A striking clash between those who feel a profound duty to report that the young Obama was nurtured by Marxists, socialists, and Communists and those who think it is a better idea to erase this information from the public record is on display in two current books.  One book provided key politically significant details of a heated debate I had with the young Marxist-Leninist Obama over Christmas break 1980.  The other book only confirmed that young Obama and his roommate were both in my vicinity at the time.  The gap between how Paul Kengor covered Obama's Christmas break in The Communist and how David Maraniss covered this same moment in Barack Obama: The Story is chilling.