Was Ayers Joking About Writing Obama’s Memoir?
I didn’t paid much heed to Jack Cashill’s post last fall where he finds “evidence” making Bill Ayers “a much more likely candidate than [Barack] Obama to have written the best parts of” the latter’s best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The notion just seemed too far-fetched.
I did read the piece, but thought it far too speculative to rely upon it as proving that Ayers ghostwrote the President’s memoir. I return to it now, only because information has come forward suggesting that that radical may have helped the President with his book. Cashill has since, in the word of Ronald Radosh who wrote about this last month, “played literary detective,” uncovering
. . . strange similarities in the metaphors used in both Ayers’ Fugitive Days and in Obama’s Dreams. One of them [Cashill's contributors] found 759 striking similarities. Cashill found one of his contributor’s analysis to be “systematic, comprehensive, and utterly, totally, damning.” You can read his article and judge for yourself.
And now, Cashill picked up the new bestseller about Obama and his wife, Christopher Andersen’s Barack and Michelle:Portrait of an American Marriage. What he found simply threw him for a loop because, I suspect, it was the last thing Cashill expected to find. Andersen writes in his book that after Obama finally got a new contract to write a book, Michelle Obama suggested that her husband get advice “from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”
Chancing upon the unrepentant terrorist while passing through Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport on Monday, blogress Anne Leary heard him confirm that suggestion:
Then, unprompted he said–I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said–Michelle asked me to.
Patterico asks the question that came to my mind when first I read the story: ”Sarcasm?” The blogress herself asked Ayers if he were pulling her leg. Wondering if the President will deny Ayers’ accusation, blogging law professor William A. Jacobson asks ”Was Bill Ayers just causing some trouble with a tall tale sure to get people talking, or telling the truth to a stranger to get it off his chest?“
I don’t know which is the truth, but suspect the former. Still, you gotta wonder if the President (or his flacks) will be asked to deny the accusation. And since the issue of the authorship goes to the President’s credibility,* you’d think more than just conservative bloggers would be considering it.
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*If Ayers did indeed help write Dreams, then he and Obama certainly had a closer relationship than the President has acknowledged.
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“If Ayers did indeed help write Dreams, then he and Obama certainly had a closer relationship than the President has acknowledged.”
It goes to the heart of his credibility for more reasons than that – that book made him amazingly popular, and could well have been the thing that made him president (if not one of many straws that broke the Republican camel’s back). If it was ghostwritten for him – by ANYONE – then he’s no more than a hollow shell, basically dishonest regardless of any allegations of “corruption” or “associations of terrorism” – It wouldn’t matter if JESUS had ghost-written it for him; if he didn’t write it himself, his popularity is based on a gross deception.
Comment by perturbed — October 7, 2009 @ 7:08 am - October 7, 2009
[...] Was Ayers Joking About Writing Obama’s Memoir? [...]
Pingback by Wednesday, October 7, 2009 — ExposeTheMedia.com — October 7, 2009 @ 9:28 am - October 7, 2009
If Ayers didn’t write it, then it shows how closely Obama studied and knew Ayers style to copy him.
Comment by The Other Peter H — October 7, 2009 @ 9:53 am - October 7, 2009
Some times the most serious things are said in jest.
Comment by Croft — October 7, 2009 @ 12:28 pm - October 7, 2009
“IF”
The best thing about the word “if” is you can say anything you want behind it.
If Clinton Knew about the space alien threat..
If Bush drank all the time in his presidency..
If Newt and Hillary are lovers…
And “IF” you get called out for being a ridiculous tin foil hat wearer, you can say “hey just speculating”
Comment by gillie — October 7, 2009 @ 1:55 pm - October 7, 2009
IMHO everything about Obama is based on a gross deception. The actual facts about his past are virtually nonexistent since he has taken great efforts to hide everything about himself.
Comment by Not Always Right — October 7, 2009 @ 1:57 pm - October 7, 2009
If gillie had a post that wasn’t a non-sequetor
If Tano wasn’t a racist
If Tim didn’t like 15 year olds…
Wow this is fun.
Comment by The_Livewire — October 7, 2009 @ 2:25 pm - October 7, 2009
And also, this brings to mind something the former governor of Arkansas said (Faubus and not Bubba) and I am paraphrasing here: “Just because I say it does not make it so”.
Comment by FortWorthGuy — October 7, 2009 @ 4:08 pm - October 7, 2009
#7 IF ghillie wasn’t moonbatshitcrazy
Yeah, I can dig it.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 7, 2009 @ 4:20 pm - October 7, 2009
Never trust a man who bombs the Pentagon
Comment by Geena — October 7, 2009 @ 5:19 pm - October 7, 2009
#7 & #9
now you are getting it! Use the word “if” and you can make any charge you want, no matter how zany it is.
Its so zany and moonbatty to go with this Ayres ghostwrote meme that you have to use words like “if” so you can cover your behind later.
Good work
Glad you got there
Comment by gillie — October 7, 2009 @ 9:07 pm - October 7, 2009
gillie continues to make a fool of himself using the usual low standard non arguments and painfully trying to make a point that is totally lost upon the readers of this blog.
The real question here: Is it possible that Bill Ayers did in fact ghost write Obama’s book, and that another writer provided the material for the second book? It is highly likely that we can answer these questions in the affirmative.
Whilst I believe that Ayers was baiting the blogger from Chicago, I also think that he might have been dropping a hint regarding the authorship of that book. Ayers was thrown under the bus by Obama because it did not politically suit Obama to have the association with Ayers seriously examined. The book has in some circles been acclaimed, and there are journalists who have slavishly stated that the content of that book helped them to make a choice for this empty suit.
The interesting thing about a communist like Ayers is that he also wants the limelight but it is denied to him because of his background as a member of the Weather Underground. He is man who should be facing charges of at least attempted murder over his past activities. His own writing material has actually shown to some that he has an interesting style of prose. Now it is that style of prose that caught the attention of Cashill, and it might be added here that this was the style that is found in Dreams from my father. The similarity of writing style should have been enough for the journalists of the MSM to be all over this… and for them to ask questions…. instead they buried the information.
The fact that there is a question over the authorship of “Dreams…” means that there is a real credibility gap involved. If Ayers did ghost write “Dreams” and Obama is claiming to be the author, then Obama is in reality a fraud – a literary Milli Vanilli. If Ayers did ghost write the book, and he has not received any royalty payment, then on top of that he sees this pretender receive all sorts of undeserved accolades, then why would he not out of a bit of envy drop a hint about the real authorship of the book?
Comment by thestraightaussie — October 11, 2009 @ 2:12 am - October 11, 2009