Did William Ayers Ghost-Write Obama Memoir?

World Net Daily ^ | Sept. 18, 2008 | Reynaldo Mahatma Smith

[attiladhun2]

According to Jack Cashill (see this link), there is mounting evidence to indicate that Barack Obama was not the author of his now famous memoir, Dreams From My Father. His research into Obama's literary background shows that, prior to 1990, Obama had written nothing of note. Then like a bolt from the blue, Obama produces a work described by Time Magazine as "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

Cashill observes, "I had questioned whether the influential Muslim crackpot who paved Obama’s way into Harvard, Khalid al Mansour, might have greased his way into the world of publishing as well." However, upon comparing the text of Obama's book to that of William Ayers' 2001 memoir Fugitive Days, Cashill now believes that the Obama book is substantially a product of the unrepentant former terrorist. He cites two passages from each book as evidence:

“I picture the street coming alive, awakening from the fury of winter, stirred from the chilly spring night by cold glimmers of sunlight angling through the city.” Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days.

 

“Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.” Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father.

We already know Obama has not been forthcoming about his relationship with Ayers. If Ayers is, indeed, the real author of the Obama memoir, it could well reveal Obama's true puppet master. Were it a shadowy billionaire like George Soros, that would be bad enough, but a fanatical Marxist ideologue and unindicted terrorist!

A forensic textual analysis of Ayers' and Obama's books could answer this question. It could also be the sword that finally slays the presidential asperations of the junior senator from Illinois.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I think it was Sir Thomas Crapper.

[bossmechanic]

Look Freepers...
Why the heck waste time on this?
Obama’s a fraud and we all know it.
If someone else gave BO his fake life, so what?
There’s 49% of the voting population that thinks his
$hit don’t stink!
And unless we get ANY message out there on this excrement, we’ll end up with his Egotist as POTUS!
The list of Obaminations is huge but who would know?
The prize winner on this site will be the one that states a plan we can all follow to raise awareness. It just simply is not enough to discuss issues amongst ourselves. Heck - that’s what libs do. Don’t think I want to go there.

[wintertime]

There are computer programs that can figure this out. They used it to compare disputed Shakespeare works. People have frequency of certain words and turns of phrase.

Exactly! There are computer programs that analyze writing. I would think a criminal forensic expert in this area would be able to figure out who did the writing.

I seriously hope the American people have the good sense to keep Obama out of office for this and **many** other reasons. That the polls show the race to be so close is scary that we have so many citizens prone to socialism and Marxism.

[wideminded]

As a writer and editor, I do believe those two writing samples are similar enough in tone, style and pace to possibly belong to the same writer.

I don't consider myself a literary expert but IMHO the sentence taken from Obama's book is much more artistic than the one by Ayers. The Ayers sentence strikes me as a decent description but not really exceptional writing.

As I said in another post I do see anything in common between these two sentences beyond the fact that they attempt to describe the atmosphere of Chicago. Since the two sentences are not obviously related I would think a much more extensive comparison of the two writers would be required before a judgment could be made about ghostwriting, etc.

[igoramus08]

Maybe he recommended the ghost writer to his buddy Ayers.

[wintertime]

I share your frustration.

In post #63 I stated that I find it scary that this election is so close. We literally have 49% of the population willing to bow down and worship Karl Marx. ( Literally!)

Marxism is our nation’s **most** serious threat. Schools are the Marxists most important weapon. We will lose freedom in the voting booth.

[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.

[Hawthorn]

> Maybe he recommended the ghost writer to his buddy Ayers <

What about that Klein chap who wrote the thinly veiled novel about Clinton? He called himself “Anonymous” — or something like that. Maybe he wrote both the Ayers book and the 0bumbler book!

[PhiKapMom]

The only bills he handled in the IL Senate were ones from other Senators that he took credit for — have we ever seen anything he has written? That could be the reason he has trouble speaking without a teleprompter because I don’t think he writes anything. When he delivers a speech or is asked a question without a teleprompter, he cannot remember what he was supposed to say. That is the sign of someone that doesn’t write anything.

When Rudy and Sarah Palin had the teleprompter glitch at the GOP Convention, they kept on going because they knew what they wanted to say and believe in what they were saying. Obviously both helped write their speeches.

Obama doesn’t have that capability and thus the teleprompter is now going everywhere with him because he cannot speak except to read what someone else writes.

Personally think Pres Bush should have dumped the teleprompter a long time ago — he speaks better without it because he speaks from the heart.

[ishmac]

There is nothing in common between these two passages except perhaps they both describe Chicago.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if someone ghosted Obama's alleged memoires alone or in part, the two sentences given by Cashill don't really persuade. The real blockbuster in the article is that embedded video. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it. It would appear that Obama couldn't get into Harvard Law without someone rich, powerful, and well-connected pulling strings for him. Michelle was an obvious AA baby, but I was never sure about Obama.

That's the tenor of the article: that Obambi has really never been his own man, and that all his touted accomplishments were fixes arranged by others. I always wondered who was really paying the bills for the O-man and his wife. It seems there were some rich radicals behind Obambi from way back.

And that Khalid whats-his-face in the vid makes Rev Wright look like almost moderate. They are the real power behind Obama. Those people want a pound of flesh from whitey for all white folks' alleged crimes. They aren't fooling around either.

[okie01]

There are computer programs that can figure this out.

There is another important element that can be researched.

Recall that Obama had a book contract and a $40,000 advance in hand before he left Harvard. An incredibly odd occurrence, since he had never written so much as article before, much less a book. Publishers don't do this kind of thing...unless they're given a reason to.

He failed to deliver a single word. Never mind. The publisher gave him another $40,000 advance. By now, he was a guest lecturer at the Univ of Chicago -- and they gave him an office and a secretary for the express purpose of helping him publish.

Still, no book. Until he left for Bali and spent six months there...writing. He came back with a book...and the rest is history.

But this chain of events is extraordinarily suspicious -- from questions why the publisher lavished such sums on an unknown (and untried) author to who actually wrote the book, really?

If there is a suspicion that William Ayers -- or somebody else -- ghost-wrote "Dreams of My Father", a little research to determine whether they've ever been to Bali would be in order.

[Poincare]

Regarding Obama’s chances of being elected...

If the true relationship of Ayers and Obama were proven, then Obama would have lied to Stephenopolis saying “He is some English professor in my neighborhood I barely know” when everyone in Chicago politics knows that Ayers is an Ed prof. Interesting that Obama’s brain, which has to spend precious energy separating his various stories, should pick English.

The New York City Police probably kept watch and files on Ayers when he was at Columbia at the same time as Obama. No way to get to those I suppose. I went to school with Ayers (Michigan) and watched him cultivate relationships with and use black men. (Did you know he was proud of being born on Mao’s birthday?)

[okie01]

See post #71

[libstripper]

This would explain why no substantially unedited written works by Obama have been revealed. What any such work may have been about is far less important than the style with which it is written. As a retired lawyer who's written and read many documents in my career, I can say from personal experience that every individual develops a distinctive style and way of expressing himself or herself, a style almost as distinctive as that person's DNA or fingerprints. Indeed, the distinctive writing style of the Unabomber is what got him caught. If one were to obtain any long, substantially unedited (except by himself, leaving out the one highly edited law review note he allegedly wrote), it would be possible to determine Obama's style and compare it to the style of the two books, giving a very good idea of whether he wrote those books or not.

[bootless]

$80K in advances for a first-time author?! Holy cow.

[bossmechanic]

I agree with you that schools are the biggest problem. I would say the judiciary is potentially the next most serious.
It does my heart good to hear my 11yo girl and her friends actually discussing Obama vs. McCain. And they don’t like BO. There is a level of distrust that even little girls understand. Just wish we had a vehicle to get the facts on both candidates out to their voting parents.
The boychild is a Marxist and he has no place in the USA.

[IndianPrincessOK]

THIS is scary! I hope there is some substantial evidence to prove this. It is eerie how much those 2 passages sound alike....and this could definitely be the smoking gun, October Surprise..

[cookcounty]

They are rhythmically and stylistically similar, but it would take an awful lot more than this to make any serious conclusions.

[okie01]

Is [Obama's] education affirmative action at work?

Michelle's certainly is. A reading of her departmental thesis at Princeton reveals a.) a general incoherency, coupled with b.) frequently misspelled words, other mis-used, consistently wretched grammar and a fractured syntax.

I wouldn't call it "illiterate"...but it's close.

It certainly would not have passed muster in my senior (high school) English class back in Oklahoma.

[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?