[Fantasywriter]

This is not a bio that was included on a book jacket. Even if it was, however, the facts would have come from the author. No literary agency employs detectives or even fact checkers to learn [on a cold case basis] about prospective authors. They ask new and would-be authors to write their own bios and submit them w any sample chapters, book proposals or other materials related to publication. The idea that standard practices were waived in one case only, Obama’s, is bizarre and irrational. He would have provided the agent w his biographical facts AND he would have been asked to review the final draft; there's just no way around it.

[x]

This is not a bio that was included on a book jacket. Even if it was, however, the facts would have come from the author.

The facts in some form, yes, but what they printed may or may not be the exact wording the author gave them. When you consider that the book wasn't printed or even written then, it's not certain that the "author's bio" was set in stone.

I can see Obama padding and reshaping his own resume to make himself look better -- financial writer and editor, rather than researcher and proofreader -- but can't quite see him making his father a "Kenyan Finance Minister."

However narcissistic Barack Obama is, I can't quite see him saying for publication "His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White." It's possible, of course, but there's just something about the language that makes another, institutional or commercial author a little bit more likely.

It sounds like he sent them a resume to let them know his credentials, listing a lot of facts about himself in resume form, and they reshaped what he gave them to fit their needs, making a few mistakes along the way.

Of course the claim could have come from Obama himself. Who can say with Obama? Any thing is possible with the guy. But that's not the only, maybe not even the most likely, possibility.