Jack Cashill Getting Traction (Ayers-Obama Authorship)

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Literary Fraud!

From Mark Whittington at Associated Content:

Barack Obama Alleged to Have Committed Literary Fraud
October 06, 2009 by Mark Whittington

The evidence that William Ayers is the actual author of Dreams From My Father seems to have been confirmed by Christopher Anderson, the author of a sympathetic Obama book Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.

Ayers, in allegedly ghostwriting the Obama memoir, seems to have resorted to fiction on at least one occasion. There is mention in Dreams From My Father of a "rich green-eyed lovely" with whom Obama is alleged to have had a year-long affair while in college. The problem is, the woman likely never existed and seems to have been based upon a former lover of William Ayers.

Besides the odor of literary fraud, the most interesting thing about this is the that Cashill says it was William Ayers who had been the actual author of Dreams From My Father. During the campaign, Barack Obama downplayed his relationship with William Ayers, a former terrorist with the Weather Underground who would have been in jail for a long time had it not been for FBI bungling. Barack Obama presented his friendship with William Ayers as casual.

Obviously Barack Obama's friendship with William Ayers was much more than just casual. William Ayers was entrusted with the production of a book that launched Barack Obama as a intellectual/politician, someone who not only read books, but wrote them. William Ayers was also trusted enough to conceal his authorship of Dreams From My Father and hence the literary fraud that had been committed by Barack Obama.

I think the case is quite good that Barack Obama is a literary fraud. As time has gone on evidence mounts and more people that look at the facts come to the same conclusion.

If one thinks about it, it is stunning how little we know about the actual Barack Obama.



The Summer of Lies, 1981


Moving on, we have an interesting post on a site called Family Security Matters. The post was by Paul Hollrah. Perhaps I should have led with this: The Summer of 1981

Paul Hollrah makes an interesting point about the summer of 1981 in "Dreams From My Father". In Obama/Ayers' Dreams, Barack was hard at work in New York City. He was finding a place to live. Finding a job. He was searching out the City and exploring. I will quote liberally, as is my nature. Amazingly there is this:

Then his life took an unexpected turn. He writes, “It was in this humorless mood that my mother and sister (Maya Soetoro) found me when they came to visit during my first summer in New York,” and that, “They stayed with Sadik and me for a few nights, then moved to a condominium on Park Avenue that a friend of my mother’s had offered them while she was away.”

Obama explains, “That summer I had found a job clearing a construction site on the Upper West Side, so my mother and sister spent most of their days exploring the city on their own. When we met for dinner, they would give me a detailed report of their adventures… I would eat in silence until they were finished and then begin a long discourse on the problems of the city and the politics of the dispossessed.” He says, “I instructed my mother on the various ways that foreign donors and international development organizations like the one she was working for bred dependence in the Third World.”

It sounds as if Obama was an absolute joy to be around. The “dog-eat-dog” environment of the streets of New York must have been a welcome departure from their evenings with Obama.

But wait a minute. How can this be?

Although Obama fails to mention it in either of his memoirs… not in Dreams from My Father and not in The Audacity of Hope… he traveled to Indonesia and Pakistan during the summer of 1981. In an April 6, 2008 speech in San Francisco… the same speech in which he referred to rural Pennsylvanians as “bitter” people who “cling to guns or religion…” he explained, offhand, the value of his trip to Pakistan, vis-à-vis his knowledge of foreign affairs. He said, “I knew what Sunni and Shia was (sic) before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

When questioned about that trip, Obama’s campaign press secretary, Bill Burton, confirmed to the New York Times, and others, that Obama had visited his mother and his sister in Indonesia during the summer of 1981 and that, after leaving Indonesia, he’d spent three weeks in Pakistan, traveling with a Pakistani friend from Occidental College, Wahid Hamid. According to Burton, Obama stayed in Karachi with the family of another Pakistani friend, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo. Obama has never mentioned the Pakistan trip again.

So the question arises, which version are we to believe: the version contained in his memoir, Dreams from My Father, or the version his press secretary provided following his April 2008 speech in San Francisco? In other words, if Obama arrived in New York, say, during the first week of June, had housing problems, explored Manhattan like a “lab rat,” lived for a time with a friend, spent time with his mother and sister during their stay in New York, and worked as a laborer on a construction site on the Upper West Side, how did he find the time or the money to embark on an around-the-world trip to Indonesia and Pakistan by the middle of July?

I would say that is pretty damning stuff. In his book he is finding a place to live, getting a job and getting his life organized in New York City. He had problems finding a place, then he got kicked out of a place and someone ran away with his deposit. He finally settled in and explored the city. Then he got a job and was paying the bills. Then his mom and sister show up. That is a lot going on.

He never mentioned he went to Indonesia and Pakistan in his own autobiography. It can be confirmed that he went there to visit his mother and his sister. How likely is it in the same summer his mother and his sister came to New York City to visit him? Please!

And what about the way the passages are written? Read this again:

“I instructed my mother on the various ways that foreign donors and international development organizations like the one she was working for bred dependence in the Third World.”

Who do you think wrote that sentence? Is that a 20 something year old kid remembering conversations with his mother, or is that Bill Ayers? Sanity please rule the day. As far as I can tell, his mom wasn't even anywhere near New York City.

Kudos to Paul Hollrah. It is hard to look at his autobiography as anything more than a lie. It really is amazing how little we know about this man who is our President.


Ayers Admits or Mocks?


Blogger Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative met up with Bill Ayers at the Washington airport. She took this picture:



She went on to write this:

There I was, sitting in Reagan National Monday morning, sipping a Starbucks by the United counter before going through security. I had a little time, so I was browsing through the news. Some military guys had borrowed a chair from my table. I looked up from time to time to enjoy the sun streaming through. That's when I saw Bill Ayers, an instant blight. Scruffy, thinning beard, dippy earring, and the wirerims, heading to order. I gathered my things, got my camera ready, and snapped a shot right when he got his coffee.

I asked--what are you doing in D.C. Mr. Ayers?

For a moment I thought he might be on my flight back to Chicago. Charming. Initially I guess he thought I was laying claim to his coffee or something. He gave me an uneasy cheesy smile when he realized I was taking his picture. I asked him if he was speaking at GW? (Only I said GFW, guess I had the VFW on my mind) He said oh you mean GW, he said no...was trying to decide if I was a fan, then said he was giving a lecture in Arlington to a Renaissance group on education--that's what I do, education--you shouldn't believe everything you hear about me, you know nothing about me. I said, I know plenty--I'm from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I'll post this. (Oh, yeah, Bill Ayers, quite the Renaissance man, nail-bomber extraordinaire. Gee, I see another friend of Barack, U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan was there too. "The conference theme is “A Time for Reflection, Celebration and Rebirth.” How touching. At best, useless, at worst, so wrong.)

Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.

I stole all of this from her blog. It was also written up in the Chicago Daily Observer. I couldn't parse it well without stealing, even though Jim Simpson of Renew America did a fine job in this post:

Ayers admits writing 'Dreams' to conservative blogger

If I take a step back and try to put on the objective hat, it is easy to say that Bill Ayers was joking. That is what he could easily claim if push comes to shove. It would be believable that he could say such things in mocking jest. I am a fan of sarcasm myself.

I don't know Anne Leary. If we accept her story of how this came out it does seem interesting. She didn't ask him about it. That is what struck me. He wanted to throw that out there. And he insisted on going back and reiterating the point to throw it out there again. From a critical standpoint, it does seem from reading her post that she might border on Ayers obsession. I doubt I would be able to spot him in an airport. That doesn't disqualify her account, but it does pose some questions.

Obviously at this point Cashill's theory is out there in some quarters, but it isn't a national story. Part of me tends to think that Bill Ayers would like that story. And if he did write or heavily edit the book, part of him probably would like to see that story. I am biased and have my own notions of what is going on, so maybe I am a bad judge. I found the tidbit interesting though, enough to pass it on to my massive following.

I think the "Summer of 1981" post adds a serious dimension to this just as a factual matter. Both of the stories didn't happen. One did. Either Barack way lying on the campaign trail or he was lying in his book.

The Whittington article just shows that other people are looking at the facts and coming to some of the same conclusions.

Don't know exactly what to make of blogger Anne who took him on in the DC airport, but I am a junkie and that had to be displayed.

So here are some other links on the topic. Most cover the exact same ground, but I link them so I can go back and read the comments. Sometimes some good stuff comes out in the comments. We have a world of diverse knowledge and talents, and you never know where the next angle will break. I believe that Ayers played a huge part in editing Dreams, and he probably did write it. The evidence looks better today than it did a year ago when it first came up. It will probably look much better a year from now. By the time the Democrats will actually have to acknowledge it, they will probably say "What? That old story? Ghostwriters are commonly used throughout history. What is the big deal? Shouldn't we focus on the real problems that affect us all, like healthcare, global warming or any other topic of the day?"

Jack Cashill is a stud for calling this early.

I would like to thank a lot of people I don't know for this post. I cited everything I could find. I would also like to thank my alcohol problem. In my life I have had trials and tribulations. Friends come and go, situations and circumstances can change, sometimes turning on a dime. The only constant that has stayed with me is my alcohol problem. I know at least that she will never leave.

What was my original point again? Oh yeah, the other links to this fiasco. So here they are:

Marathon Pundit: Backyard Conservative's encounter with Ayers--and his claim he wrote "Dreams," catches fire

According to Anderson, Michelle Obama suggested that the then little-known Barack approach Ayers for assistance in writing the book. And last week, while a guest on Cashill's show, the author said two people witnessed the future 44th president handing notes and tapes over to Ayers during the time Obama was said to have been writing the book.

I have a good memory, and I remember then-Sen. Obama saying this to the Chicago Tribune:

I would feel very uncomfortable putting my name to something that was written by somebody else or co-written or dictated. If my name is on it, it belongs to me.

Someone is lying. And it's certainly not Anne Leary.

You wonder what the political fallout would be if it could be proved without a doubt. I think there will always be plausible deniability. Wink wink, nudge nudge... Of course I have already swallowed the bait.

Tymon Smith from South Africas TimesLive:

Dreams from Obama's ghostwriter
Critics say he did not write his 1995 memoir alone

Steve Sailer: Ayers tells blogger in Starbucks he wrote "Dreams from My Father"

Ace of Spades: Claim: Conservative Blogger Says Bill Ayers Admits, Unprompted, He Wrote Dreams From My Father

Dennis Byrne from Chicago Now: Bill Ayers claims he wrote Obama's "Dreams From My Father"

Hot Air and AllahPundit: Bill Ayers to righty blogger: Of course I wrote “Dreams from My Father”

Rachel Slajda of TPM Livewire: Bill Ayers: Sure, I Wrote Obama's Book. Now How 'Bout Those Royalties?

World Net Daily: Palin co-author probed, Obama's ignored
News outlets silent about fresh evidence terrorist Ayers wrote 'Dreams'

American Thinker: Media Malpractice: Ayers' Dreams authorship suppressed

Maybe his significance to Martin Luther King, Jr. is plagerism.

Here and Here.

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Related Posts:

More of Ayers, Obama and Jack Cashill

Dreams From My Ghost Writer? Sphere: Related Content

More of Ayers, Obama and Jack Cashill

I have read my own blog. It seems that I am a one trick pony. Post after post about Barack Obama. I really need to mix it up. It appears that I am part of a pathetic echo chamber.

That said, I do what I do. I love my conspiracy theories. My favorite conspiracy theory is that Osama Bin Laden is dead. He really is. I would bet on that.

Another pet theory I have followed and am begining to believe is the Jack Cashill theory that Bill Ayers had a lot more input and linkage with Barack Obama than the media revealed to us.

From Ed Laskey at the American Thinker:

Obama's Work Ethic

Barack Obama won praise for Dreams From My Father, a 1995 memoir of his life that was published when he reached the grand old age of thirty-four. The provenance of the book has come into question, led by a series of American Thinker columns by Jack Cashill, who used textual analysis to ascribe its writing --or at least a good portion of it -- to Bill Ayers, Obama's neighbor, former Weatherman, Obama campaign supporter and partner in various activist groups in Chicago. This claim has been echoed in a new book by best-selling author Christian Andersen, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage who wrote that sources close to the Obamas told him that Barack Obama turned over his notes and tapes to Bill Ayers to compose the book.

Subsequently, under questioning by Cashill on a nationally-syndicated radio program, Andersen averred that two separate sources in Hyde Park confirmed to him the story of sending the notes and tapes to Ayers.

We still have the problem that Anderson won't come forward with his sources. If they exist, and I think they might, they would not want to come forward because they would be destroyed by the media. Our press loves the choosen one, and as Joe the Plumber can attest if you "speak truth to power" it is time to come and get your whoppin. I can see why they don't speak out on the record, but if they don't you have a very thin case.

The article isn't just about Obama/Ayers, there is much more interesting stuff at the link. Just wanted to highlight one thing for my own pet project.

On a related note, this from Thomas Lifson:

Unmasking Obama

It is now abundantly clear that the image of Barack Obama sold to the American electorate was tightly edited, air-brushed, and exaggerated. He has worn a series of masks -- eloquent orator, brilliant scholar, centrist, and literary sensation. All of these masks are coming off as he copes with a job for which image will not suffice. For instance, hiding behind the eloquent orator mask is a guy who says "uhh" a lot when he is winging it, and who makes lots of factual and grammatical mistakes.

Now, thanks to Jack Cashill, the literary mask has been removed. Obama is a literary pretender. Case closed. The evidence is overwhelming that Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Dreams from my Father, the book which established Obama's pose as a brilliant writer (and therefore a fine mind, in the estimation of many). The stylistic resemblance between the Dreams and Ayers' work is stunning. Now we know, thanks to Chris Andersen's new book,that Obama hit a brick wall trying to fulfill his contract to produce a book, and shipped off his notes and tapes to Ayers. That is the classic description of a ghost writer's assignment. And it completely fits the theories Cashill had inferentially reasoned from the data of his literary studies.

The revelation that Chris Andersen had two separate sources means that this fact meets the journalistic standard of reliability, provided by a respected, established bestselling author. Obama's dismissal of Ayers as "just a guy in the neighborhood" has been shown to be an outright lie.

That will certainly be the verdict of history, regardless of whether or not the issue of Obama's ghost written book ever breaks through into the national discussion. My bet is that the media will not be able to suppress discussion. The image of Obama packing boxes full of tapes and notebooks and hauling them over to Ayers' house a couple of blocks away, is simple and compelling evidence of a ghost writer being put to work. Jack's literary detective work made the case, and Andersen's two neighborhood sources confirm it.

Thomas Lifson lays it out quite well. Again, I don't know Anderson or anything about him. If he has any credibility, these charges are damning. I have read Cashill's work and have found it compelling.

And here is Jack Cashill on his interview with Anderson:

Andersen Claims'Two Sources' for Ayers' Role in Dreams

On Monday morning, Mancow Muller arranged for me to question author Chris Andersen on The Mancow Show.

Andersen's largely benign new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, now tops the New York Times best seller list.

Andersen claims that the "hopelessly blocked" Obama turned to the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers to help him write his much acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father.

When I asked about Andersen's sources, Andersen said that he had two separate sources "within Hyde Park" but, understandably, would not elaborate.

Andersen, who was gracious throughout, insisted that he had made no claim that Ayers wrote Dreams but he did not deny Ayers' deep involvement, conceding that Dreams is much the better book than Obama's 2006 Audacity of Hope. This, of course, has to trouble the Obama acolytes who insist that Obama is a uniquely gifted writer.

"I've read Obama's books, and they are first-rate," wrote Christopher Buckley, explaining his decision to endorse Obama in October 2008, "He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine."

Obama has maintained this fiction himself. "I've written two books," Obama told an audience of teachers in Virginia last year. "I actually wrote them myself."

Whether the mainstream media will remain silent on still another Obama scandal remains to be seen. But the journalistic standard of two sources has been met.

Again it comes down to the credibility of Anderson. I sound like a broken record with that. If this story gains any traction I would suspect that Anderson will be attacked.

Links both pro and con:


Wizbang:

Bill Ayers: Not Just Another Guy In The Neighborhood

Building the perfect beast?

Did Young Barack Have a Ghostwriter?
Did an ex-Weatherman terrorist really write 'Dreams from My Father'? Dream on.

The ‘Bill Ayers Wrote Obama’s Memoir’ Train Rolls On

Media acolytes protect their man

I'm going to spend the rest of my life apologizing to Jack Cashill, aren't I?

Marathon Pundit:

Did Bill Ayers ghostwrite Obama's "Dreams from my Father?"

Time for me to get some rest. I will edit my typos in the morning. Or not.


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Related Posts:

Jack Cashill Getting Traction (Ayers-Obama Authorship)

Dreams From My Ghost Writer? Sphere: Related Content

Does Government Spending Help or Hurt Race Relations?

This is a quote from Barack Obama on Meet the Press, 7/27/08 (link):

"The biggest problem that we have in terms of race relations, I think, is dealing with the legacy of past discrimination which has resulted in extreme disparities in terms of poverty, in terms of wealth and in terms of income. Our inner cities are a legacy of what happened in the past.

And the question is less assigning blame or rooting out active racism, because that's not the reason that those inner cities are in such bad shape, but rather figuring out are we willing to make the investments to deal with that past history so we can move forward to a brighter future? And that involves investing in early childhood education, fixing the schools in those communities, being willing to work in terms of job retraining. And those are serious investments."

It seems to me that Government and the "War on Poverty" were set up to adress those issues. We have been pumping taxpayer money into government programs for over four decades. Where has it gotten us?

It is a fair question to ask what amount of poverty is on account of government spending and the bad incentives that come with government entitlement programs.

Out of wedlock births for black Americans now top 70%. In the 1960's on 24% of black children were born to a single mom. We began programs that starting assisting single moms by giving them government payments. One of the basic rules of economics and government spending is based on incentives. If you pay for something you are going to get more of it. If you start paying for single mothers don't be surprised when you get more single mothers. If you start cutting checks for disabled kids don't be surprised when you get more disabled kids.

From the looks of it another round of Government anti-poverty programs could be a huge waste of resources that only make the problem worse. I am sure that past racism did have a negative affect on the black community, but I am not sure that government policies over the past four decades have done any better. If any "legacy" has more impact on the current envioronment I would venture that it is the more recent and massive federal programs.

Don't look for the "legacy" argument of black poverty to go away. If 70% of of black children are being born to single moms, what sort of poverty rate will they have 25 years from now when they are in their prime child bearing years? Looks like we have to deal with legacy for a long time.

Here are some of Thomas Sowell's thoughts on that legacy (From the book "The Quest for Cosmic Justice")...

In the United States, for example, many of the social problems of the contemporary black underclass are almost automatically attributed to "a legacy of slavery." The prevalence of fatherless families in the black ghettos, for example, has been widely explained by the lack of legally constituted families under slavery. But if one proceeds beyond plausibility and guilt to actually seek out the facts, an entirely different picture emerges.

A hundred years ago, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, the rate of marriage in the black population of the United States was slightly higher than that of the white population. Most black children were raised in two-parent families, even during the era of slavery, and for generations thereafter. The catastrophic decline of the black nuclear family began, like so many other social catastrophes in the United States, during the decade of the 1960s. Prior to the 1960s, the difference in marriage rates between black and white males was never as great as 5 percentage points. Yet, today, that difference is greater than 20 percentage points- and widening, even though the nuclear family is also beginning to decline among white Americans....

and

The fact that large numbers of black Americans today who are not in the labor force has also been one of those things causally (and often rather casually) attributed to slavery. But again, if we go back a hundred years, we find the labor force participation rates among blacks were slightly higher than among whites, and remained so, on past the middle of the twentieth century. If we want to know why this is no longer so, again we must look to events and trends much closer to our own time.

Black literacy has also fallen. It is no legacy. Here is Gary North from Lew Rockwell on "The Good Old Days"

"By 1940, the literacy figure for all states stood at 96 percent for whites, 80 percent for blacks. Notice that for all the disadvantages blacks labored under, four of five were nevertheless literate. Six decades later, at the end of the twentieth century, the National Adult Literacy Survey and the National Assessment of Educational Progress say 40 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites can’t read at all. Put another way, black illiteracy doubled, white illiteracy quadrupled. Before you think of anything else in regard to these numbers, think of this: we spend three to four times as much real money on schooling as we did sixty years ago, but sixty years ago virtually everyone, black or white, could read."

We can talk about the legacy of slavery and racism all we want, but historical facts fly in the face of Obama's "conventional" thinking. The real legacy that we are seeing come to play in regards to todays urban poor is the legacy of our Government's misguided and misdirected "War on Poverty".



Additional Reading
Broken Cities
By Steven Hayward
Liberalism’s urban legacy Sphere: Related Content