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Posted: Oct 22 2008 08:13 pm

Bill Ayers may not be a threat to national security, but there's a pretty good chance he transformed Barack Obama's memoirs from meandering trash into the eloquent book that they became:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

Wow, very interesting. I haven't heard anything about this.

However, Obama is a lawyer. They learn to write extremely well. I've had to edit pleadings/briefs at my firm, and those attorneys know what they're doing. I spent four years in undergrad and two years in grad school learning to write, and what they can do far outshines my abilities. So, in spite of the evidence the author presents, it's a little hard for me to accept the hypothesis that Obama does not know how to write well.

That said, the argument for Ayers' style being similar to that in Obama's book is compelling.

Posted: Oct 22 2008 09:50 pm

What makes it really suspect is that Barack has virtually no substantial material out there to compare to the style of his book. He didn't write a single thing for HLR.

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

Yeah, the HLR thing is odd. I would like to take a look at the papers he wrote in law school and undergrad, as well as any briefs he wrote as an attorney. That might shed some light on this.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

I never really believed Obama wrote it alone, and took the praise for his abilities with a grain of salt. Very few autobiographies from such figures are written with the person's prose. Most of the time, the author will write out an outline with as many details as possible, while a ghostwriter will try to add poetry and after-touches. The Ayers thing seems like he's really trying to shoe-horn the issue wherever he can. There could be a million writers that write like Ayers.

The Harvard Law Review thing is odd, though I have to wonder the specifics of it. You'd have to examine contributions by past presidents to really get an idea. Harvard has weird record-keeping as well (There was a controversy over some candidate's supposed lying about her Harvard degree in this election, but it turns out that Harvard treats joint degrees with weird language in their records). Either way, it's like arguing about McCain's first wife issue or Palin's supposedly illegal moose hunt. No matter what nuts bring it up, they have no bearing on my opinions in the election.

Joined: Aug 13 2008 Location: Watertown, NY Posts: 131

Quote:

I would like to take a look at the papers he wrote in law school and undergrad, as well as any briefs he wrote as an attorney. That might shed some light on this.

Unless you're a raging partisan, something I don't think you are, Cattivo, how would this be anything but a waste of time?

:edit:

Just found this, it's interesting.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=611a6e67-b8b0-49c5-aac3-b0658697bdb9

Granted, it's from The New Republic, but it was written during the primaries, before Ayers became an issue. It's the closest thing I could find to an objective take.

From the article:

Quote:

So I called Henry Ferris, who was Obama's editor on Dreams, to ask him how many of the words in that book were Obama's. Ferris didn't have too many specific memories of the work he did with Obama more than a decade ago. "He and his book now are seen in such different ways than I was looking at them at that time," Ferris explained. "I didn't take on the project thinking he'd be a leading candidate for the presidency." But Ferris was absolutely adamant about one thing: "He wrote it completely and totally all by himself," Ferris said. "No one helped him." He added, "The manuscript needed shaping and focus, it needed editing, a lot of which he did based on suggestions I made. He was a terrific writer, a great stylist. ... This was not a job where I went in and had to completely redo this book for him. He needed the kind of guidance any first-time writer would need."

Assuming this exchange took place, this would still leave the question of whether or not Ferris is an Obama supporter.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12705.html

Looked it up. He published a paper for the HLR under an anonymous name (common for second year students).

Posted: Oct 23 2008 10:41 pm

Interesting. The article also acknowledged the article lacks the polished rhetoric of his memoirs.