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Why 'Rogue' is a better book than 'Dreams'
WorldnetDaily ^ | 11/20/2009 | Jack Cashill

Posted on 11/20/2009 11:49:11 AM PST by SeekAndFind

A few weeks back, the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, said of Barack Obama, "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln."

Landesman was not alone in his praise. This month's GQ has a faux-exhaustive article on "the untold story of the first man since Teddy Roosevelt to serve as author in chief."

In truth, however, if Teddy Roosevelt came back to life today, he would find that he would have much more in common with Sarah Palin than Barack Obama, both as a fellow adventurer and as a fellow writer.

I am not being ironic here: Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue," is superior to the 1995 memoir that made Obama's reputation, "Dreams From My Father."

A clue as to why can be found in one choice moment from "Dreams."

At the time, 1988, community organizer Obama was contemplating law school, and he announced his potential choices as "Harvard, Yale, Stanford."

What makes any narrative compelling is when the protagonist confronts obstacles and overcomes them through force of will and character.

But when a mediocre student with LSAT scores too humble to reveal can casually limit his law school choices to Harvard, Stanford and Yale, the reader winces.

It is as if the good witch told Dorothy to click her heels together on day one and skip the damn yellow brick road. There is no drama here.

In fact, Obama's career has been greased by affirmative action and its bastard offspring – "diversity" – from prep school on.

(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bookreview; dreams; goingrogue; obamagoingrogue; sarahpalin
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1 posted on 11/20/2009 11:49:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

The author contrasts Palin’s book with Obama’s....


Palin, like Obama, an unusual duck from an outlier state, also played basketball. She writes not about her slights, however, but about the accomplishment of her team.

.....

Unlike Obama, Palin has admitted to having a collaborator. Whoever put pen to page, however, did so in Palin’s voice. There is not a sentence of the book she could not have written.

Palin’s book is not great art, but her story is captivating and humbly told. As a woman in a series of historically male professions – sports journalism, commercial fishing, Alaska politics – she actually does overcome genuine resistance to achieve unlikely success.

Along the way, Palin never whines. She charms. She also appreciates and enthuses. Her evocations of small-town Alaska life and big-sky Alaska adventure cheer the soul. There is no equivalent appreciation of anything in “Dreams.”


2 posted on 11/20/2009 11:50:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind (wH)
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To: SeekAndFind

How could a person know the DREAMS of his father, if he only spent 1 week with him in his entire life? And the half brother says the dad was a drunk..a man chaser.


3 posted on 11/20/2009 11:54:33 AM PST by rovenstinez
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To: SeekAndFind

do we know what his LSAT score was?


4 posted on 11/20/2009 11:56:42 AM PST by thefactor (yes, as a matter of fact, i DID only read the excerpt)
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To: SeekAndFind

Teddy Roosevelt was a bada**, intellectual, and just all around man’s man. Obama MIGHT have enough of these qualities to fit in Teddy’s pinkie toe. On one foot.


5 posted on 11/20/2009 11:58:22 AM PST by autumnraine (You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out!)
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To: rovenstinez
How could a person know the DREAMS of his father,

The events in 'Dreams of his father' were just as true as the events seen in the movie 'Roots'.

6 posted on 11/20/2009 12:01:32 PM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: SeekAndFind
Ironically, a program originally intended for those who have descended from slaves and survived the rough and tumble of urban life ended up most benefiting people like Obama who did neither.

And still does, as do preferential contracts and loans granted to so-called minority businesses.

7 posted on 11/20/2009 12:06:45 PM PST by browardchad ("Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own fact." - Daniel P Moynihan)
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To: SeekAndFind

I haven’t read “Dreams” but I understand that Bill Ayers wrote a pretty good book...?


8 posted on 11/20/2009 12:13:13 PM PST by Mamzelle (Who is Kenneth Gladney? (Don't forget to bring your cameras))
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To: rovenstinez

Don’t forget wife beater.


9 posted on 11/20/2009 12:13:23 PM PST by autumnraine (You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it out!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sarah Palin appreciates the life her parents and God gave her. She’s a product of steady, loving upbringing, a never give up attitude and be constant in your love of family, friends and country.
Nobama, on the other hand, was a throw away child, a mother, too busy for him, a father who didn’t want the responsibility of raising him. He ended up with his grandparents. His grandfather really didn’t have much interest in him, so found a mentor to set his path. The mentor, a philanderer with a foul mouth and drinking buddy of the grandfather. It’s not to the father, he never knew, but to the mother who also threw him away, that nobama has turned his “get even” attitude towards. She was caucasian a race he decided he didn’t want to be at age 12, so he chose the race, arab with a smidgen of negro, of his run away father. So now we know the lack of appreciation this man has for family and country. He truly is a man APART from us, the citizens of America.


10 posted on 11/20/2009 12:18:36 PM PST by tillacum
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To: SeekAndFind

Sarah Palin appreciates the life her parents and God gave her. She’s a product of steady, loving upbringing, a never give up attitude and be constant in your love of family, friends and country.
Nobama, on the other hand, was a throw away child, a mother, too busy for him, a father who didn’t want the responsibility of raising him. He ended up with his grandparents. His grandfather really didn’t have much interest in him, so found a mentor to set his path. The mentor, a philanderer with a foul mouth and drinking buddy of the grandfather. It’s not to the father, he never knew, but to the mother who also threw him away, that nobama has turned his “get even” attitude towards. She was caucasian a race he decided he didn’t want to be at age 12, so he chose the race, arab with a smidgen of negro, of his run away father. So now we know the lack of appreciation this man has for family and country. He truly is a man APART from us, the citizens of America.


11 posted on 11/20/2009 12:21:19 PM PST by tillacum
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To: tillacum

UHG OH, sorry for the double post.


12 posted on 11/20/2009 12:21:59 PM PST by tillacum
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To: rovenstinez
How could a person know the DREAMS of his father, if he only spent 1 week with him in his entire life? And the half brother says the dad was a drunk..a man chaser.
How do we know WHO his father was? Any proof?
13 posted on 11/20/2009 12:36:36 PM PST by ThePatriotsFlag (The Patriot's Flag (http://www.thepatriotsflag.com))
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To: rovenstinez

I read some time ago that Barack Obama, Sr., was killed in an accident while driving drunk (and it was not his first accident while driving drunk).


14 posted on 11/20/2009 12:45:11 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: tillacum

We celebrate those who grew up hard and overcame the destructive influences of their youth to become men and women of valor and character. Those who turned their struggle into hatred, vulgarity, and getting even are pitied. Acheving power and prestige toward bitter ends is vile. Comparing Palin and Obama requires peering into a Dark Crystal where saints and sinners merge.


15 posted on 11/20/2009 12:56:26 PM PST by Louis Foxwell (He is the son of soulless slavers, not the son of soulful slaves.)
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To: tillacum
UHG OH, sorry for the double post.

Deserved to be repeated...

16 posted on 11/20/2009 12:59:54 PM PST by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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To: SeekAndFind
Well, "Rogue" was written by a natural born citizen, for starters.

An author who actually had friends and associates and a history before she took office.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

17 posted on 11/20/2009 1:08:01 PM PST by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Why 'Rogue' is a better book than 'Dreams'

It wasn't written by a terrorist?

18 posted on 11/20/2009 1:40:12 PM PST by TigersEye (0bama is our first Port of Entry President - I hope he goes home.)
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To: thefactor
do we know what his LSAT score was?

Last I heard, they can't even find anyone who was a classmate at Columbia where he earned, or was given, his B.S. in political science.

Even Al Freaken Gore allowed us to see his transcripts.

19 posted on 11/20/2009 1:40:57 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: rovenstinez
How could a person know the DREAMS of his father, if he only spent 1 week with him in his entire life?

Barry spent several years in Hawaii with his father Frank Marshall Davis.

20 posted on 11/20/2009 2:05:46 PM PST by Plummz (pro-constitution, anti-corruption)
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