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Literary Lion Obama Will Roar No More
American Thinker ^ | September 28, 2009 | Jack Cashill

Posted on 09/27/2009 10:53:38 PM PDT by neverdem

The major media will not likely tackle the emerging evidence of Obama's stunning literary fraud, but the days of Obama's boasting about his writing skills are just as likely over.

The immediate cause of concern at the White House is Christopher Andersen's largely benign new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.

Andersen contends that the ambitious Obama, unaware of JFK's own literary fraud, hoped to launch his own political career with a book as did John Kennedy with the discreetly ghost-written Profiles In Courage

Despite a large advance, Obama found himself "hopelessly blocked."  After four futile years of trying to finish, Obama "sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers."  This he did "at Michelle's urging," she being the more pragmatic half of the couple.

What attracted the Obamas were "Ayers's proven abilities as a writer." Barack particularly liked the fluid novelistic style of To Teach, a 1993 book by Ayers.  This he hoped to emulate for his own family history.  In fact, he had already taped interviews with many of his relatives, both African and American.  The key sentence in Andersen's account is the one that follows:

"These oral histories, along with his partial manuscript and a trunkload of notes were given to Ayers." Adds Andersen, "Thanks to help from veteran writer Ayers, Barack would be able to submit a manuscript to his editors at Times Book."  The manuscript in question would become Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, what Joe Klein of Time Magazine called "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

From textual sleuthing, I had come to a comparable conclusion more than a year ago, namely that Obama had "turned the framework of his life over to terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers who roughed it in with his own darker sentiments and experiences."  Embedded here is a visual summary of this research, produced by Chris Kusnell.  (Part I) (Part II)

As one example of Ayers' involvement, I had argued that Dreams' tale of Obama's year-long relationship with a rich, green-eyed lovely seemed to have mined the details of Ayers' own relationship to the late Weatherwoman Diana Oughton.  From a close reading, I doubted there was such a girl in Obama's life.  So does Andersen.  "No one," he writes, "including his roommate and closest friend at the time, Siddiqi, knew of this mysterious lover's existence."

It did not matter, however, how accurate was my analysis.  From the perspective of Obama's literary defenders, I was a barbarian who could effectively be kept in check outside the gates.

Andersen writes from within the gates.  He has no agenda.  His book is dispassionate, softly liberal and largely sympathetic to the Obamas, particularly to Michelle and her family.  A popular celebrity journalist, he interviewed some 200 people for the book, many of them close to the Obama family. The Obamas had likely given at least their tacit blessing to the project.  Given that the natural audience for his book skews female and left, Andersen had no reason to invent facts that would alienate his base.  He has no track record of doing the same.

Although Andersen cites me on textual comparisons, I was clearly not the source for the personal details of Obama's life.  His retelling of the story was based on what he had been told by someone very close to the action. He had access to people who would never have talked to me, quite possibly Michelle herself or even Bill Ayers.

Clearly shaken, the Obama-centric media find themselves in a fix not unlike that of medieval astronomers upon discovery of a new planet.  Every time this happened, these geocentrists had to figure out a convoluted new loop to describe the planet's rotation around the earth.  So it is with challenges to the Obama myth, even unwitting ones like Andersen's.  Obama's acolytes must find some convoluted new explanation to account for each unexpected deviance from the mythic overview.

Defenses mustered in the last few days include a lack of attribution by Andersen, his ignorance of an imagined "computerized analysis" by an Oxford professor, the citation of me as source and/or a reliance upon me as source.  Each of these explanations implies that Andersen is a fraud and a liar and that he contrived the story he told. Andersen's highly successful career as a celebrity journalist argues strongly against such an interpretation.

What impresses the reader about these defenses is how easily their architects satisfy themselves and presumably the Obama faithful with their soundness.  The Washington Independent's David Weigel, for instance, is among those who dismiss Andersen's claim because he credits me as a source. 

To trivialize my contribution, Weigel cites one point of comparison between Obama and Ayers -- their mutual use of the phrase "behind enemy lines" to establish their place in capitalist America -- as though I had not also listed hundreds of other such comparisons, many much more compelling.

Had he read Andersen's book, which he does not appear to have, Weigel would have seen that Andersen's retelling of the story was based not on what I had written but on what Andersen had been told by someone who was on the scene.   A close reading of the book, however, might have shaken Weigel's faith in his Milli Vanilli of messiahs.

"I've written two books," Obama told a crowd of students and teachers in Virginia last year.  "I actually wrote them myself."

The media should be able to protect his reputation among the willfully blind but don't expect to hear Obama make comparable boasts in the near future.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dreamsofmyfather; fraud; obama
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To: skr

” A Guy Who Lives in My Neighborhood Dreams of My Father”


21 posted on 09/28/2009 1:51:08 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: skr

“What A Terrorist Dreamed About My Father”


22 posted on 09/28/2009 1:51:45 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: jeltz25

“Or at least no one who has come forward.”

That’s the part I have found SO incredibly interesting. When a person becomes tremendously famous there are usually at least some “hangers-on” or even folks who didn’t REALLY know the person well, but claim they did. With Obama it’s almost literally the opposite. No-one wants to come forward it seems. Very strange to say the least.


23 posted on 09/28/2009 2:01:25 AM PDT by LibertyRocks ( http://LibertyRocks.wordpress.com ~ ANTI-OBAMA STUFF : http://cafepress.com/NO_ObamaBiden08)
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To: neverdem

Way to go Jack Cashill.....Imagine if this were GW Bush. His book that launched him into the White House was written by some terrorist. He would have been frogged marched out of the White House.

Not even a blush from the State Run Media. We’re in deep trouble.


24 posted on 09/28/2009 2:11:33 AM PDT by Electric Graffiti (Yonder stands your orphan with his gun)
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To: neverdem

I wonder whether Ayers will have to meet with an unfortunate accident, or even a visit to an out-of -the -way lumber yard.


25 posted on 09/28/2009 3:46:29 AM PDT by gusopol3
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To: neverdem

Every author has a “voice”, a style if you will. I do a lot of writing. I know my own “voice”. Every so often I will run across something and begin reading and it becomes immediately apparent to me that the voice I am hearing in my head as I read, is my own, I have stumbled across something I have written in the past.

I have no doubt you can can compare writing (and if the sample is large enough, such as a book) you can determine who wrote it or at least state the same person wrote both.

Having said that, so what? Those that believe in President Obama do not care, and those that don’t do not need more evidence.

Ghost written books are very common in polictics. President Obama, like most Democrats, has a fleeting concern to what is true, the only important thing is winning. The book helped him to win, nothing else matters to those that drink the Democrats kool-aid.


26 posted on 09/28/2009 6:55:19 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN
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To: neverdem

God Bless Mr. Cashill. He nailed the marxist quisling.


27 posted on 09/28/2009 7:29:01 AM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
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To: neverdem

The World is in chaos and we’re stuck with a Milli-Vanili President…
http://pumasunleashed.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/the-world-is-in-chaos-and-were-stuck-with-a-milli-vanili-president/


28 posted on 09/28/2009 7:32:50 AM PDT by Sparko ("Barack Hussein Obama He said Red, Yellow, Black or White All are equal in His sight. Mmm, mmm, mmm")
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To: neverdem

Glenn Beck needs this article ...

He will love it ... and use it effectively!


29 posted on 09/28/2009 7:37:50 AM PDT by geologist (The only answer to the troubles of this life is Jesus. A decision we all must make.)
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To: smokingfrog
The couple reported total 2007 income of $4,238,165, of which $3,943,378 was profit from his best-sellers ''Dreams From My Father'' his memoir reissued in 2004 when his political career started to skyrocket and ''The Audacity of Hope,” published in 2006.

I wonder how much of that trickled down to Ayers.

30 posted on 09/28/2009 8:38:34 AM PDT by cynwoody
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To: neverdem

This is not the only fraud in the manufacturing of Barry Obama.

31 posted on 09/28/2009 9:45:45 AM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: FTJM
Can an investor in the publisher sue for fraud? Someone needs to find a legal angle to go after this and get these people under oath.

I was wondering the same thing. Can't a class action suit be started to refund money to the publisher and book purchasers since this is fraud? Or, more importantly, sue any school district that may try to make this fraud of a book become required reading in schools?

A commentor on AT brings this point up as well:

A post by "Pete" grabbed my interest with the following:"The book is being condensed and "calibrated" in preparation for being issued for public school required reading. The literary community must be held accountable for policing plagiarism and fraud."

How horrifying. Our children are already exposed to thousands of "Hope" bumper stickers in the teacher parking lots, hundreds of hours of TV speaking & sound bites by the Great Orator himself, not-so-disguised leftminded (albeit well-meaning) PR writing/project/homework assignments in the classroom, NEA funded 'art', syrupy children's books, and now... Mr. Obama's non-auto-biography will be required reading?

I will be searching for more references to this. Meanwhile, I support Pete's call for lawsuits.

32 posted on 09/28/2009 9:32:50 PM PDT by kara2008 (The Answer to 1984 is 1776)
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To: zipper

Thanks for the links.


33 posted on 09/29/2009 12:51:24 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Sparko

Thanks for the link.


34 posted on 09/29/2009 12:52:17 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem

You’re welcome.


35 posted on 09/29/2009 1:01:18 PM PDT by Sparko ("Barack Hussein Obama He said Red, Yellow, Black or White All are equal in His sight. Mmm, mmm, mmm")
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