CURL: Contrite Obama allocates $3 billion to Indian tribes

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By Joseph Curl POLITICAL THEATER

Big Chief Barack "Black Eagle" Obama on Thursday was reunited with his adoptive father, the Crow Nation leader who dubbed him Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuushish -- "He Who Helps People Throughout the Land."

The president, seeking to pay off on promises made on the campaign trail, had gathered leaders of 387 federally recognized American Indian tribes, and among them was Hartford "Sonny" Black Eagle Jr.

The 75-year-old Crow tribe leader and his wife of 57 years adopted Mr. Obama in May 2008, when the Democratic presidential candidate was busy locking down the Western states that would soon help him win the nomination.

Mr. Black Eagle, a man of very few words, said just three when asked how his adopted son has turned out.

"He done good," the tribal elder from Montana said as he smoked a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of the Department of the Interior.

Inside, a third of the nation's Cabinet secretaries presided over a day-long conference to discuss economic development, housing, education, health care and the environment with the Indian leaders.

Despite pressing business on the economy, health care and the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama dropped by twice, to both open and close the conference. Not unexpectedly, the president decried the treatment of native Americans during westward expansion, when settlers swept over their land and pushed them onto reservations, often on barren land.

"Few have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans -- our first Americans," he said.

"It's a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation. Treaties were violated. Promises were broken. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep. And that's a history that we've got to acknowledge if we are to move forward," the president said.

Although he never said the words "I'm sorry," he promised that his administration would do better than past ones.