“They didn’t think a person could become president of the Harvard Law Review sans writing ability.”
Now that is a very astute comment. Thank you for the cogent explanation. It makes perfect sense. How were they to know that he wasn’t qualified for the job? They’re as guilty as the media, which also didn’t “vet” Obama.
So it was Bill Ayers to the rescue. Maybe the publisher even hooked them up, but it’s more likely that Obama knew Ayers from their days living in the same ‘hood in New York, when Obama was at Columbia and Ayers was at Bank Street College with Obama’s girlfriend Genevieve Cook.
Actually the original would-be publisher, Poseidon, never got squat for their $. Obama choomed it all away w nothing to show for it at all—not even a chapter. His indefatigable agent when to a different publisher and got him a second advance. [You have to add the two advances up to reach the $165,000 figure, incidentally.]
When Obama looked as if he would exhaust the second pile of $, Michelle gathered up all his notes and dumped them on Ayers. This account may be found in a sympathetic book about the Obamas’ marriage by Jodi Kantor entitled, “The Obamas”. Kantor never interviewed the Obamas themselves, but did intensive interviews w friends and aquaintances, fwiw.