Obama's Brother: Dad Was a Wife Beater

President Barack Obama's half brother is alleging that their father was physically abusive to family members.

On tour to promote his new semi-autobiographical novel, 'Nairobi to Shenzhen,' Mark Ndesandjo, who like President Obama, was fathered by Kenyan college instructor Barack Obama Sr., said both he and his mother were physically abused by Obama Sr.

Ndesandjo said he revealed the abuse to bring greater awareness to the issue, but one might question Ndesandjo's motives for disclosure.

It's not as if we didn't know that the president's father was less than an ideal role model. In his book, 'Dreams from My Father,' Obama describes his father as an abusive alcoholic who didn't do right by his family.

And it's not as if Ndesandjo's disclosure of the abuse is designed to get his father to repent for his actions; Obama Sr. died in 1982.

But enough with the cynicism.

If telling the world that his father beat him and his mother brings some measure of closure and relief to Ndesandjo, that's good. And if any of the news stories Ndesandjo's will generate while on his book tour somehow stops even one instance of domestic abuse, even better.

But it's funny how since Obama took office, he's gotten the writing juices flowing among those who can claim even the slightest shared blood.

Another of the president's half brothers, George Obama, 27, of Huruma, Kenya, has penned a memoir that will be published by Simon & Schuster in January, according to published reports.

And other Obama relatives working on books include a half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, daughter of Obama's mother and her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, and Craig Robinson, First Lady Michelle Obama's brother.