Obama's Sister Says He's 'Not Perfect,' But He's a 'Good Man'

President-elect Barack Obama's half-sister says he isn't perfect – but is the best choice.

Though she couldn't be with him on election night, Maya Soetoro-Ng, 38, shared her feelings about his victory in an e-mail sent to friends last week.

"He may not be a perfect man," she wrote in the message, which she allowed to be shared with her hometown paper, the Honolulu Advertiser. "Certainly, he has often said that he'll likely be an imperfect president, but he is a good man, a smart man, a disciplined soul who balances temperance with determination and courage."

We've made a great choice, I assure you," she wrote.

Just two days before the election, Obama and Soetoro-Ng's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham lost her battle with cancer. (Before her death, Dunham voted for her grandson via absentee ballot.)

"There's a wide swath of emotion cutting through me, sometimes swirling, never simple … a briny mixture of elation, sadness, determination, regret, pride, hope, fatigue," wrote Soetoro-Ng, who cared for Dunham for the past eight years.

Obama and Soetoro-Ng have the same mother, Ann Dunham, who divorced Obama's father, a Kenyan also named Barack Obama, in 1964, and married a second time to Lolo Soetoro, from Indonesia, with whom she had Maya. Obama had invited his half-sister to come to Chicago for the election, but she told friends she wasn't up for it.

"I was too tired to grieve in front of millions," she wrote, "and opted instead to watch the electoral votes accumulate in the [apartment] where Barack spent his high school years with our grandparents."

By Joey Bartolomeo
From: www.people.com