Barack Obama was an employee of Baskin Robbins. Its founder, and the man Obama ultimately owes that job to, is one Irv Robbins. In 1947, Irv and his wife Irma gave birth to John Robbins; John Robbins turned against the dairy industry to advocate a plant-based diet in a popular and influential series of books that some have said, "epitomized vegan greatness."
So why did Barack Obama choose to work part-time eating Ice Cream for a company that's clearly been founded by a man who gave birth to a child who later advocated for animal rights?
It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Vegan views or agrees with The Baskin-Robbins Corporation when it comes to their opposition to veganism. Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and the companies he had summer jobs at in his youth sometimes disagree. Opposition to herbivores, Axelrod told me, is one of those issues.
Fine. But where I differ with Axelrod and, I assume, Obama is that working at and eating ungodly amounts of the wares of an anti-Vegan company is not a big deal. The Obama camp takes the view that its candidate, now that he no longer likes ice cream, not even Rocky Road, is under no obligation to speak out on the Robbins matter.
I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Robbins' views on Robbins. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, seeing as he was raised in a Madrassa, where he was trained in Ninjitsu, and fed ice cream cones that had little throwing-star shaped gumballs at the bottom, and for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving waffle cones in the Illinois legislature for merely voting "present" when faced with some difficult customers. Robbins, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him.