Did Obama write Dreams From My Father?

[_moksha]

Have Jockers, et al, tried running an analysis of Obama's writing? Might turn out that he also penned a famous 19th Century manuscript as well.

Huh? I don't get it.

It was a suggestion based on that long running thread in the Celestial Forum about the Jockers, et al, study of whether Sydney Rigdon, Solomon Spaulding, Joseph Smith, Irving Greenblatz or Oliver Cowdrey penned parts of a manuscript that we know as the Book of Mormon. If Obama is into ghostwriting texts for others, then who knows? Anyway, it seemed like a whimsical query at the time, but gets better with an explanation.

[_Dr. Shades]

It was a suggestion based on that long running thread in the Celestial Forum about the Jockers, et al, study of whether Sydney Rigdon, Solomon Spalding, Joseph Smith, Irving Greenblatz or Oliver Cowdrey penned parts of a manuscript that we know as the Book of Mormon. If Obama is into ghostwriting texts for others, then who knows?

So, you're suggesting that Obama might've penned something that was written well over a century before he was born?

[_moksha]

It was a suggestion based on that long running thread in the Celestial Forum about the Jockers, et al, study of whether Sydney Rigdon, Solomon Spalding, Joseph Smith, Irving Greenblatz or Oliver Cowdrey penned parts of a manuscript that we know as the Book of Mormon. If Obama is into ghostwriting texts for others, then who knows?

So, you're suggesting that Obama might've penned something that was written well over a century before he was born?

That does have a rather Fox News sound to it. Nevermind.

[_aussieguy55]

Evidence Mounts: Ayers Co-Wrote Obama's Dream
American Thinker March 18, 2011

One response to Jack Cashill's article

"“Evidence continues to mount” that Cashill’s repeated assertion of an Obama-Ayers link is a deliberately perpetrated fraud, pursued in conscious bad faith. The initial article, while demonstrably untethered from reality, seemed at least to be a plausible product of a lonely fixation. Cashill’s second piece contains clearer indications that his attempted smear job is a calculated one.

Cashill keeps up the pretence of a serious inquiry, citing pieces of “evidence” which supposedly bolster an argument for which he has never provided any support to begin with. He takes passages from long-published works which he has only lately noticed, and calls them “new discoveries” and “revelations.” He takes Rashid Khalidi’s passing reference to Ayers (among others) in an acknowledgments section, and, based on this alone, spins the idea that Ayers had a “famed dining room table” for “would-be authors of a leftist bent.” This “fame” exists only in Cashill’s own mind. But he isn’t letting that stop him.

In treating Obama’s 1990 book chapter as another piece of “evidence,” Cashill is up to the same sleight-of-hand as before – taking an absence of evidence of literary qualities and treating it as evidence of absence. A good-faith reader would expect great differences between a chapter of a topical anthology on community organizing and a carefully crafted personal memoir. Is Obama’s earlier chapter as bad as Cashill’s examples indicate? Perhaps so, but Cashill has already shown that he is not to be trusted on such matters.

Time after time, the gap between “evidence” and claim is so wide that it exposes the falseness of Cashill’s pose as literary investigator. A few examples of word choice supposedly show that Ayers “rewrote [Obama’s] text.” Obama’s ordinary use of the word “ballast” supposedly reflects Ayers’ experience as a seaman. Cashill keeps trying to make a case based on bits and pieces of things, like the word “trap,” or various “nautical metaphors.” Any serious comparison of these two texts would consider broader themes and more meaningful patterns


Bill Ayers response
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... e-blogger/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/0 ... 12954.html

[_Eric]

What happened to Obiwan?


He's been strangely silent on the "evidence" for this kooky theory.

Richard? What say you?

[_richardMdBorn]

It's amazing, a black man becomes president after years of slavery, lynching, denial of civil rights and now it's about his birth certificate, he is a secret moslem, hates white people (hates Mom). I hope Bell is wrong and there is a hell. That's where you belong Richard. Many of yor Americans are nuts about the way you go on. You give evangelicals a bad name. I imagine you probably think Jim Wallis is unsaved.

I hope that you were not in your right mind when you wrote this. Your comments reflects the weird religiosity of some of Obama's supporters, since you appear to think that is blasphemous to question Obama's claims.

The question of whether politicians wrote the books attributed to them is an old one. Drew Pearson questioned whether JFK had written Profiles in Courage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/books ... gewanted=3

The evidence, in my opinion, supports Pearson's assertion. Most of the book was probably written by Sorenson. Obama and his supporters have used his supposed authorship of Dreams from My Father to support the view that he's a literary genius. If he did not write it, then yet another myth about him is exploded.

[_richardMdBorn]

Chris Anderson must be a racist too (see page 165):

http://books.google.com/books?id=OQNFkE ... ms&f=false

[_Eric]

Obama and his supporters have used his supposed authorship of Dreams from My Father to support the view that he's a literary genius. If he did not write it, then yet another myth about him is exploded.

Richard, I hate to say it, but this conspiracy is laughable. I watched the video, and I'm very disappointed.

[_richardMdBorn]

Obama and his supporters have used his supposed authorship of Dreams from My Father to support the view that he's a literary genius. If he did not write it, then yet another myth about him is exploded.

Richard, I hate to say it, but this conspiracy is laughable. I watched the video, and I'm very disappointed.

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. The allegation that the Mob killed Kennedy is a conspiracy.

What evidence would you consider to be strong that Ayers helped write the book. Note that the Obama campaign lied about the nature of his relationship with Ayres:

Obama strategist David Axelrod said this to Ben Smith over at Politico:

Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. They're certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.

Ayers' son Malik is roughly my age (27), his son Zayd is three years older, and Rhodes Scholar Chesa Boudin, Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn's foster son, is also roughly my age.

I know this because I went to summer camp with Malik and Chesa when we were little boys, at Ramapo Country Day Camp right across the Hudson from New York City. Ayers held a teaching post at Columbia that year.

Meanwhile, Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia are 6 and 9, respectively.

Unless 63 year-old Ayers and Dohrn, who is three years older, have much younger kids that I'm not aware of, I think Axelrod is mistaken about their kids going to the same school.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlin ... dbillayers

[_Eric]

What evidence would you consider to be strong that person A wrote a book which is attributed to person B. If person A uses language from his background in books he wrote, and it appears in a book which is supposed to be by person B, is that evidence person A or someone with his background helped write the book (if person B does not have that background).

Has anyone ever accused Bill Ayers of penning a "literary masterpiece" before Cashill decided to use that as his biggest piece of evidence in favor for this theory?

That's seriously what he harps on for most of that presentation. Obama will never be a brilliant writer, so because "Dreams From My Father" is - according to Cashill - a "literary masterpiece," Obama couldn't write it.

That's almost like saying that Joseph Smith Jr., because he was an uneducated hick, was incapable of writing the Book of Mormon on his own. Wait, that's exactly like what Cashill is saying.

1. Who says "Dreams From My Father" is a "literary masterpiece?"
2. Who says Bill Ayers is capable of penning a "literary masterpiece?"


Cashill does. His assertions depend on his own assertions. No evidence.