Bill Ayers penned Dreams from My Father...

[Drunken Irishman]

This is a conspiracy floating around the interwebs and right-wing blogs because, during a Q & A with a crowd at Michigan State University, Ayers said he wrote the book.

You can view the video of the event here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfIZDYm0a54

Now to anyone with even a sliver of intelligence, you would quickly note that Ayers was joking. It's pretty obvious, especially with the laughing at the end of the clip, that he was playing around with the absurd claim that originated back in 2009 that he wrote Pres. Obama's first book.

But to right-wingers, and Donald Trump, it's evidence. Proof Ayers wrote the book. Even though a couple years ago he had this to say when asked if he wrote the book: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-07/bill-ayers-punks-conservative-blogger/#">“You've all lost your minds,” he wrote. “Best of luck in the twilight zone.”

To the birthers and idiots like Trump, though, this is absolute proof he wrote the book.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JTFrog]

2. Trump.

The gift that keeps on giving.

[blueclown]

3. Why is it that we need an update on what is happening in the right-wing freakosphere?

Why should we care what those birdbrains are thinking?

[Loki]

4. Read an interesting article the other day about the inability to intepret

lies and sarcasm could be early signs of dementia and Alzheimers. Sounds like the Republics are on their way.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-inability-sarcasm-lies-early-dementia.html

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Why this resonates with some people

Throughout the long history of African American writing, there has always been the charge that the writer didn't really write the work. The charge was first made against Phillis Wheatley; it was first said that her owners had written her poems. Upon demonstration that she could write herself, she was next written off as a "parrot." In the same way a trained parrot will say words, this "obviously illiterate" African person could "parrot" her owners' verse. The accusation continued throughout American history, where slave narratives were thought to be invented by abolitionists, where Frederick Douglass was thought to have had help in "writing" his narratives and speeches, where Martin Luther King was said to be "plagiarist," and etc. That the same charge that has attended African American writing since the 18th century should be leveled at Obama is no surprise: it is one of the key racist tropes in our history, leveled against almost all successful African American writers at some point or other.

Its racism is implicit and clear: the written work is too good, too strong, too beautiful, too persuasive to have been written by this "sub-human." Literate activity is the province of of the civilized Western mind; it is not attainable by such savages, who are better left to dance and song, and other accomplishments of the body. These people are without writing, without history, without culture.

These are the racist assumptions that lurk behind every such charge, and the reason such charges resonate with the racism that still drives much American belief.

[The Magistrate]

21. Well Said, Sir

The flat truth, too....

[Solomon]

58. I've had several job interviews where an inordinate lenghth of

time was taken up on whether I actually wrote the legal brief that I submitted as a writing sample. Really irks me when they do this but they do it every time. I must admit, the brief was brilliant, overturned a sitting judge and made new law in the area I was working on. We're used to this kind of thing, but still, it gets on your nerves.

[former9thward]

6. A lot of books are ghost written especially for politicians.

I have no idea if Ayers had anything to do with Dreams of My Father. But based on court experience when someone does not deny something when asked a direct question there is a reason. The statement "You've all lost your minds, Best of Luck in the twilight zone" is not a denial. It is an evasion.

[Blue-Jay]

7. Oh brother.

:rofl:

[shellgame26]

8. Can you believe it?

:rofl:

[Blue-Jay]

11. I know, right?

Every day, I read something so ridiculous that I wonder if it can be topped. DU never disappoints.

[jenmito]

9. You have doubts that Obama really wrote his own book(s)???

You think Ayers may have written it? Did you know that Obama met Ayers in '95, the year Obama's book was published?

[Blue-Jay]

10. That's what he WANTS you to think!

[former9thward]

13. Very few politicians write their own books.

Just a fact. It is well known now, for example that John Kennedy did not write Profiles in Courage. Ted Sorensen did. Obama had nothing published before Dreams of My Father. Nothing. No articles or anything. If you want to live in dream worlds where everyone tells the full truth all of the time, fine.

[jenmito]

16. Obama is the exception. And it's obvious that he wrote his own books when you listen to his

speeches that he ALSO wrote himself-like the race speech.

[MadBadger]

17. He wasnt a politician

[RichGirl]

39. Exactly...

Books written by politians, whether by the person or someone else...are "cleaned up". "Dreams from my Father" was obviously written by a young Obama who never imagined being president.

[Drunken Irishman]

18. Obama wrote Dreams before he was even a politician.

It was published when he became a politician - but not written when he was one.

[MadBadger]

19. It was actually first published in 1995

[karynnj]

47. JFK DID write an earliar book - While England Slept

i completely believe the Kerrys wrote 'This moment on earth'. John's parts sound like he speaks and from excerpt of his journal in tour of duty, he was a gifted writer even then - though prone to the same long sentences he uses until this day.

[rury]

23. Wrong, jenmito...

Dreams From My Father was actually written by Barack Obama in 1990 when right after he gained national attention when he was named the first black president of the Havard Law Review.
he did not know Bill Ayers then.
Why is it so hard for so many to believe Barack Obama is capable of writing a book?????

[jenmito]

25. I'm not wrong...

I said his book was PUBLISHED in '95, the year he met Ayers, which means he WROTE the book BEFORE meeting Ayers. I agree with you.

[rury]

30. Okay, my bad and my apology!

[jenmito]

32. No problem! n/t

[GameOn]

12. Reading that book, no politician would put that kind of honesty in it. That's why the 2nd book was

not as good. It was written to showcase a rising politician and many people whom helped pen the book was credited.

[former9thward]

14. Dreams of My Father was written before he was in politics.

He had received an advance from the publisher in 1990 and it had been dormant until it came out in 1995.

[GameOn]

15. that was my point. Nobody thinking about a career in politics would expose themselves like Obama did

in that book. You can tell reading it that the difference between that book and the 2nd was career goals. The 2nd book was written from the perspective of Obama as well as many political operatives.

so the book that he had more help with writing was clearly the 2nd one. Who the hell would ghostwrite for someone named Barack Obama in the early 90s? You ghostwrite for people who are famous and have something to lose if the book reveals too much or completely sucks.

[Pirate Smile]

50. That is what is so funny about Trump and other idiots going after Obama on this. Trump says the

first book is like Ernest Hemingway or better but the second book isn't so Obama didn't write the first one. No, dumbshit. Obama wrote the first one you say is as good as Hemingway but had help with the second one after he became a Senator - which was why he credited 25 people for help on the manuscript of the second one.

The first one is his voice alone.

The second one is more of a policy plus some personal book - the type to launch campaigns & used by politicians to help establish careers.

What idiots Trump and Co truly are.

http://twitter.com/waltershapiroPD/status/59651001191370752

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

20. so you're with the Teabaggers on this one? good luck with all that.

[former9thward]

22. Any sentence that begins with "So" is a straw man comment.

Congratulations. Do you think John F Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage? The book he won and accepted awards for? The book he insisted he wrote until the day he died. Did he write it?

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

24. you can quote a billion examples of what others did.

that doesn't change the fact that Obama wrote Dreams...

[former9thward]

26. I am happy that you were with him when he wrote it.

I wasn't so I don't know. Kennedy loyalists insisted that he wrote Profiles in Courage until 2008. Forty five years after his death. Then the truth came out...

[RichGirl]

41. I DO know he wrote it because he said so.

[RichGirl]

40. Just because JFK did it, doesn't mean Obama did. GEEZ!

[former9thward]

42. Maybe you missed some of your English classes.

I was using an analogy of a well known politician who insisted he wrote a book and whose defenders insisted he wrote the book for decades after his death. Analogies are used everyday. They don't prove anything but they demonstrate the possible. Other evidence is then used to determine whether it is probable or not.

[Blue-Jay]

49. So? Weak sauce.

Feel free to continue saying stupid shit.

[former9thward]

57. You have my permission to continue as well.

[karynnj]

27. n the book was written obama was not a politician

He was contracted to write the book in 1990, which was published in 1995. Now, you could believe the rw conspiracy theory that bill Ayers, who did know Obama by 1995, decided to ghost write Obama's memoir. But that was done secretly - or unless Ayers did it for free, it would have been something that Ayers was paid for. The question is how would a young, relatively poor lawyer interest an entrenched establishment figure to write a book that when it first came out did almost nothing. There is no way that he could have foreseen that Obama, still little known outside Chicago would be given the keynote speech by Kerry and blow people away with hi speech. By the way, did Ayres ghostwrite that.

I know that speechwriters and ghostwriters often write things attributed to politicians. It is though acknowledged - as Laura and George Bush's books do. It is unusual for a top politician to even write all of his speeches - and, for those who can write, it is easy to tell which ones they personally wrote if you hear enough of them.

Now i would not be surprised if Obama had help from an editor - most authors do - but the voice is pretty clearly his.

[former9thward]

28. Not everything in life is a "RW conspiracy'.

Obama received $165,000 in 1990 as an advance from Simon & Schuster to write the book. No one needed to do it for "free". You say he was "little known" in Chicago. In January, 1995 six months before the book was published Ayers choose Obama to Chair the multi-million dollar Chicago Annenberg Challenge grants. He won a state senate election the following year so he clearly had his eyes on a political job. I would not deny that the book has Obama's voice and spirit. Given that Obama wrote nothing before Dreams I don't know if it is his writing.

[karynnj]

31. I didn't realize that he got that big of an advance

That does make it more plausible - especially as their was 5 years between when he originally was asked to write it. Personally, I would be disappointed if he didn't do most of the writing - as I was on Hillary Clinton's "It takes a village".

Is there anything he wrote that it can be compared with? (Even if only small segments? )

[former9thward]

33. Well that is one of the issues.

Other than student papers Obama wrote nothing that was published before Dreams. It would be highly unusual for an author to have written absolutely nothing and then come out with a book that was critically acclaimed. Possible? I guess. Probable? I doubt it.

[jenmito]

35. "How Obama Writes His Speeches" (It mentions his books, too.):

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837368,00.html

[former9thward]

36. Thank you for the article.

[jenmito]

37. No problem. Hopefully, this will remove your doubts.

;)

[karynnj]

45. There are novelists whose first book got critical acclaim - then nothing else came close

That book was highly personal and it is beautifully written.

[RichGirl]

44. Who said everything was????

The right wing makes accusation regarding Obama all the time. Are you suggesting we should take each of them seriously???

Obama was not a politician when he wrote the book, he had no idea he would become a U.S. Senator, much less president, so what would be his reason to lie about this. If he did plan a political career he wouldn't have been so open in the book.

The right wing, on the other hand, have reason to lie. They want Obama gone and they'll do or say anything to make that happen.

It's safe to say that any attempt to discredit Obama by the right wing...IS a right wing fabrication and no one with any common sense would take it seriously.

[former9thward]

46. Your post #41 said it all.

[RichGirl]

48. Exactly...it says it all.

Obama said he wrote the book and there is no reason to believe otherwise.

The right wing who have tried to discredit him on every level is not a reason to question him.

[Drunken Irishman]

51. You're right. It's obvious a black man had to have a white man write something that great...

:eyes:

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RichGirl]

38. Sometimes a stupid question requires a stupid answer.

Your remark is out of context. The context here is that the right-wing makes outrageous accusations and they don't deserve to be responded to reasonably.

Also, we aren't in court...are we.

[former9thward]

43. I took the remark directly from the poster.

If it is out of context blame the poster not me. And Ayers was not in court when he said it....was he? I guess the new rule is that if you are not in court you can say anything. OK, works for me.

[Vattel]

29. I love that Ayers plays with these idiots.

I confess, I am a fan of Ayers. One of my favorite quotes:

"We weren't terrorists," Ayers told an interviewer for the Chicago Tribune in 2001. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States."

[former9thward]

34. He was a terrorist and did commit random acts of violence.

I guess you think bombing a dance at Ft. Dix would not be a random act of terror. When he got tired of playing terrorist he had his rich daddy's lawyers cover his tracks and came out from the 'underground'.

[harun]

54. That wasn't random violence.

This is random violence:

2,756,941 tons of ordnance was dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites. Just over 10 percent of this bombing was indiscriminate, with 3,580 of the sites listed as having “unknown” targets and another 8,238 sites having no target listed at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu

[former9thward]

56. Both are random acts of violence.

And both are criminals.

[Keith Bee]

52. To wingnuts, "irony" is something you press a shirt with

[Proud Liberal Dem]

55. Further proof that right-wingers apparently have no sense of humor

nor irony :eyes: