[Vince Ferrer]

I would think it would be easier to prove he did write something than that he did not, considering his background. He spent his childhood outside the country in Indonesia, where he would have absorbed the local language (Bahasa Indonesia ) and Arabic. Each language and culture has its own idioms and grammer. When learning a new language, or using a language other than your first, it is a common mistake to translate too literally the idioms of one language into another. If his writings were his own, we would expect to see some of his Indonesean upbringing in his grammer and idioms used in the book.

I don't think this is going to go anywhere though. It would be hard enough to prove that Ayers himself wrote the book. If the text is similar, it would be far more likely that they used the same ghostwriter.

[okie01]

I don't think this is going to go anywhere though. It would be hard enough to prove that Ayers himself wrote the book. If the text is similar, it would be far more likely that they used the same ghostwriter.

There is a coincidental factor, though. Obama claims to have written the book in Bali, over a six-month time frame.

Who else was in Bali at the time?

[attiladhun2]

I don’t know, criminals have been convicted using forensic handwriting analysis. I think you could show with reasonable certainty that Ayers was the author.