Did Obama Write "Dreams of My Father" or "Audacity of Hope?"

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by Mark Rhoads

When I first heard the story that Rush Limbaugh implied that Sen. Barack Obama had a ghost writer for his first book, and that the writer might have been Bill Ayers, and that the Media Matters blog attacked Limbaugh, I did not think the story had enough credibility to make it into the Main Stream Media. Now I think it will and quickly because it is a topic that matters to writers everywhere and even a media crowd overwhelmingly biased in favor of Sen. Obama will have a hard time ignoring a false claim of authorship. Let me explain why I think you will see more on this story.

First, I watched the delayed broadcast of the B-cast Show on Breitbart TV that did a good job of examining the issue. CLICK HERE

Breitbart.tv » The B-Cast: Writer Makes Case That Bill Ayers is Secret Author of Obama’s Book

to watch the show for Oct. 15. Second, I am old enough to personally remember that when Sen. John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960, a major legend about him was that he had authored a well-written book called Profiles in Courage that became a best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1957.

According to the popular legend, Kennedy wrote the book from his bedside while he was absent from the Senate in 1954 and 1955 recovering from back surgery. Most historians now agree that Kennedy paid his speech writer Theodore C. Sorensen from government funds to research and write the book and also paid Sorensen more than half of the royalties for the first five years. Sorensen himself finally admitted this is true in his autobiography called Counselor that was published in May of this year. Third, Dreams of My Father is a well-written book and there are few if any examples of any kind from that period that show Obama knows how to write well, which is a different skill than oratory. In fact, Obama's paper trail of published writing apart from his two books is not just thin, it is darn near invisible.

Why is this issue of a false claim of authorship important? It is important to writers and it could be another example of Obama misleading or exaggerating the truth in a major way. If the real author was a good writer such as Bill Ayers, a man who Obama first said was just a guy in his neighborhood, then the claims made by Obama in a debate last night that he had only limited connections with Ayers are really outlandish and untruthful in a material way.

Earlier this week the son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, 56-year old Christopher Buckley, endorsed Obama and one of his stated reasons for doing so was that he said he has read Dreams of My Father and the Audacity of Hope and concluded that Obama was a good writer with a good mind. But what if Obama's claim of authorship for the two books is fraudulent? What if he did not really write them and does not have the skill to write anything very well? Why are there practically no examples of Obama authorship beyond one published poem when he was 20 years old and one un-signed and very short Harvard Law Review article when Obama was the editor?

If true, and I emphasize the word "if," then Obama has misrepresented himself to American voters in a very material way. Most good writers who have authored a book have hundreds of examples of their published writing in the form of articles and essays or even letters. But Sen. Obama has nothing that is noteworthy to show outside of these two books. That is very suspicious and it should be enough I think to make many MSM reporters more than a little curious when it is combined with some other odd false statements that Obama made in the debate last night regarding bills he was only partly responsible for and votes that he cast and failed to cast in the Illinois State Senate.

The simple and central question is, as a general policy, does Obama tell the truth? If not, then even if he avoids outright lies, is he so skillful in his misrepresentations and exaggerations that he skates right up to some ethical line in his head but not over it? Does Obama have an ethical line at all? Or does it move when his ego demands that it move? One week and a dozen good reporters should be more than enough time to find out if Obama really wrote the two books he claims to have authored. If there is any truth to the idea that he used a ghost writer other than Bill Ayers, then the Obama campaign will probably strart distancing itself from the current position and admit that Obama had "research help" with the two books. If the ghost writer on either book is Bill Ayers, then it is a really big story.

illinoisreview: Did Obama Write "Dreams of My Father" or "Audacity of Hope?"

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THE AYERS/OBAMA TIMELINE: (Version 2.0; a work in progress; dates are approximate)

1981-1983 [William Ayers and Barack Obama meet at Columbia?]

1987 William Ayers links up with Barack Obama in Chicago

1988 Ayers solicits Khalid Al-Mansour to raise money for Obama's Harvard law School education

1989 Tom Ayers and William Ayers get Obama a summer job at Sidley & Austin (where he meets Michelle Obama); Ayers' wife Bernadine Dohrn also worked at Sidley at about the same time as Barack and Michelle.

1993 Ayers places Obama on Woods Foundation

1995 Ayers makes Obama Chairman of Annenberg Challenge

1995 Ayers hosts a coffee klatch for Obama's political debut (Obama falsely claims this is when he met Ayers)
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There's more to this story that B. Hussein Obama is not telling us.