Consider the following as an intellectual endeavor: how does a mediocre writer produce a graceful, lyrical, poetic, best-ever memoir....
Or does he? Jack Cashill reveals the impossibility of such. Agree or not, it is more than passing interesting.
1. “Dream From My Father” was designed not to make Obama President of the United States, but rather to make Obama the mayor of Chicago, a position that would have done Ayers a world of good.
2. Bill Ayers is an extremely talented writer. The questions, then, are who wrote the book, and is the story true?
3. Now then,
do we find the literary background or predicate for the for the kind of grace and style of “Dreams” in prior samples of Obama’s work? Is there evidence of a dedication to the craft that might produce “Dreams”?
a. In “The Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell clearly defines the elements of success in a given field as a combination of talent and practice, constant practice, and not a particularly high I.Q. He calls it the
“Ten Thousand Hour Rule,” and gives many examples such as the Beatles, Charlie Parker, Mozart, Bill Gates, and himself, a professional writer.
b. Christopher Hitchens, in his memoir,
speaks of constant writing to hone his talent.
c. Frank Marshall Davis wrote about his efforts to improve as a writer, and his ‘journalitis”
4.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, has only one mention that encompasses his attempts at writing in “Dreams,” ‘I made some journal entries and wrote some very bad poetry.’ That’s it.
5. Seeing
samples of his writing prior to “Dreams,” I found an article that he wrote for the Columbia Sundial as a 23-year-old senior, in 1983. The article was called “Breaking the War Mentality,” and in the 1800 word essay there were five
sentences in which the noun, the subject of the sentence, didnÂ’t agree with the verb.
a. One example: “The very real ADVANTAGES of concentrating on a single issue IS leading the national freeze movement to challenge individual missile systems while continuing the broader campaign.” Of course, it should read “The very real advantages …ARE,” and one wonders about the structure of a sentence in which ‘advantages’ are ‘leading.’
b. This is a senior at AmericaÂ’s
best college, one who spent the prior eight years in
HawaiiÂ’s best prep school. One would expect his writing skills at this point to be at 90% of the best it would ever be!
6. In 1988, we find
a second example of his writing, an article called “Why Organize?” appearing in a book called “After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.” Once again, nouns and subjects which don’t agree, awkward, disjointed sentences, leaden rather than flowing.
a. An example” “Facing these realities, at least three major strands of earlier movements are apparent.” Note, “Facing these realities…” modifies nothing. And ‘strands’ do not ‘face reality.’
b. It is interesting that there seems to be only one copy of the book, by a sitting President, and the asking price is $150. Someone knows what they have there.
7. In 1990, he wrote an unsigned
casenote at Harvard, “Suits by a fetus against third parties provide an additional deterrent to unwanted intrusions on a woman’s bodily integrity.” You be the judge, stylistically
smooth and graceful, or awkward and leaden?
a. Note that it states that if an unwanted child could sue its mother, or the abortionist, it would restrict the ability of the mother to kill an unwanted child.
b. Curious, also, in that it represents the only time in recent history that Democrats have not chosen to expand tort rights, in this case, to the unborn.
c. 1990 was the same year that Mr. Obama was honored with the affirmative action position of
president of the Harvard Law Review.
8. As a result of the story of his accession to presidency of the Harvard Law Review, a NY literary agent, Jane Dystel, gets him to write a proposal for a book, which she takes to Simon and Schuster. The result is a $125,000 advance, with an agreement to finish the book in 18 months.
a. But, since
Obama is not a writer, he does what people always do when faced with a challenge they canÂ’t accomplish: he procrastinates. He takes on various responsibilities, other than the writing.
b. But, in 1995, after Simon and Schuster cancels his contract, and Dystel manages to get him a smaller contract, and with no time on his schedule,
he manages to sit down and write a 440-page masterpiece, that Time magazine calls “the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician.” The Fresh Face - TIME
c. “…distinguished intellectual historian James Kloppenberg, chair of the Harvard history department. Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition… “
the most substantial books written by anyone elected President of the United States since Woodrow Wilson.”
Barack Obama, Intellectual - PageView - The Chronicle of Higher Education
d. Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times, described it as "
the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president." The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19read.html?_r=1&hp.
The above from “Deconstructing Obama,” by Jack Cashill
Lecture can be found at
Search - C-SPAN Video Library
So, do we agree? The authorship is fraudulent, as is his presidency.
