Sometime the media makes a mistake and accidentally reveals too much. Take a gander at these truths we learn--and some we didn't--from David Maraniss's book, Barack Obama: The Story. 

1. He told classmates he was an Indonesian prince. “His grandfather [Stanley] had told strangers that the boy was a descendant of ali ‘i, native Hawaiian royalty. In Obama’s later memoir, he recalled boasting at Punahou that his father was an African prince. Some classmates remembered it differently, that first he claimed his father was an Indonesian prince” (p. 268).

2. Far from the poverty that Obama describes in Dreams, Obama hobnobbed with rich Indonesians. “Barry’s new classmates [at Besuki School in Indonesia] included the sons and daughters of lawyers, bankers, doctors, members of Parliament, and government officials” (p. 235). While his home may have been modest, his education in Indonesia certainly wasn't. 

3. Everyone, including the now-Governor of Hawaii, acknowledges that Obama got into Punahou in large part because he was black and connected. Obama writes that he got in thanks to Gramps’ boss. “My first experience with affirmative action, it seems, had little to do with race,” Obama wrote in Dreams, p. 87). But Maraniss delivers a more detailed picture:

Based on his background alone the boy "never would have gotten into Punahou—not in a million years," said Neil Abercrombie