Now, we see this about "Dr Peter Millican, a philosophy don at Hertford College, Oxford, [who] has devised a computer software program that can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases." He's been contacted by "Robert Fox, a California businessman and brother-in-law of Chris Cannon, a Republican congressman from Utah" about running the test on Obama's book and Ayers's.
“He was entirely upfront about this. He offered me $10,000 and sent me electronic versions of the text from both books.” [Millican said.]I find it hard to believe that if Millican had the digital files that he could resist running them through his computer program out of sheer curiosity. I wonder what "took a preliminary look" means. You have a program and you have the digital files. I don't quite understand. But Millican makes it sound like Cannon and Fox backed out when they thought the news would probably be that Ayers is not the ghostwriter and that the public would be told. But that's what nearly everyone already thinks, and Millican has essentially gone ahead and told us so.
Millican took a preliminary look and found the charges “very implausible”. A deal was agreed for more detailed research but when Millican said the results had to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.
Millican said: “I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positive result. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a few crude similarities and go overboard on them.” He said Fox gave him the impression that Cannon had got “cold feet about it being seen to be funded by the Republicans”.
Why didn't Cannon and Fox strike a deal with Millican before sending him the digital files? Then Millican wouldn't have had his own knowledge of the results (preliminary or not) when negotiating. Why would Cannon and Fox care about suppressing the information if it turns out to be what people expect when they could have had Millican obliged to vouch for the result if it happened to be what they were hoping for?
Cannon insisted, however, that he was not interested in making an issue of Obama’s memoir “even if it were scientifically proven” to be someone else’s work.Huh? If there's one thing in this whole story that reeks of lying, it's that. Cannon and Fox -- what bumblers!
IN THE COMMENTS: Larry says, "This may well have been the most wingnutty, wingnut idea of this election." Oh, I don't know. There's this.
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49 comments:
This may well have been the most wingnutty, wingnut idea of this election.
Heck - why didn't they just speculate that Osama Bin Laden wrote it? After all - they practically have the same names.
"After all - they practically have the same names."
bin Laden's middle name is Hussein?
It's somebody else's dream.
That's a Woody Allen line, almost.
As Woody is facing death, his life flashes before his eyes - descripton here, including cooking up a mess o' catfish - and he realizes that it's not his life.
My take on this (my spin) is the given the thin bio that is Obama some people start making things up - fill in the gaps as were.
I don't blame them (of course) but people are entitled to draw their own conclusions.
Obama's Dreams Of My Father was written while on a mushroom high ;)
Hopefully people wont be prosecuted for saying outlandish things - like Obama is a closet Muslim ;)
Isn't it possible that Obama had read one of Ayer's books before writing his own, and without even realizing it, incorporated a few of Ayer's images or turns-of-phrase into his own work? Isn't that the more plausible explanation?
Why would Obama even need a ghost writer?
This seems to be just one more silly distraction, like the birth certificate flap, probably initiated by the Democrats as a false-flag operation.
We're about to elect a hard-core socialist who crushes dissent with thuggery, fraud, and intimidation, (Ohio -- that's all I need to say), and who will be hell-bent on disarming the populace (he sat on the board of an anti-gun group that poured millions into flooding the zone with tailor-made legal briefs to give future courts bullshit precedent upon which to base antigun decisions), restricting free speech ("fairness doctrine"), and spreading the wealth to those who don't earn it, and we're worried about who wrote his book.
As for my mother.
I took her to a Mobile Art Channel thing (handbag) in Central Park and of course she knew about he anniversary of the handbag - but she didn't know about this exibit. of course she like it (it's channel, what's not to like)
http://tinyurl.com/6nzdxy
I was walking on air. Walking on air.
Hanna and her Sisters.
I'd love to know what makes somebody an "ex-terrorist". Would the same criteria apply to an "ex-abortion clinic bomber"?
And wouldn't a prerequisite to ex-ness be repentance? Some show of remorse seems a bare minimum.
Ayers is an inactive terrorist, at best.
Why would Obama even need a ghost writer?
Why would a ghost need a ghost?
That is one good (damned) question.
It is pretty nutty, but this sort of nuttiness is not surprising given how opaque Obama's backgound is. Obama is the least vetted candidate in deceades - the same press that sent whole platoons to dumpster dive in Wasilla, Alaska has been totally uninterested in what Obama got up to in his college years, basically just accepting what he wrote in his autobiographies at face value.
BTW - I've noticed in a palpable way that dinner with mother seems easier. maybe because we both gotten older. who knows.
I almost cought myself having a good time.
birkel - well, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols are ex-terrorists, but always because they are dead. The only real difference between Ayers and McVeigh is that the dumb ex-enlisted man was a lot more competent than the hyper-educated Ayers. Both decided that the US was on the wrong track, and that killing civillian Americans was part of the solution - the rest is just political semantics.
Millican may just be rooting for Obama and wanted no part in deconstructing him.
This may well have been the most wingnutty, wingnut idea of this election.
So, what would you say was the most moonbatty moonbat idea of this election? The pregnancy suit?
The only real difference between Ayers and McVeigh is that the dumb ex-enlisted man was a lot more competent than the hyper-educated Ayers.
a little morbid perhaps.
I find that when using the attribute, virtue ;) 'competence' in this way, a qualifier maybe in order.
Cannon is an idiot. He's a RINO, & was defeated by Chaffetz in the Primary. He was such a shill for amnesty and illegal immigration he was voted out despite the overwhelming support of Bush and the RNC.
This no doubt was an attempt to score points with McCain and the Republican establishment.
I disagree this was a nutty idea. Had been proven Obama had a ghost writer it'd hurt as image as the great intellectual.
JFK's books were all ghost written, had it been known in 1960 it might have cost him the presidency.
BTW - apparently my mother (for someone living in a banana republic) is very well damned informed about the election.
she told me that union members in Pennsylvania (PA is union country) fear an Obama presidency would mean less jobs. Affirmative action on steroids.
she says PA is not going to go Obama.
I never heard that anywhere. she said i should get out more often.
mothers say the darndest things.
I believe Lizzie Borden was an ex-murderer.
Ayers could have helped out only in parts of the book, so a computer analysis wouldn't prove anything.
Hmmmm.
Actually the most "wingnutty" thing would be if Obama promised to create a civilian national security force as big, as powerful and as well funded as the US military. Something that seems unnecessary considering the vast numbers of law enforcement officers and the fact that heavy artillery isn't generally needed except in Detroit.
Oh wait. He did promise that.
Babalu Blog
Whether or not Obama wrote one of his books ... irrelevant.
Whether or not Obama intends to create a separate paramilitary organization a la Cuba? Pretty damn relevant.
The Long March through the halls of power is a wingnutty idea? Tenured radicals in higher education don't exist?
This site has more on the analysis: http://www.philocomp.net/humanities/dreams
I'm not sure the point is to show, by liguistic comparison, that Bill Ayers fully "ghost wrote" the book. Lack of attribution is not the issue, it's the degree of associaton between the two men.
Suppose Ayers only collaborated with Obama on the draft?
The proponents claim includes circumstancial allegations. First, that Obama was bogged down by the draft, which appears corroberated. Second, that Ayers was known to invite young authors to work with him -- at his dining room table -- on new books. Third, that there was a gap in Ayer's production of books at that time. Finally, Obama blurbed Ayers' book.
For my satisfaction, what I haven't seen is where either Obama or Ayers has been asked, simply, what involvement, if any, the two men had in the project.
Has anyone seen that question asked of, or answered by, either of the two men?
Suppose Ayers only collaborated with Obama on the draft?
I meant to add that would be indicative a closer relationship than would a total outsourcing to a ghost-writer.
My favorite wingnutty conspiracy theory is the Michelle tapes in possession of African Press International.
More trouble in coal country for the Obama machine - apparently:
http://minx.cc/?post=277164
Lem - If your stock in trade is terrorism, then success is maeasured in body counts and terrorized survivors. By any metric, McVeigh was a far more competent bombmaker. And happily the death penatly had been resinstated in 1976, and McVeigh was properly executed in June 2001.
Ok, listen up, I'm telling you all this for your own good:
Conservatives - you know the feeling you sometimes get when you hear a liberal wingnut blame Bush for 9/11 - a sort of combination of nausea, confusion, and rage - and your eyes roll so far back into your head that you have to use an needle nose pliers to fish them back around again?
You know that feeling?
That's exactly the feeling that liberals - and moderates - experience when they hear stuff from the right like "Bill Ayers wrote Obama's book for him."
That's how stupid that idea is and how stupid you or anyone sounds when they promote it. It's about on par with "9/11 was an inside job."
1. Ayers and Obama don't even know each other that well. They live in the same city. They served on some nonprofit board together along with Republicans.
2. Obama graduated from Harvard Law and was a professor. He is highly educated and literate. And, having read his book, it isn't anything special. Pretty ordinary. Obama wouldn't have needed help to churn out a mediocre memoir.
3. If Obama DID want to have it ghostwritten ... Why the fuck would he give the job to Ayers of all people? Are you under the impression that Ayers is some kind of giant in literary circles? Nobody even thought of him as an "author" up until recently - he was an aging hippy terrorist who got off too easy but then reformed his ways and lives a life of relative obscurity... until the insanity of Campaign 2008 took notice.
4. Obama became a MILLIONAIRE off of the proceeds from his books. Not an exaggeration, he made a fortune. You're telling me that Ayers wouldn't want a piece of the action if he wrote the damn thing? That if he was paid off, there wouldn't be a paper trail? That he wouldn't sue for attribution and his royalties? Come on. You're Republicans, you're supposed to understand that everyone is intrinsically greedy.
5. "Ayers wrote Obama's book" is just a bizarre assertion with absolutely no solid evidence to back it. None. Not a witness, not a document, they weren't seen at Starbucks together typing away on their laptops... Nothing.
How about I say: While in captivity, McCain was brainwashed by the North Vietnamese and recruited as a spy. He has been funneling classified material to them for decades, which they then sell to the highest bidder (China, Russia). His goal is to become President and then surrender to Vietnam, handing them victory decades after the war ended.
I know this because: McCain was in Vietnam ... Specifically NORTH Vietnam during the war. By his own admission, he was tortured and subjected to extreme pyschological distress, and by his own admission he BROKE. While in office, McCain has taken a particular interest in NORMALIZING RELATIONS with Vietnam, and has even traveled there! Don't you see? It all adds up! McCain = Communist agent working for Vietnam.
... Yes, the whole Ayers and Obama infatuation sounds THAT DUMB. Do yourselves a favor: address the issues, even if its just abortion and gay marriage, at least you have an argument to make there. Ayers is a washed up nobody and it's an embarrasment to the GOP that he keeps getting brought up in lieu of actual debate on policy.
"Do yourselves a favor: address the issues, even if its just abortion and gay marriage, at least you have an argument to make there. Ayers is a washed up nobody and it's an embarrasment to the GOP that he keeps getting brought up in lieu of actual debate on policy."
Yes, that's what you'd like everyone to do, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain", isn't it?
Well, win or lose, Obama's going t have the curtain pulled wide open one of these days and we'll see who's pulling the levers.
Saying 9/11 was perpetrated by our own government is much worse than saying Obama's writing sounds like Bill Ayers writing.
It may be crazy to say Bill Ayers wrote obama's book - or helped him write it, but it's not on par with leftwingnut 9/11 inside job insanity.
There are degrees of nuttiness.
Wait, why is this wingnutty?
Certainly not the idea that a guy with no writing history to speak of--in fact, a deficit of writing for his resumé--who failed to produce his book for years, finally decided to pay someone to write it for him.
Because of the idea that Ayers wrote it for him? Why? Argue there's no proof, sure, I'd agree--though it'd be easy enough to locate the actual ghostwriter, wouldn't it? (But we can't give the game away that BHO didn't write it.)
As for the program, it should be easy enough to make available for others to test and analyze the numbers.
If you care.
For me, the most wingnutty thing has been the idea that Obama's not a "natural born American" and therefore not eligible for the Presidency.
Oh, and I think the latest notion--that he didn't actually go to Columbia--is pretty wild.
I just finished reading Obama's "Dreams of My Father" and just started reading Bill Ayers memoir of the bombing life, "Fugitive Days." They are strikingly different in tone. "Dreams" seems to have been written by a gifted amateur. "Fugitive Days" seems to have been written a quite competent professional writer.
Among other things, the transitions in "Dreams" are quite awkward. The author will begin a scene with dialogue between two people and then go off on a riff on something for two pages and then abruptly return to the two people talking without preparing us. It's amateurish. We know what the writer is trying to do. He just doesn't know how to carry it off. He does the same thing with new chapters. He doesn't prepare the reader in any way for the subject of the new chapter. He just starts in on a new chapter that leaves you saying "huh!"
Finally there is a cloying quality to Obama's book and continual racial anguish, as well as a vague sense that he's not being completely honest. He provides us with the full back-and-forth dialogue from conversations that he had with someone 20 years previously, along with observations on the other person's mannerisms, such as his moving his fork or adjusting his eyeglasses. It may be artistic license but it's not convincing. Finally, the reconstructed dialogue is awkward. It just doesn't sound like normal people talking.Reading his attempts at black dialect I would agree with those blacks who supported Clinton on the grounds that Obama wasn't "black enough."
Ayer's book on the other hand is much more convincing. I don't have much sympathy with Ayers but I must say "Fugitive Days" is a brisk, cleanly written book, with powerful vivid sentences and no sense of hidden adgenda (his agenda is right out there in front of us. He wants to explain why he did what he did.)
Also, unlike Obama, he does not attempt to magically supply us with the actual dialogue from conversations he had years ago. Instead he uses paraphrase which is certainly more honest and feels more effective as well.
Conclusion: Ayers didn't write Obama's book. If he had, it would be much better written.
ducany wrote:
"Dreams" seems to have been written by a gifted amateur. "Fugitive Days" seems to have been written a quite competent professional writer.
Yikes, whether or not Ayers wrote Dreams, don't tell Christopher Buckley.
Either way, he'll have to endorse Ayers for president!
From what I've read, Ayers is a hell of a lot smarter than Obama.
As a few other commentators have noted, surely the Sarah Palin fake pregnancy theory is a lot more wingnutty than the Ayers was Obama's ghostwriter theory. Politicians, after all, often do have unacknowledged ghostwriters, whereas, I never heard of a politician faking a pregnancy to cover up for her daughter.
Also, the fake pregnancy thing was touted by a respectable journalistic organization (though only on its website, so far as I know), whereas the Ayers thing is entirely a creature of the amateur blogosphere (again, so far as I know).
I'm sure the Cannons have enough money to have done this, even if Chris is out of a job currently (search for his name at my site for a few dozen posts about him if you want).
The ghostwriter thing has always been a stupid waste of time, but it's not like Althouse has exactly been a font of effective strategies herself. For instance, at the start of the year she was one of the few invited to McCain conference calls, I forget whether she didn't bother asking a question or whether she asked about something airheaded like shoes, but if she'd asked the question I left in comments McCain might not be the nominee. And, if there were another GOP nominee, "change" might not be so strong a possibility.
So, we can thank Althouse for her great public service.
If anyone wants to push something that would actually be effective, contact everyone you can find and let them know about BHO's plan to use pre-teens to get votes.
No, really: he's got an outreach program to kids 12 and under and he wants them to join what's looking more and more like a personality cult. Then, he wants to use those pre-teen children to get votes. And, apparently Althouse supports someone who'd come up with such a plan.
"Conclusion: Ayers didn't write Obama's book. If he had, it would be much better written."
-That's an argument I can get behind!
But seriously, I firmly believe that Obama's relationship with Wright is both deeper and older than he is willing to admit, but that doesn't mean that Ayers wrote his crappy book for him. I think Republicans should have a bit more proof before making allegations like this - and they'll have to get it themselves, since the media utterly refuses to do its job, prefering to prostrate themselves at the feet of the Obamessiah.
Oh, I don't know. There's this.
From a comment at the link:
I think use of the word “audacity” is the tell. Seriously, it’s not a very common word. Some Lexis-Nexis wiz should check on “audacity -Obama” and see how infrequently it is used.
Or perhaps Obama's grandfather made him a fan of George Patton, who loved to quote French revolutionary Danton: Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!
o We must dare, dare again, always dare!
o Speech, Assemblée legislative, Paris (1792-09-02), reported in Le Moniteur (1792-09-04)
Bringing us full circle to Ayers, Leftist revolutionary Danton also said
Après le pain, l'éducation est le premier besoin du peuple.
o After bread, education is the first need of the people.
I never heard of a politician faking a pregnancy to cover up for her daughter.
No, that plot is right out of Desperate Housewives. But I have heard of moms raising their teen daughters' mistakes as their own children.
BHO's plan to use pre-teens to get votes.
John McCain has his own plan to subvert the hearts and minds of 5-10 year olds: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/03/meghan-mccains-new-book-m_n_123586.html
Hmmmm.
@ Biff
"1. Ayers and Obama don't even know each other that well. They live in the same city. They served on some nonprofit board together along with Republicans."
That is quite frankly an utterly pathetic and completely incorrect version.
Ayers and Obama had dinner at each other's house. The Ayers babysat Obama's kids. Ayers engineered Obama's employment at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama largely spent his time shoveling money to Ayers founded groups. Ayers and Obama were on the Woods Foundation and Joyce Foundation boards.
etc etc etc
Frankly you're an imbecile.
former law student: thanks for that link; I and no doubt most others really enjoy the HuffPost's mocking of war heroes.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that there's no "McCain cult" as there was a Bush cult some years ago and there definitely is an Obama cult as there is now.
Now, Obama is trying to get children 12 and under to join his movement, the one that looks more and more like a cult.
Just as probably 99.9% of American parents wouldn't want their pre-teen children to join Sc|ent0logy, I don't think they're going to be too happy to learn that BHO wants those pre-teens to join his "movement".
Has anyone investigated the possibility that Obama ghost wrote Ayers book.
McVeigh is dead, Terry Nichols is in prison; he escaped a death sentence in two trials. No information about whether Nichols is repentant but certainly he disliked being caught.
Ayers certainly is unrepentant too and he's got a new book coming out in 2009 co-authored by his wife, the misnamed La Passionata. Wonder is Obama will submit a review of that new book or instead simply pardon Ayers for all his criminal acts past, present, and future.
There was a Bush cult?
Really?
Cashill's charge is not necessarily that Ayers ghost wrote all of 'Dreams' but that he at least contributed substantial passages.
Duscany said ... Among other things, the transitions in "Dreams" are quite awkward. The author will begin a scene with dialogue between two people and then go off on a riff on something for two pages and then abruptly return to the two people talking without preparing us.
Kinda sounds like a book written by two people, one describing the conversations and the other providing the 'analysis', but credited to a single author.
Also, if you take Obama's timeline of his association with Ayers as accurate and especially the publication dates of 'Dreams' and Ayer's 'Fugitive Days', the idea that Obama copied Ayer's style and ideas doesn't wash. 'Dreams' was published in 1995, six years before 'Fugitive Days' was published. Did Ayer's have earlier popular books that Obama could have read (I don't think so but I'm not up to speed on how much Ayers has written). And why would Obama copy the writing style of a man he supposedly barely knew, and (likely) had written no popular books?
Occam cuts it down to two possibilities. One, Ayers had a hand in the production of 'Dreams'. Both he and Obama are in the right place (U of C in 1994-5) at the right time for this to happen. Or, two, Obama's association with Ayers is both longer and deeper than he and Ayers are admitting. Wow, remind you of another relationship that Obama's been disembling about for the last year?
Is this nutty too?
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=69
Ayers and Obama had dinner at each other's house. The Ayers babysat Obama's kids. Ayers engineered Obama's employment at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama largely spent his time shoveling money to Ayers founded groups. Ayers and Obama were on the Woods Foundation and Joyce Foundation boards.
That' really doesn't cover it either. Ayers founded Chicago Annenberg Challenge, wrote the grants to get it funded to the tune of $150 million, and then Ayers hired Obama to run it, to be in charge of that 150 mil. That was Obama's first big job out of law school. Ayers hired him for it. Just a guy in the 'hood. Pfff-ttt.
Has anyone investigated the possibility that Obama ghost wrote Ayers book.
Or the equally likely possibility that both Obama and Ayers used the same ghost writer.
FLS, kudos on the blase blase. Really, sir, well played!
But 12-year-olds, my man? That's hubris. And we all knows what happens to those who have hubris.
former law student: "Or the equally likely possibility that both Obama and Ayers used the same ghost writer."
The two books are written in different styles. "Dreams From My Father" is the work of a gifted amateur. "Fugitive Days" shows a professional writer at work. Ayers knows how to write. He is not self-conscious. Parts of Obama's book just don't ring true. His recreated conversations are embarrassing at times. Ayers at least does not attempt to recall old conversations verbatim. I don't care for Ayers but his book seems true, compared to Obama's. Also Obama's book had a lousy theme--his anguished search for his "blackness."
Actually I think in "Dreams From My Father" Obama was trying to repair/reconcile the damaged done to him by his white mom and grandfather who raised him to consider himself black. If they had just told him he was of racially mixed parentage, as so many people are, he would have grown up a normal healthy boy and a million innocent trees wouldn't have had to die just so Obama could excise his demons by writing "Dreams From My Father."
I gotta admit, they're really selling this wingnutty idea.
The PDF produced looks good, but it's sort of useless without the code--and the (compiled only) code is for sale for large sums of money.
So, you know, it could just be a pitch. Let me run through some other non-fiction and I'll be more persuaded. But not for a couple grand.
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