His bio was written for his first book which wasn’t published. Dreams from my Father was his second book. I think his first book was his real memoir, the one that actually listed his birthplace as Kenya.
In a way, the editor was telling the truth that it was fact-checking error. She simply forgot to change the birthplace to match the new birthplace in his second book.
Dreams of my Father was a retelling of the first book, probably rewritten by Bill Ayers. So as not to hinder his political future, his birthplace was changed to Hawaii, even if it contradicted with a long paper trail.
Make no doubt about it, if you want to know the truth, you need to find a copy of Obama’s first unpublished novel...
Your points are well taken. It still amazes me, somehow, that the press can ignore the obvious — that the source of “born in Kenya” in the original marketing materials HAD to come from Obama, making him either a foreigner or a liar.
At the time the agent first printed a bio, Obama was a recent law school grad; he had no secretaries or official handlers. Where would the literary agent find “facts” about where the obscure Obama was born at this time? The agent’s possible sources of “born in Kenya” include: what Obama told the agents in interviews to get them interested in the book (assuming they didn’t approach him); a bio submitted by Obama; Obama’s responses to agents’ questions or forms; a bio from Obama’s Harvard/Law Review situation — of which Obama would be the source; or, an early abstract or sample chapters for the first book submitted by Obama himself. What other plausible sources would there be?
I think you are correct that the first attempted book used the Kenyan birth story, no doubt not for the first time. David Maraniss must have forgotten to ask the composite girlfriends if Obama ever told them where he was born.