr.'s shortcomings.
