Give Jack Cashill credit: attempts to get him off this story by progressive “intellectuals” intent on declaring it absurd on its face have done nothing to dissuade the professor from continuing his investigation.
In my first post on the subject, I noted that I was unconvinced, at least to that point, by what Cashill had uncovered. Still, were his charges true, I noted that, under the conditions of such a hypothetical, we’d be dealing with a man running for president who was essentially the creation, at least in public form (most of what we know of him comes from his autobiographies), of another man — one who is an unrepentant terrorists, an avowed communist, and has for years sought ways to deconstruct the American system of governance, first with violence, then later through infiltration of radical politics into educational institutions under the cover of “reform” (with that “reform” based on a host of small “progressive” ideological victories, from the rise of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” to the ascension of anti-intellectualism through the PC movement, that readied the education establishment for Ayers’ noxious brand of political learning).
Such a discovery would, were it true, give us a new perspective into Obama as a public figure and carefully crafted political persona (as opposed to a merely historical figure). At least, that’s what I argued — much to the dismay (and willful misreading) of a number of my critics.
But as hypothetical and dispassionate as my analysis was, Cashill’s was more direct in its indictment. And in this follow up piece, he takes those indictments even further:
At the heart of my message is that Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics , a man who has been lip-synching for the last 13 years to lyrics pre-recorded by, among others, Bill Ayers.
[…]
[…] the science is coming in, from a variety of sources, and it confirms a hypothesis that is evident to anyone who cares to look: Obama had substantial help from Ayers [in writing Dreams From My Father].
[…]
[…] five different sets of researchers have taken the challenge to test the hypothesis that Ayers was heavily involved in the writing of “Dreams.” And although there are admitted limits to this emerging science, the consensus among these researchers is noteworthy.
I am aware of a fifth stylometric analysis, soon to be released, this one from a British scholar of international repute, but here are some quick summaries from the first four. The authors’ contact information could be made available on deep background for serious news sources.
“Using the chi-square statistic,” observes one professor, “Obama’s and Ayers’s books were indistinguishable, while Obama’s book was easily distinguishable from books by other authors.”
Writes another analyst, using his own proprietary software, “There is a strong likelihood that the author of “Fugitive Days” ghost-wrote “Dreams From My Father” using recordings of dialog (either tape recorded or notes). Alternatively, another scenario could be possible: Ayers might have served as a ‘book doctor.'”
One systems engineer writes, “The statistical style analysis performed by our research team suggests that the writing style of ‘Dreams From My Father’ is significantly more similar to the style observed in ‘Fugitive Days’ than to the style found in other works by Barack Obama such as ‘Audacity of Hope.'”
He continues, “Even more interesting, when we extract those sections of ‘Dreams From My Father’ that Dr. Cashill believes to be Ayers’ writing and treat this as a unique document, the style analysis software identifies a stronger correlation between this sample and Ayers’ ‘Fugitive Days’ than we see between this same sample and the remainder of ‘Dreams From My Father’! Thus we have reason to believe that ‘Dreams From My Father’ had at least two authors, and one author’s measured style features more closely match those of Ayers than they match those of the other author(s).”
“Under the Q-value statistic,” argues one university-based analyst who tested “Dreams” against Ayers’ 2001 memoir, “Fugitive Days,” “segments of ‘Dreams’ consistently compared as well with ‘Fugitive’ segments as it did with other segments of ‘Dreams’ itself. In contrast, ‘Dreams’ compared poorly with other documents.”
Writes another: “The Ayers-Obama matching shows a measurable and substantial effect. It is easily and objectively distinguishable from comparison to a third document. These results achieved through good methodology should readily stimulate scientists skilled in the particular relevant fields to construct their own tests, place objective metrics on the correlation between the Ayers-Obama documents and publish results.”
He adds, and I agree, “We strongly think this bears immediate investigation by the academic community at large as the initial data presented is highly suggestive that these two documents share large portions of authorship.”
Cashill concludes by providing a link to a summary of what he calls his “literary detective work” to this point, and a second link to “one of the more user-friendly of the studies in pdf format” [link available at site].
Again, until I’m able to do a comparison of my own, I remain skeptical as to the conclusions that are being drawn from such proof. And that would hold true even if, as Cashill suggests, all the science shows a strong correlation between styles, cadences, word choice, sentence structuring, and any other number of factors taken into account by forensic semiotics.
And that is because the one thing Cashill consistently overlooks is, perhaps, the simplest explanation: Obama was heavily influenced, both stylistically and in terms of his professed ideology, by Ayers’ Fugitive Days.* [my timeline was quite off here; Obama may have been quite influenced by other pieces by Ayers, but FD hadn’t yet been written -ed]
Which is to say, it is possible that Obama’s book is derivative to the point of embarrassing, but it yet still may have been written entirely by him — the startling and frequent similarities being a function of Obama having internalized Ayers’ style and rhetorical tics, as well as occasionally “borrowing” a few of what he found to be the more powerful parts of speech and altering them slightly.
All of which would suggest Obama is a student of Ayers’ (something he has denied) and that he is (or at least was, at the time) incapable of producing anything authentic in his attempt to invent his public persona.
And from where I’m sitting, all of these charges, brought about by another explanation for the similarities in the Ayers and Obama tomes, are every bit as revealing: Obama may not have had his book ghostwritten. But it is possible, if the science is to be believed, that Obama had so internalized Ayers’ style — and was so taken by his method of argumentation and the force of his ideology — that he wrote a derivative work that, in a number of passages, bordered on plagiaristic.
Hardly what one would expect from someone who didn’t know of Ayers’ past, and who considered him “just some guy from the neighborhood.”
But can you blame him? I mean, Ayers is a pillar of the community! A friend of the mayor! Why, he’s a regular Eagle Scout, he is!
We need a merit badge for blowing shit up. Where’s serr8d?
Baracky has never demonstrated the attention span necessary to complete a project all by hisself. I remember he promised he’d serve out his Senate term but he was lying it turned out. He lies a lot. Most dirty socialists lie a lot I think but most of them don’t get to call people racists when they get called out on it so I think he lies more than usual.
Oh…chi-square testing. That’s something I do pretty much every day. I’d be extremely interested in how they applied this sort of quantitative analysis to literature. I use it in least-squares estimation.
I’d want to see the numbers, in other words. I don’t think I believe these claims without seeing the supporting work. And also, I think, because these claims would be extraordinarily convenient, if true.
Slartibartfast: here’s an overview of the field.
Aw, crap. Now I’m imagining this sometime in 2010:
President B. Jesus: “My followers, servants and supplicants, I appear before you now to announce that the time has come for me to evolve beyond the presidency and take my rightful place at the next level of existence: giving inane speeches for massive amounts of money, and collecting a huge advance on my third memoir without actually writing anything. Effective immediately, I am resigning as your president and savior, and Vice Savior Joseph Biden will succeed to this office. All hail and praise President Biden!”
…whereupon he is borne bodily through the ceiling of the Oval Office and into O! Force One to go collect his first multi-million-dollar speaking fee.
So, it’s like a catch-22 then?
Oh…chi-square testing. That’s something I do pretty much every day.
I’m reluctant to believe until I put it to the chi-latte test. That’s where I drink 10 chi-lattes and see if Obama’s dorky book still puts me to sleep.
Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics
Now that’s the missing TV spot. I’m tempted to do one of those captioned youtube videos everyone is having a lot of fun with. Maybe someone has already, I’m going over there now…
I’m familiar with Cashill from his years co-hosting “Friendly Fire”, which paired him with a Democrat discussing the issues of the day as an appetizer for Rush Limbaugh on KMBZ in KC.
He’s not a nutter. If he’s telling you that Ayers wrote substantial passages of Dreams and edited the entire book, he’s got very good reasons to believe so.
Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics
Which leads to the logical question – who is the executive producer in this little passion play?
The “who is pulling this guy’s strings” question has been arrived at via other avenues – most entertainingly so by Zo, with his latest YouTube effort. It’s worth a gander – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvc0tYG_YpA
And yeah, PC14 – it’s one of those videos. And it rocks.
“At the heart of my message is that Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics , a man who has been lip-synching for the last 13 years to lyrics pre-recorded by, among others, Bill Ayers…”
OH SNAP!…OH NO HE DI’INT CALL O! MILLI EFFIN’ VANILLI…
Who would have thought that O! is merely a figment of Ayers imagination; that it was Ayers who really crafted the narrative arc that is “The Story of O!“…
I guess that proves that you really can create something from nothing, after all!
Best Wishes…
And that is because the one thing Cashill consistently overlooks is, perhaps, the simplest explanation: Obama was heavily influenced, both stylistically and in terms of his professed ideology, by Ayers’ Fugitive Days.
That dog won’t hunt. As best I can tell from fifteen minutes searching the intertubes, ‘Dreams’ was published in 1995, six years before ‘Days’ was published.
Unless Obama was reading the galleys (which, as you point out, means that Ayers was way more than some guy living in the ‘hood to Obama), he couldn’t have been influenced by ‘Days’ before he wrote ‘Dreams’.
You have no idea what we’re talking about do you? Stupid germans.
Well, maybe I don’t … but I still wonder how Obama’s writing style would be influenced by *reading a book* that Ayers apparently hadn’t written yet.
IOW, it seems more likely that Ayers was a ghost writer, unless my dates are off.
oh. Sorry. I’m insanely grumpy today and all alone in the office with stupid phones ringing and I read you wrong and I shouldn’t have said that. Germans aren’t for real stupid either. Ok now I might be overcompensating.
It’s singular details and the totality of events and coincidences that convinced me, eventually, against a high mountain of skepticism, that Ayers had a big hand in Dreams. I dont’ demand anyone else come to the same conclusion, but I think after hard examination it’s the simplest explanation, and the likliest.
Ayers handed out his writing/editing/fixing services to many. O was his special project.
Germans make good cars, and I hear they invented beer.
Those Mini Coopers grew on me again, and I like the Smart ones more and more.
Again, sorry, Der Hahn person. I feel quite badly really.
Germans make good cars, and I hear they invented beer.
No, it was the Czechs. Or maybe they just, you know, helped out a little.
I was gonna go with occams razor, meaning that the one wannabe socialist presidential candidate’s book was probably just influenced by the other actual socialist terrorist’s book, but then Der Hahn has to go and screw that all up. Fuck it. Barry’s a jackass and more importantly a kindred spirit to the asshole, Ayers.
Writers tend to have specific “voices”. Read a lot of a one author’s work, and even if you stumble across something that author wrote under a pen name something will tickle your brain about its familiarity. I think the same might be said for people that spend a lot of time together. They can pick up each other’s habits and speech patterns. I don’t see any reason that Ayer’s couldn’t have had a hand in that book. Especially if Obama had never written one before. Wouldn’t you consult with someone you knew could help it be better?
Not stupid, just preternaturally efficient.
Also, kraut-loving. And beer-swilling.
And my forebears.
Dispositive as it is, the chronology doesn’t even matter. Ayers couldn’t have written Dreams. His personality is too strong to suppress and make himself look like the particular type of perpetual-adolescent drama queen who wrote that book. He’s a different kind, inflating his family trauma into world-historical necessity; Dreams does the opposite.
This isn’t about counting shit. Ayers is an asshole, not a whiny bitch, and he’s not literarily sophisticated enough to write exactly like one.
Read the damn book, or at least some longer-than-a-paragraph excerpts. The theme’s narrative support is too stagy to have been faked by a second party. If it were, there’d be an accidental ironic tip-off somewhere — or, at the very least, one humanly plausible anecdote that wasn’t completely resculpted in theme-illustrating bullshit.
There isn’t.
Ayers is a better writer (technically), and a better liar (his elisions don’t leave visible scars), yes. But he doesn’t show the insight onto himself (or anyone) and borderline-autistic discipline required to pretend to be a worse one. It’s a literary stunt so nearly impossible, I can’t think of a good example of it.
And Dreams is about the falsity of its own premise. I wouldn’t trust John Barth with that job, let alone some fake-intellectual silver-spoon-commie education/i professor.
This is all just retarded.
czechs didn’t invent beer, they invented the pilsner version of it. Beer is universally made by every culture as a means of purifying water.
Not sure if psycho is German happy, and I know that he is a highly respected commentator. I’d let him ghostwrite some of my comments even. But now would be a good time to snap all over him like you did poor Herr Hahn.
Boy. You mention beer and all the know-it-alls come out of the woodwork.
kidding
Pam Batshitcrazy over at Atlas Shrugs has the scoop on the real blockbuster scandal of this election season. Makes the Ayers ghostwriting story seem ho-hum. We are talking the real-deal-Holyfield of scandals, man. ZOMFG!!!1!!!!1!!!
I feel terrible. I wish Hahn person would come back so I can properly apologize. psycho feels very strongly about this but the chi square don’t lie. Baracky is the terrorist is Baracky. A funhouse mirror of dirty socialism.
Don’t feel bad happy. I think Hahn handled it like a true Rhinelander and you apologized with mucho aplomb. Everyone looks good and Barack is still a big chocolate snack cake loaded with empty calories and white filling to boot.
How in the heck do you get from socialist to terrorist, Happy? Even if Obama dug Ayers’ as the newfangled post-bomber, post-jewfro, annoying-liberal-activist-quasi-respectable-academic, that does not mean that Obama himself is down to get the letter bombing on.
Obama’s mama’s name was Stanley?
Bombing is so passé. Nowadays the cool thing is to take over from the inside, Lisa.
How in the heck do you get from socialist to terrorist
May I happy?
It’s easy Lisa. Picture an elderly lady in a pillbox hat going to caucus for Hillary in Iowa. She’s so excited about finally having a woman run for president after all these years. She gets to the caucus and just before she takes her place under the Clinton sign, Tupac and Nellie come up to her and say, “What the fuck do you think yo doin’ granny? You don’t want to get outta here alive? Obama sign’s over there.”
She was terrified.
Barack is still a big chocolate snack cake loaded with empty calories and white filling to boot.
That is why we like him. Most of us city girls haven’t experienced the delightful empty calorie goodness of snack cakes since….god knows when….I am sure McGuyver was still on TV (before the hateful Dr. Atkins).
Pictures Obama as a giant Hostess Cupcake. Mmmmmmm.
You have healthy appetites Lisa.
I would be terrified too if Tupac approached me at a caucus in Iowa. He probably looked and smelled really horrible since he as been dead for over 15 years.
And Nellie? Well she was a bitch wasn’t she. Until she got married. Then she and Laura were cool.
happy .. been there, and I see where I could have been clearer in the first post that I think Cashill isn’t ignoring a simpler explaination that Obama was influenced in writing ‘Dreams’ merely by reading ‘Fugitive Days’. That formulation just doesn’t make sense to me.
oh. Nevermind. I get Baracky mixed up with terrorists all the time and then I have to remember he’s just a dirty socialist what is going to turn our little country into a nation of mewling dependents like Venezuela done did. He’s not a tasty pastry I don’t think. He’s gonna hurt so many people. I feel like Holden Caulfield standing between the little children and the cliff but who am I kidding. I can’t save you none of you.
See Lisa? Why you gotta nitpick on my gangsta references? Duh, I was being racist. Hello.
Snack cakes taste good. But if you start depending on them, you turn into a big sloppy mass of laziness and the next thing you know your thigh has wrapped around the couch cushion and absorbed the naugahyde into your skin.
So don’t be too hasty in dismissing my Obama the Twinkie theory.
oh. Hi, Der Hahn. I’m glad you came back. I’m a lot more oriented X 3 now than I was. Personally I think that sort of textual analysis is probably fairly compelling evidence, from what I’ve learned of it in the past. But I also think that Baracky is a pretty blatant socialist and people shouldn’t need to know anything more than that to realize that he’s not really up to the job of being president of a nation that values free enterprise and individual liberty. Ok thanks Baracky and now let’s let Johnny tell you about your lovely parting gifts.
Well, he’s been dead for only 12 years, but he’d still be pretty gross. However, it would be very appropriate for Halloween. Plus, he’d send the outlaws to do his dirty work.
Snack cakes taste good. But if you start depending on them, you turn into a big sloppy mass of laziness and the next thing you know your thigh has wrapped around the couch cushion and absorbed the naugahyde into your skin.
That was fucking awesome. Even I, in my socialist o’bot-ness can’t deny that.
How in the heck do you get from socialist to terrorist, Happy?
Inevitability. Just ask Baader-Mienhof, the Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, etc.
tupac?
joe six-pack
generation slack
obama[quack]dr.[quack]feelgood[quack]
all my rowdy dance moves lack black
my tangents are back!
Nah, Ayers helped. He helped all his friends. Khalidi came over and spread his work out on the dining room table.
And Khalidi thanked him for it in his acknowlegments.
I’m thinking Ayers was fixer/editor. Helped shape the narrative. And BTW, ayers is a whiny bitch. Especially when he is speaking for his black brothers.
Gotta get ice for the ground-level fogger. And some batteries.
I have spiders and tombstones everywhere. Jeebus what was I thinking.
Jeffersonian: But the Canadians aren’t (except for that dirty bomb called Celine Dion that they sent over here in the 90s – hmmm…maybe you are right).
I am going to a party where you have to dress like some character from Harry Potter. I am going as Angelina Johnson, of course.
Accio beer!
Happy Halloween, PWers!
What’s a Harry Potter? [continues to stack ammo]
Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics
Girl, you know its true….ooo, oooo, oooo….
That didn’t work out too well for Rob Pilatus!
#28 Lisa:
I checked the link, and it is something I don’t really think is all that important. IIRC, colleges don’t take attendance, so attending one school and then flying to Hawaii to have the baby and then returning wouldn’t be out of the question. And social behavior regarding having children was different then.
But as a whole, I don’t think it is that important.
Speaking of misreading, where the hell is SEK?
Maybe he or Caric could tell us if “snack cake” is racist or not, perhaps comparing it with “socialist” and “skinny.”
That psycho guy is one smart motherfucker.
Der Hahn is right, I had the timeline off. Not that it matters. Obama had been following Ayers around for a bit, and they both drank from the same trough, in a sense.
But then, psycho is correct as well here: the similarities are likely a product of the game plan; the differences the result of each individual’s strengths on the field.
Barack’s strength seems to be that he can animate the artificial to the delight of those who are looking for that sort of thing. And he is the prime example of his own game. He is the ur stepford wife, in that sense — as well as the craftsman. And the men in town just love the way he does the dishes.
Dishes is what the washer is for. And after teflon pans are no big deal.
Now a woman that can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan…
after having killed the hog, butchered it, and cured the bacon…
THAT is the real deal.
Ah, but does she know about the new bacon-flavored mayonnaise?
Ayers is a better writer (technically), and a better liar (his elisions don’t leave visible scars), yes. But he doesn’t show the insight onto himself (or anyone) and borderline-autistic discipline required to pretend to be a worse one. It’s a literary stunt so nearly impossible, I can’t think of a good example of it.
I think you’re underestimating Ayers’ twisted psyche. He used a lot of ink in Fugitive Days patting himself on the back for his derring-do, outsmarting the FBI (so he says, I don’t think they had a clue where he was) in spy-vs-spy double-back, lookout, secret signal BS. And stealing ID’s, dead kids’ birth certificates, yada-yada. A regular criminal-mastermind.
Add that to what Ayers was in the mid-90’s: the father of three teenage sons, all most certainly in therapy (especially the adopted son of murderers, now being raised by bombers) — hell, they probably held daily group therapy sessions around that old dining room table. So he’s a psycho-babbling concerned father figure, but also a man on a mission, determined to gain some cred in the black community of the perpetually oppressed to further the classroom revolution, but not making much headway because of his obnoxious personality and whiteness.
Along comes Barack, with not much money, but a rep he’s gained as a sharp black community organizer with big ambitions, and he’s got a damn book he’s desperate to get into some kind of coherent form. He’s got lots of material on Africa and Chicago, but not so much about his life before that, and even less he really wants to tell about it.
.
The stars align, and both parasites feed off each other. They use the double-back, cross-over, fast-forward technique to pad the early years, and glue it all together with “theme illustrating bullshit” — race, oppression, race, white oppression, race. Rinse, repeat.
Happily sitting at that old dining room table, snacking on arugula and avoiding their tarantula mates, they construct a “stagey” pile of BS perfect for the Oprah crowd and the media, although neither group will make it past page 50 while they acclaim its transcendence.
Fairly soon, Ayers has $50 million to divvy up to activist toadies, and Barack gets to act like the benefactor to the perpetually oppressed, who, in return, will gladly work to get him elected, while Bill buys some respect.
#63 SBP:
Now that is a sandwich spread! I wonder how it will work with tuna?
Oh heck! Everything is better with bacon!
And I cook my bacon on the Foreman Grill, because it comes out crisp, flat, and the grease is drained away for easy disposal. Add one egg over medium and hash browns (or two pieces of toast with butter and orange marmalade) and that is a breakfast! A glass of milk and some orange juice and I am ready to go!
And cold milk. That is so gooooooood! I go through a couple of gallons of 1% a week.
Retard stir’er!
Yeah, I’ll go along with psycho, the retard poker’n dude.
Moreover I’ve questioned the ethics of the so-called ethical in academia as they, I feel, relate literary style and quality in prose to favored narratives, in other words, positive emotive messages (disgusting happy, shiny people and their self-satisfying twitchings). This topic has always gnawed at my preferred ideals of neutrality in one’s judgment.
Elizabeth Barret Browning versus Robert Browning, for example, obviously they fucked. But ye who can’t draw the quick conclusion of Robert as elevated in style while Elizabeth being, literally, not, is, in my opinion, swayed primarily in a analysis by the wetness of their panties. Soppy themes of love connect to a universal emotion, yes, yes, but the overwrought obviousness of this universality cheapens the poetic narrative. And, as in Elizabeth’s case, if that’s all you got, well, then you’re not good, can’t be, never should be thought of as. How then do they teach her shit side-by-side in period specific Lit without the salient caveat I described? Because it’s rude to be so honest, to boldly note that it took more talent to be Dostoyevsky than to be Dickens. Anyone who enjoys Elizabeth over Robert owns a man-pussy or a too easily slickened femme pussy. I’ll take the budding metaphor a step further. When that thing gets into trouble is when it’s open and oozing. Bacterial infections, viral infections, and all types of other unspeakable diseases are passed through that fleshy clam, but when and only when? When it’s open from want! Therefore any poem or overly dramatic passage meant to inflame the florid birth crack in gender specific loins is by default a tad disgusting. It’s all a great big stinking Milli-Vinillish crime of literary correctness, which, by correctness’s viral nature, means this critical literary oversight is an extension of its political counterpart.
In summary, Elizabeth Browning fuckin’ sucks. Her only deserved positive footnote should be that she was the first female in the Victorian era to earn mass readership, meaning she’s Dickensian on that level but that’s the only reason for her notoriety. She’s worth noting, but not worth reading. Lo, she did have sex with a dude who is worth reading, his name is Robert. Read him. Bowling ball her – finger the pages before rightfully-thoughtfully tossing her poems into the gutter. Then, for God’s sakes, wash your Goddamn hands with pumice.
No, by Barack’s own words, they don’t drink from the same trough. Barack grew up with a Mom who thought herself a 60’s radical. He was never intimidated or auto-repulsed, as you are, to persons simply because of their self-perceived radicalism. Like birds do not always nest together, and I think that’s your overarching cliche-driven implication, and a cheap politically expedient one, I might add.
In your eyes Barack Obama’s great crime is that he should have spit in the face of all those radicals by rote of right-wing prejudice. As I’ve said before, in the real world, you don’t do such, I don’t do such, and nobody of any intellectual rigor goes around taking swings at persons merely because of their politics. To disagree with a other is not a total rejection of the others rights to see things as the see fit nor a out-right rejection of their tangential talents.
Smart and wrong.
THor, I don’t know how he could have unlearned the teachings of childhood, except by being exposed to better ideas. And he had the misfortunate inclination towards those who only reinforced the bad ideas he already had. And yes, you take swings at the fatuous and dangerous politics of those who would be president. ‘Cause those politics need knocking down.
nobody of any intellectual rigor goes around taking swings at persons merely because of their politics.
Glad I didn’t have a drink in my mouth right then.
In all this affair on the authorship of Dreams of My Father, I have been singularly struck by the dog that didn’t bark. Here’s what I mean. The alleged similarities of themes and phraseology between Ayer’s, memoir, Fugitive Days, and Obama’s memoir, Dreams of my Father, take on real significance only against this baseline assumption:
Cashin: “[A]ll the Obama [writing] samples we have unearthed before 1995 [the year Dreams of My Father was published] are pedestrian and uninspired. There is no precedent for this kind of literary transformation.â€Â
If “there is no precedent for this kind of literary transformation,†then we must be prepared to entertain the thesis that Obama couldn’t have written his memoir. The so-called Ayers-Obama “similarities†unearthed by Cashin’s textual analysis then loom large.
But here is the dog that didn’t bark. After Dreams of My Father, Obama wrote another book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. It will never achieve immortality as a literary masterpiece but it is a fluent, well-organized, and cogent discussion of Obama’s experience in the Senate and his take on a number of contentious issues that vex political discussion (e. g., the nature of Constitutional Interpretation). Now, if Obama could write only pedestrian and uninspired short pieces before 1995, how is it possible that a decade later he writes a quite credible memoir-cum-policy analysis? Who wrote it if not Obama? Has Cashin done a textual analysis of it? The fact is, if we can credit Obama with writing Audacity of Hope, we can credit him with writing Dreams of My Father, and that credit has to be defeated either by (a) Cashin producing the real author of Audacity of Hope or (b) Cashin showing how between 1995 and 2005, but not before, Obama really did transform himself into a quite credible writer.
The author of this blog, Jeff G., is willing to concede that Obama might actually have written Dreams of My Father, all the alleged thematic and stylistic similarities between Dreams and Fugitive Days showing only that Obama had so deeply absorbed Ayres’ “method of argumentation and the force of his ideology†that his book was derivative. Again, what makes this speculation a little less than compelling is the dog that didn’t bark. I would like to see Jeff demonstrate textually the similarities between Obama’s moderate, let’s-see-both-sides-of-the-issues, we-can-really-solve-some-of-America’s-problems-by appealing-to-common-sense-and-common-values treatise, on the one hand, and the loony Left, hard-edged, frozen-in-the-sixties-ideology Ayers still holds onto, on the other.
No, your illusions and false perceptions need to be hit with roundhouses.
You can wail big-time uppercuts on politics of post-modernism within the genre of post-modern, take Tom Stoppard as an example, or Mikhail Bulgakov, speaking of his textual styling not of his life. You do not have to slither into a nest of personalized attacks against writers you disagree with politically.
One thing that you come away with in reading Obama is that he was very self-aware and reflective early on in his youth. He is a man capable of many angles and viewpoints. He was not pre-programmed, as are far too many so-called Christians.
#28 Lisa:
One last – either which way, Sen. Obama’s mother was a US citizen and he was born in the US.
End of discussion, really.
The mayfly has many mommy issues.
Careful with that one ladies – it seems that he sees you as either a tool or a problem, and a used-tool is just a problem.
No empathy in that one at all. I don’t wonder he goes from career to career so often.
I write different when I’m writing for a bunch of retarded bitter clingers than when I’m talking about how much I love being a dirty socialist and how it feels so good I even quit doing cocaine so darn much and learned to have normal sexual relations with a woman without screaming mommy when I done my business which for years had been my policeh.
It’s not their “radicalism” that makes them repulsive. It’s their reveling in murder, their bloodlust, their regrets they didn’t kill more.
His experience in the Senate? What is it, one of those books of blank pages? Is it the size of a Chick tract?
I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of gummy spiders when I read Happyfeet’s comment. That last bit would have been spiders everywhere.
books of my ute
see dick
run jane
run faster jane
the kenyans guide to the great lakes fickle finger of fate fun run[ok-i made that one up]
judy-janey-judy-janey[the archibald cox grant$$$$]
bullwinkle-the true story of the astro-physics behind the ears that won the war on terrorism[i made that up too-i’m a clever-mo!]
archie leach/wally cox
i get them confused
archie costello / wally ward
same problem.
Can you believe this? Caught him practicing his inaugural address.
Gotta hand it to him. Guy does make a good speech
veronica
angels w/big feet stole my ballet shoes and ..
shoo fly-shoo
wally-the green monster!
confession-i like to twirl…
and the twirly-est place be the saint-of mo.[arch]
every time i twirl-my enemy[arch]
unties my shoes..
question..velcro?
or non slippy slippers
velcro takes effort
slip-e-fides..not much…
if i greet u at a wal-mart
humor me..
don’t u dare look at my foot
i’m going 4 the 4 post post
[ding-ding]
tweedely deetly deet
tweedley deet dee
tweedly deedly deet
tweedle deet dee
i win!
[but i’m cryin-inside]
If anything, Cashill is being too cautious.
We do not need computer programs to analyze music or writing. It requires significant talent to even immitate either one well, and Obama has demonstrated he is a stiff on many occasions. And, it pains me to say Ayers is a good writer.
Obama, as a Harvard Law student or mysterious U of Chicago professor, has committed absolutely nothing to paper. All people who write well are proud of it and can barely be stopped from doing more.
Obama undoubedly writes no better that he speaks without teleprompted or memorized materiel of others.
One more curiosity, unrelated. There has never been a President or Presidential candidate that smirked, until Al Gore, and now Obama. There have been a few poor to middling men on the way, but none so smug to do that. Whatever is happening is escalating.
One thing that you come away with in reading Obama is that he was very self-aware and reflective early on in his youth. He is a man capable of many angles and viewpoints.
Like all the different angles of being one’s brothers keeper, for instance.
Context, perspective, nuance, you cudlips are incapable of understanding.
Boy. You mention beer and all the know-it-alls come out of the woodwork.
http://tinyurl.com/2jqola
;-)
I propose the second ghostwriter theory. There was a ghostwriter, but it wasn’t Ayers. It was someone who influenced or was influenced by Ayers. Analysis of this writer would show a closer correlation than Ayers. Just a logical possibility. What seems clear, is that there is a ghostwriter.
The only thing we knew about pdbuttons [Henry Potter] was that his name was not pdbuttons [Henry Potter], and dat he liked him some music from the 60’s, twiddly twiddly dee, tweet tweet. – Bobby Day, RR.
Push dose buttons, pd. You can’t stop now. You’ve got your pride. – “Keep On Pushing”
I don’t know how he could have unlearned the teachings of childhood, except by being exposed to better ideas. And he had the misfortunate inclination towards those who only reinforced the bad ideas he already had. And yes, you take swings at the fatuous and dangerous politics of those who would be president. ‘Cause those politics need knocking down.
Barack Obama is a liberal (you may call that a socialist – fine with me) his ideas are decidely liberal, as is his background of being an advocate for poor folks in the hood. I respect any conservative who says they simply can’t abide even the smallest bit of support for such a man – because obviously a conservative would find many, if not all of his proposals utterly ridiculous. But I just can’t take seriously the desperate search for a reason to HATE him and make him the enemy, the other, the monster who will steal your babies, bomb your home, and appoint Osama Bin Laden as national security advisor. It is funny, and a complete replication of what my side was doing in the run-up to the 2000 election. It seems that Bush Derangement Syndrome has mutated into Barack Derangement Syndrome. What a resilient virus!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but BDS is a virus that won’t go away until it finds a more receptive host in 4-8 years*. I suggest you drink lots of fluids (single malt) and take your vitamin V (valium) every 4-6 hours. It won’t get rid of it but it will make you more comfortable.
*There is a strong possibility that it could mutate on 11/4/08 into MDS/PDS in which case you will be instantly innoculated.
Heh. Up there on the grassy knoll! Is that a typewriter I see peaking through the foliage!? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Just wait and watch what happens when Obama comes off the ice.
Haha. Hahahaha. Haha.
Lisa, from my vantage point it seems you are willfully blinkered to the parts that make Obama’s sum. Do your crossfeet and checksums and his politics speak for themselves. I do in fact see him as an existential threat to self-government and individual liberty. Whether he means well is hardly relevant.
And BTW, his advocacy efforts have brought ruin into the communities he has given all the energy his fine ideas have to offer.
He wasted huge sums of money to advance himself, and his ideas, but helped no one.
Baracky knows he’s not ready to be no president. People who are for real about serving their country as president do things for it first. They have accomplishments. They accomplish stuff all on their own not just save it up and say hey when I’m president then maybe I’ll get off my ass and make some shit happen.
Lisa, are you referring to the Barack Obama who is running for President? The Communist, the terrorist pall’r arounder, the writer of ghost written books, the Socialist, the Jew-hater, the Christian-hater, the Whitey hater, the hater of babies, the lover of dictators, the invention of the mainstream media, the fake birth certificate boy, the affirmative action hero, the Marxist, the un-American Chicago pol, the spiritual leader of ACORN, the black community organizer, the anti-Reagan, the Black Marxian Theologian, the Kenyan love child, the man who personally caused FNMA to fail, and the man who’ll lead throngs of marriage certificate waving homosexuals into the fertile Red State deltas?
That one?
Plus which Lisa, I think it’s clear Obama wants to be understood as a Progressive, not as a Liberal. Which is better, really, as the conventional usage “liberal” is anything but liberal as to freedom and free behavior, but is actually illiberal, insofar as it is confiscatory, making free use for itself with other people’s property, what used to be called “taking” in governing contexts or stealing in private contexts. Moreover, we see in the personal behavior of many (not all) so-called liberals a stinginess with their own property (see as examples the Biden, Obama charitable records, as well as recent studies of the population as a whole), where again, they pretend to be virtuous as they take from one class and (inefficiently) give to another.
And yet,Lisa, when he was aforded the oportunity to improve the lives of poor folk, in his hood, he was woefully unproductive. His district remains as poor if not pooer for his tenure in office.
Don’t presume to direct me how to dig a hole if you don’t know what a shovel is.
That one?
You forgot “illegal alien relatives who are collecting welfare benefits and making felonious campaign contributions while in defiance of a deportation order”.
Yeah, that one.
“Woefully unproductive,” else they’d all be get rich, talk white and vote Republican. Don’t you see! Obama can’t make poor people rich! Improving lives is horsepucks. Poor folk ain’t like rich folk, no matter what! They are poor, if not poorer!
Lisa, close your eyes. Imagine you’re poor. Now open ’em. Can you see how you can never be like that and then be like this? In that district they’ll never be this district, and that’s Obama’s district. Look at ’em, all poor! Can they read? Can they write? They can’t afford words and things like you and me. They are poor. Un-American and poor.
No for real Baracky never did accomplish much in his life. Not that anyone’s been able to point to. He couldn’t even fulfill his promise to serve out his term in the Senate. I think he’s mostly just a media creation. Like the Dell Dude was. He got fired cause of he smoked pot all the time and now he works at a restaurant in NY where you can get tasty quesadillas.
I bet Obama’s aunt is going to vote. ACORN signed her up and showed her how to game that system, baby.
Woohoo!
Obama’s aunt’s vote is going to cross out sPies vote making it as worthless as a counterfeit Bible.
I wonder how it affects your worldview when you come from an illegal immigrant on-welfare family? That’s not in my background at all. I bet if that was me I sure wouldn’t be same as I am today. Maybe it would be similar but I would wear cool Sean John stuff and have a big car payment and watch a lot more tv. Maybe even The Daily Show.
I don’t know if auntie is registered to vote, but I don’t think my first reaction at finding this to be the case would be surprise.
Dell dude
heh.
And then Jon Stewart didn’t even say nothing he just made a face and everybody laughs you have to see it I’ll send you a link. Sarah Palin is so stoooooopid.
Assuming both books were written by the same person, does this necessarily point to Ayers? Isn’t it also possible that Obama and Ayers shared the same ghostwriter?
Eric, since Ayers is a prolific author who helps other people write stuff, it’s hardly likely.
ghost-riders in the sky…
[i’m air-guitaring rite now]
as is my right laid out in one of those parchments..
pursuit of happy?
yippie -kai-yo..
hippie 3 pronged stab ya
yippie -kai yay..
hippie-dippy weatherman…
4 years of fuck
#105
Nope. The “o”s auntie is going to be escorted out. But don’t worry braindeadthor. The “o” is gonna take care of you just like he has his family.
Trust fund; Just enough money to keep you on booze and crystal meth.
Thor dude, haven’t you heard? According to Pam Oshry (Oshry being Hebrew for Batshitcrazy), he is the love child of Malcom-X – the Kenyan Marxist father was just a cover-up. LMAO!!!! Please god let them keep going in that direction. That is fucking awesome.
Oh and yes Thor, being poor is deeply un-American. I heard Mr. Morton talking about how he was not going to waste our hard-earned American dollars on programs for the poor or the lazy fuckers in the working class, he was going to continue wasting it in Iraq and possibly Iran – a billion dollars a day on that doesn’t count as it is taken care of by the War Faerie who sprinkles gold and the tears of baby Jesus on the budget and makes it all balance perfectly.
I wonder how it affects your worldview when you come from an illegal immigrant on-welfare family? That’s not in my background at all. I bet if that was me I sure wouldn’t be same as I am today. Maybe it would be similar but I would wear cool Sean John stuff and have a big car payment and watch a lot more tv. Maybe even The Daily Show.
He probably feels the same discomfort you feel when your people come and park their trailer on your lawn for their Annual Holiday Visit/Beaver Roast.
Thor’s never been “poor” in his life, Lisa.
His experience with the “poor” has been limited to hiring destitute Russian girls to clean his house and provide sexual favors. He even bragged about it on here.
His experience with the “poor†has been limited to hiring destitute Russian girls to clean his house and provide sexual favors. He even bragged about it on here.
OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep, he had quite a time when he was in Russia, our thorboi.
Here you go, Lisa.
Someday when I have more time I’ll tell you all about Victoria, she was Oleg’s and I’s live-in maid who we alternated boning when she wasn’t cleaning and cooking. We rescued her from the whore line down at the Dynamo perahood and made an honest two-timing house slave out of her. And she liked it! She really liked it! What more could a 19-year-old village slut ask for than two employed assholes and a klossney pad with a refrigerator full of beer and vodka? Funniest thing was what our Russian girlfriends said about little Vic – not a fuckin’ thing. I miss that place.
Pure class, that thor.
Pure class.
Jeez I was trying to be empathetic Lisa and see life from another point of view you don’t have to be sarcastic why you wanna be like that?
I wonder if they make beaver eggrolls.
sure beats the hell out of my ‘porn’ room
i mean-i really like the fact that ur wide[provider of shade]
and u’ve waited in the toilet paper line so long
but honey/now i gots money
and i need to get laid [19 yr old style]
turtle style
box turtle?
not those smelly purty turts that require
water[faux-queeriums]
half water/half half’n’half
stinky…
i haven’t a clue about guns
but box turtles curdle my way
cuddle my way
they don’t smell. if they smell you’re doing it wrong … mostly those ones are called sliders
hey..
i just like a turtle i can put on the ground and kinda watch
no-water/no peas
no fructose
no justice…
kinda like a slow pug
w/out the shed
Never believe a man when he tells you he is banging a “greatful” 18 teenage Russian whore. He is likely really banging a Honduran transexual named Guano (who charges $75 and a gram of crack per half hour).
greatful = grateful
#129
I don’t even wanna know how you know that.
I have two of the water ones. Gapagus is the alpha turtle and darwins is the beta. They don’t smell but that’s mostly cause they live in the bathtub when I’m not using it so they get lots of fresh water all day and they only do the faux-queerium on the balcony when I out them out to bask. Worst that ever gets is it smells like a pond but I think the algae helps absorb and break down the stuff that would end up smelling bad. Green algae good … brown algae stinks and if that takes over you have to dumb and scrub but that hardly ever happens. I haven’t tried peas that’s a good idea. Mostly they live on something called “trout chow” I get from this very zealous pet store in Burbank. The kind where they have half the animals not for sale for some reason or other and they always want you to chip in to buy an artificial leg for some hapless schnauzer and they have a whole wall of have you seen my cat.
oh. *put* them out to bask. That’s my favorite part. It’s very zen.
Never believe a man when he tells you he is banging
Fact or brag, it says rather a lot about thor’s character, I think.
turts power hour-how cool
box turts are more expensive but they’re soo low mainteniece
which is my selling point
i’m kinda busy/so all that green algae/brown algae shit makes my cross-eyeds glaze….
i hear you
just the smelly shit i hate/
they are prettier though [water turts]
good moves quick but evil moves faster than light … shining from your illumination … good vs. evil equals confrontation
oh. That glazey part should have been *dump* and scrub … just so we’re clear
Actually, I think Vic was more in the 20 to 25 range. I can’t remember, can’t even remember if I ever asked. She was nice, and not just to look at. Loved to recite Pushkin before a toast of chilled vodka raised high.
She kept us off the street. We returned the favor.
When love doesn’t draw the lines, nor fascist Christian bigotry, oft times there exists freedom for honest pleasures, simple and pure. Beautiful young woman, Vic; treat her right and you could shoot an apple of her head.
of = off
I knew what you meant. Scattered pikchers and all that. I’m feeling it.
Actually, I think Vic was more in the 20 to 25 range.
Actually, I think you’re a lying, amoral shitstain.
Class, thor.
Pure class.
That’s because you, like your boyfriend Serr8d, are a fuckin’ country-fried cow turd, sPies. Negroes and Commies manifest the evil in your sexually repressed machinations.
Obama is a Commie. FNMA collapsed because them poor Negroes didn’t pay their bills. Ain’t that right, chowder-slurp.
Shouldn’t you be planning your next vacation to some country with starving refugees, thor? Granted, ones desperate enough to service your tiny cock without laughing in your face are rare, but there are always a few. Things are pretty rough in Darfur and Georgia at the moment — plenty of opportunities there for sexual abuse and slavery.
You strike me as the kind of guy who pays whores to shit in your mouth, thor. Probably while you’re wearing a diaper and being beaten with a riding crop.
You strike me as the kind of guy who pays underage Christian boys to go pee-pee in your butt while you eat wet feces from a doggie bowl.
Too bad a poor piece of illiterate white trash like you can’t afford to visit Moscow. You could use the education.
This is the sort of thing we don’t want when we have company.
What? People who buy starving Russian girls and chortle about sexually abusing them?
I agree.
I just mean MayBee is visiting so ixnay on the wet fecesnay is all.
For real? I must have missed her. Hi, Maybee!
Is that a typewriter I see peaking through the foliage!?
Looka look, look yonder
What’s there I see
A great big Typewriter
Standing there in front of me
But I’ve got my pride
Move on aside
Keep on Pushing
i wore a blue helmet once
measured my puss by the ounce
the tale of the tape..
could not measure my rape..
it’s my culture you see
it hurts when i pee
float like a butt-fly
stink like a bee
Poor wittle capitalist sPies, even part-time Russian maids make more gold coins than him. Not to mention they enjoy way more good hard sex than our repressed Redumblican chortle-slurper. Your American existence sort’a sucks, or blows, or something, sPies.
In other words, pdbuttons:
What you say man
Quit mumblin
And talk out loud
Bo Diddly. I’m sorry.
Bets that thor has ever had sex without paying for it?
Seems like the button pushers don’t even know how to do that, either.
i wore a blue helmet once
measured my puss by the ounce
the tale of the tape..
could not measure my rape..
it’s my culture you see
it hurts when i pee
float like a butt-fly
stink like a bee
Oh, poor baby.
Before you accuse me
Take a look at yourself – Bo Diddly
You Cracking Up
– Bo Diddly
Moreover, Bo Diddly’s a Gunslinger. Yeah, all right. Sure nuff. All right.
Without, that is, “Feeding The Fire”.
OOoooo. Thor is braggin again. Somebody pissed the little boy off.
Could it be that thor has realized that the presidential race is going to be closer than he thought? Is thor sweating? Why. I believe he is. Could it be he has doubts about his savior? His faith shaken because his god has assumed human form and can’t turn back?
Ah. Obama! The spirit that ever denies.
Will thor be destined to forever be captain of Das Toiletenboot?
Tune in tomorrow.
I am on my third wife, so you could say I’ve paid for a lot of it. Of course a little wanged wingered meat beater like you only has to pay for a Bible to cling to with your free hand when you jack’up God-style, but not me. I’m into that hetero coital coupling scene. The thing about living in Russia and having a live-in Russian maid or hopping off to the village banya is that, even then, the dyevs have to dig ya or they won’t let you bang ’em.
A guy like you is sort’a out of luck every which way swing your bait worm.
Greasin’ up for your Obama butterin’, Rusty? Good for you. It’s going to hurt.
#160
Son. If you got to talk about it, you ain’t got it. And, son, all you got is talk.
I get from this very zealous pet store in Burbank. The kind where they have half the animals not for sale for some reason or other and they always want you to chip in to buy an artificial leg for some hapless schnauzer and they have a whole wall of have you seen my cat.
Feets just made my morning. Again.
[…] You all may remember when Jeff G first presented, with no personal conclusion at the time, Cashill’s investigation into whether or not Ayer’s ghost-wrote Obama’s Dreams. It created quite a stir and a follow-up post. […]