From Anne Leary of Backyard Conservative:
Clearly, the part about "and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties" is a joke on Ayers' part. How much of the rest of it is Ayers' pulling the leg of a conservative who accosts him, I don't know.
Ayers might just be idly amusing himself here.
Or, our recent discussions of the legally fuzzy nature of blackmail might be relevant here. It's a crime to try to extort money by threatening to reveal secrets unless one is paid off. But it's probably not a crime to make apparent jokes about royalties that could send a message to the potential blackmailee that he, e.g., POTUS, might want to make the first move toward reaching a quiet, mutually beneficial and quite legal financial settlement.
There I was, sitting in Reagan National Monday morning, sipping a Starbucks by the United counter before going through security. ... That's when I saw Bill Ayers, an instant blight. Scruffy, thinning beard, dippy earring, and the wirerims, heading to order. I gathered my things, got my camera ready, and snapped a shot right when he got his coffee.
I asked--what are you doing in D.C. Mr. Ayers?
... He said oh you mean GW, he said no...was trying to decide if I was a fan, then said he was giving a lecture in Arlington to a Renaissance group on education--that's what I do, education--you shouldn't believe everything you hear about me, you know nothing about me. I said, I know plenty--I'm from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I'll post this. ...
Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.
He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.
Clearly, the part about "and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties" is a joke on Ayers' part. How much of the rest of it is Ayers' pulling the leg of a conservative who accosts him, I don't know.
Ayers might just be idly amusing himself here.
Or, our recent discussions of the legally fuzzy nature of blackmail might be relevant here. It's a crime to try to extort money by threatening to reveal secrets unless one is paid off. But it's probably not a crime to make apparent jokes about royalties that could send a message to the potential blackmailee that he, e.g., POTUS, might want to make the first move toward reaching a quiet, mutually beneficial and quite legal financial settlement.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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46 comments:
It is interesting that Ayers thinks the one thing he is most notable (notorious?) for is authoring "Dreams", no?
I mean of all the things to joke/rib about. I think it shows what's on his mind. It is practically a free association test. The psychologist says conservative blogger, Ayers says "Dreams" authorship.
I was sceptical that a woman would be so bold as to do what she wrote until I clicked on the picture... only redheads, Jewish, and black women could do such a thing.
He could also be manipulating Obama for reasons having to do with policy.
I think it is more likely that he's pulling her leg, but it seems weird to say Michelle asked him to do this if you only want to tease a blogger. It's too bad she was so hostile; I got the feeling from the exchange she posted that he wanted to say more.
About her hostility to Ayers:
In my previous comment I said this was too bad, but of course her intent in approaching was for him to feel uncomfortable. If anyone deserves to be made a pariah, it is Ayers and what she did was a good thing.
She was blind-sided by his reaction, whatever he meant, and was unable to transistion herself to make him more amenable to elaborating on his comments (on the off chance he wasn't pulling her leg).
All I can glean from this is that if Ayers really did write it, he's probably itching to cop to it. And he's probably told all his friends.
Wouldn't it be funny if the only reason this didn't come out during the campaign was that not a single journalist bothered to just ask him?
Why doesn't Fox News talk about this? Glenn Beck, where the hell are you? Limbaugh?
"Ayers tells blogger in Starbucks he wrote "Dreams from My Father""
Now there's ironclad indisputable proof to that assertion if there ever was any!
"Why doesn't Fox News talk about this? Glenn Beck, where the hell are you? Limbaugh?"
I'm with you Rich, I think Hannity and the gang should devote at least three hours to this chick claiming, without proof, that a guy SAYS he did something.
Real journalism sure is dead.
I'm with you Rich, I think Hannity and the gang should devote at least three hours to this chick claiming, without proof, that a guy SAYS he did something.
It was reported in Barack and Michelle, Troofie.
The blogger says she's "been tracking Ayers for some time." She's written a lot about him before. He's been on her mind. Is she obsessed with him? I don't know. I'm not going to be 100% convinced that he actually said those words to her until somebody else reports Ayers saying the same thing.
And why the hell would Ayers admit to this? An admission like that Affirms Racial Stereotypes and would therefore be a big no-no for leftists. MLK plagiarized his college papers, his sermons, his speeches. Comparisons would be drawn in millions of people's minds. Think about all the racial sensitivity that's attached to the word "articulate" for a moment.
By the way, Steve, if this turns out to be true, I'll still be a big fan of yours. Stuff happens. I started reading iSteve long before you took an interest in "Dreams". Even if it turns out that that book says less about Obama than everyone thought it did, it still says SOMETHING about him. He would have provided Ayers with all that material, he would have signed off on the final product.
And why isn't Drudge jumping on this? You'd think it would be up their alley.
I wonder what info Rezko and Blagojevich are sitting on.
I would just love to see his transcripts from Occidental and Columbia.
And why the hell would Ayers admit to this?
Uhhhhh, ego? Everyone's vulnerable to vanity, and Ayers seems like an egomaniac to boot.
One thing I've learned well in this life is that people are terrible at keeping secrets, and worse at keeping secrets that increase their standing. Unstable personality types like Ayers are worst of all (it takes a solid moral center to be really good at keeping secrets).
but it seems weird to say Michelle asked him to do this if you only want to tease a blogger.
Not if he's been paying attention to what the bloggers are writing.
I changed my mind, btw; another thing we can glean is that this story comes down to the blogger's credibility; if she's telling the truth, he probably wasn't pulling her leg. If he wanted to mess with her and he didn't write Dreams, he'd use standard boilerplate (something about conspiracy theorist right-wing nutjobs, birthers, etc., say).
But I'd favor forensic techniques to settle the issue; we should be able to decide via text analysis, which as I understand it, at the moment looks bad for Obama/Ayers.
I'll admit, I suspect this was either the blogger making it up, or Ayers f--king with her. If he wanted to disclose it to someone at a profit, I have to think he's sophisticated enough to do that without going to jail. And I can't see why he'd say it to some stranger in a Starbucks otherwise.
All I can say is that if Dr. Pierce were still alive his perceptionsof self defined conservatives as not very smart would be reinforced.
Perhaps this blogger's charges aren't so outrageous.According to Cashill..."I had not communicated with Andersen (the writer of Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage) in any which way before we talked on the Mancow Show on Monday of this week. Andersen confirmed that he had two sources 'within Hyde Park.'
I would not be shocked if these sources were Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn."
Maybe Ayers and Rev Wright and every other lefty Obama knew back in the day are feeling a bit scorned.
Her stuff is difficult to read with that bizarre punctuation.
O can send some benefit to Ayers in about 15 seconds at no cost to O. He's President and a word to an aid that Congress shold earmark $10 mil for education in Chicage in a way that only Ayers can qualify for would be costless.
I doubt Ayers or any Friend of O needs to drag out veiled threats.
It's difficult to infer anything from this episode. Ayers appears to be taunting the blogger.
If Ayers is going to come forward, then it will probably occur as he becomes increasingly sickened by Obama's "right-wing shenanigans." Obama is probably too centrist (i.e. self-serving) for Ayers' taste. I would guess Ayers will someday come clean. He is a revolutionary, and like all revolutionaries he is an exhibitionist at heart.
Steve, no one knows "Dreams" better than you. You obviously seem to be entertaining that Ayers actually did author the book. Am I understanding this correctly? Please answer!
i would not be surprised if he is pissed (a) that he is still a nobody, (b) that he is basically poor. no hope of help direct from Obama so next best hope is this.
I seem to recall that Steve talked about exactly this issue last year....
it seems weird to say Michelle asked him to do this
Isn't that what Anderson said in his book? That when the Boy King got stuck on page seven of his memoirs, Michelle was the one who told him to go see Ayers for help.
And, of course, Ayers is telling the truth.
Let's not forget that this is the same douche who ended his autobiography with the words "guilty as hell and free as a bird".
So, yes he's telling the truth. But he figures it doesn't matter because he's made of teflon, and has gotten away with every crime he's ever committed, not just gotten away, but prospered.
none of the above said...
"And I can't see why he'd say it to some stranger in a Starbucks otherwise."
Isn't it obvious? Ayers hadn't had his coffee yet. I've made more compromising admissions under those circumstances.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm"
Much would depend on his tone of voice. I'd expect a nerd like me to misinterpret non-verbal clues and to take everything too literally, but the blogger who reported this is female. Women are good at this. She seems to have thought he was serious. Perhaps that's because he wasn't being sarcastic.
"I looked at him. He seemed eager."
"You obviously seem to be entertaining that Ayers actually did author the book. Am I understanding this correctly? Please answer!"
Entertaining it?
He's rented it out the Hollywood bowl, bought 50- cases of champagne for it, has six open bars and hired the Temptations to play.
"It was reported in Barack and Michelle, Troofie."
Hey I'm with you bro!
BTW, I boffed Megan Fox last night, I called Mary Hart to give her the scoop for Entertainment Tonight but she passed on my story too!
Stupid Hacks.
Judging by Obama's recent UN and Copenhagen speeches (which George Will rightly called dreadful), BHO has no ear for language--he didn't even have the sense to tell his speech writers to try again.
Someone who can write, wrote that book. Who else could it be?
...he was giving a lecture in Arlington to a Renaissance group on education...
Something tells me this isn't likely to be American Renaissance!
It is striking to realize how little we know about this man and his life. Even Democrats and die hards don't have a clue as to who he really is.
What's Ayers doing in Starbucks? Every mug of coffee buys you a piece of some Israeli weaponry, and isn't Starbucks kinda lower-class SWPL nowadays?
Calling Dr. Phil
Troof sez:
Entertaining it?
He's rented it out the Hollywood bowl, bought 50- cases of champagne for it, has six open bars and hired the Temptations to play.
Worried Troof? There goes some of that Obama magic, right.
Why shouldn't Ayers share in the glory of his (probable) cousin?
I looked into the ancestry of this Ayers fellow. His fifth great grandfather Azariah Ayers went to Kentucky from central New Jersey, but Azariah's own father has not been established. However, the most dogged Ayers researcher decided (about 10 years ago) that he was most likely the son or other close relative of Elisha Ayers of Basking Ridge. (Miss Cuthbert aside, Elisha is a man's name.)
Elisha descended from one Obadiah Ayers, who moved from Cape Ann to nearby (to Basking Ridge) Woodbridge in 1670, and mercifully died there a few years before his sister Mary Parker was hanged as a witch in Salem.
A fellow Cape Anner, Jonathan Singletary, had moved to Woodbridge himself about five years before. To cut his ties with Massachusetts, where he had made himself unpopular, Singletary changed his name.
To Dunham.
Yes, as in Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro.
So, if the Azariah/Elisha connection holds up, the families of Bill Ayers and Barack Obama Jr's mother spent the 18th century together in a little Jersey village founded by disgruntled Puritans.
I see no genealogical connection between Ayers and Obama in either New Jersey or Massachusetts. But Elisha Ayers descended from Mayflower passenger George Soule. Obama descends, as do Sarah Palin, the Bushes, and John Hinckley, from Samuel Hinckley and Sarah Soule. No one knows whence in England George came, but if he connects to Sarah, then Bill connects to Barack.
To me this is typical untouchable aristocratic arrogance. Ayers dares a powerless guy to take him down because Ayers knows that he himself has all the power elite on his side. He was born rich and privileged and it is just his spoiled nature to laugh at the honest working guy. Ayers reserves his sympathy for the nonproductive criminal underclass.
For some reason, I really like the phrase 'disgruntled Puritans.'
I think this is more likely to be evidence that he didn't write it. If he really had written it, he never would have admitted it to a hostile complete stranger. If he wanted to shake down Obama, he has ways of doing that privately.
Instead, doubtless he despises "wingnuts" and wanted to see one make a fool of herself and possibly others as well. The split the royalties line (which Leary didn't seem to take as a joke) is the clincher.
If I am wrong, I will apologize, but I would be VERY surprised.
I don't know if the Ayers story is true or not, but who really cares? There's another example of a President using a ghostwriter to author a book that won the Pulitzer prize, and no one seemed to mind too much.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2478/did-john-f-kennedy-really-write-profiles-in-courage
- Black Death
I think some of the commenters here have missed your connection to the "Ayers the Ghostwriter" rumor. In your book (alas your only book) "The strongest evidence that Dreams is not ghostwritten... " (page 94).
Your thesis that Obama is a talented literary figure rests on the assmption that he wrote Dreams himself.
Last week Obama made a fool of himself at the Olympics committee. The previous week he made a fool of himself in front of the UN. The media in general say that his plummeting popularity is because the Americam people when they parse his policy positions disgree with him. I think it's simpler. He doesn't seem to act very smart. There seems to be a correlation between spontaneity and stupidity. When he speaks off the cuff he sounds dumb.
In your book you paint Obama as some kind of tortured artist weighed down with lofty notions. The Obama I see on TV sounds like a very stereotyped leftist-liberal with canned positions read from some talking points playbook. He seems to be very predictable.
I think I'll buy a Sony AIBO, paint it beige and program it to react to world events in an Obama-like manner. Doesn't sound too hard.
How disappointing to learn that a Great American Revolutionary drinks Starbucks coffee.
So, if the Azariah/Elisha connection holds up, the families of Bill Ayers and Barack Obama Jr's mother spent the 18th century together in a little Jersey village founded by disgruntled Puritans.
Are there any other kind of Puritans than disgruntled ones?
Re the poster who opined that Big O can satisfy Ayers by paying him off..well,his buddy Eric Holder is in town right now to fight "youth violence",and that will require a whole lot of money to come to Chicago! (But.. I am so happy we are finally gonna be free of all that youth violence! )
In the movie, "Wag the Dog" (spoiler alert), Dustin Hoffman's character is incensed when the president's improved poll numbers are credited to a lame slogan ('Don't change horses in midstream'), and plans to go public on his contribution (directing a fake war). He wants public recognition for his contribution to the President getting re-elected.
Same drive here, or just yanking a chain? I'm inclined to go with the latter (even in light of the National Journal bit). I am inclined to believe the blogger's account (in light of the NJ bit), but Ayers is going to have to prove it to me.
Anyone familiar with word prints? I read a paper where the authorship of the 15th Oz book were compared between Baum and Ruth Thompson. The conclusion was that there writing resembled Thompson's more than Baum's (and Thompson does have writing credit for the book).
For those interested (and thanks to Google Scholar):
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~zzeng/soc357/OZ.pdf
"What's Ayers doing in Starbucks? Every mug of coffee buys you a piece of some Israeli weaponry,"
Geez, the guy can't even be a "radical Muslim" right!
Are there any other kind of Puritans than disgruntled ones? --Travis
I should have said "ex-Puritans". Jonathan Dunham died an Episcopalian.
albertosaurus sez:
Last week Obama made a fool of himself at the Olympics committee. The previous week he made a fool of himself in front of the UN. The media in general say that his plummeting popularity is because the American people when they parse his policy positions disagree with him. I think it's simpler. He doesn't seem to act very smart. There seems to be a correlation between spontaneity and stupidity. When he speaks off the cuff he sounds dumb.
Geez, can't u use a simpler name?
I have to agree with you. This has been the problem with all of the so-called “freedom fighters” too.
African leaders are synonymous with the term tin-pot-dictator, because the same pattern has emerged in EVERY "liberated" colony there.
Mugabe has been an international disgrace for Carter and his groupies. Carter said as much in a recent article. The simple reason is not that Mugabe is ideologically driven (he is not), but that he is less intelligent than everybody (mainly liberals, churches and the media) suggested and very greedy. An intelligent leader may be a dictator but would not totally screw up his country to the point where he may lose power, unless he is trying to conquer the world like Hitler or Stalin were.
Mandela is also much less smart than suggested. He could hide this fact behind an artificially created smokescreen of "liberation" and messiah-likeness implanted on the media-created and traditional British prejudice against the Afrikaners. He is also living in South Africa, far away from the liberal hub, so nobody noticed him pilfering his so-called Mandela Children's fund in order to send his kids to prestigious universities and enrich himself and his family. Tutu has done the same thing btw.
Obama is just the American version of all this.
"I don't know if the Ayers story is true or not, but who really cares? There's another example of a President using a ghostwriter to author a book that won the Pulitzer prize, and no one seemed to mind too much."
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2478/did-john-f-kennedy-really-write-profiles-in-courage"
No. It's not "just another example." It's a complete fraud on an entirely different level. Kennedy at least did have some literary accomplishment to his name -- his published thesis, Why England Slept, at the School of Government in the UK, if I recall correctly. Not much, but more than we have of Obama's writings during his university years. Or after them, apparently. Then too, Kennedy was clever on his feet and did have a basic knowledge of government and protocol. I am sure he knew there weren't 57 states. He was also witty. I'm still waiting for witticisms from the current, terribly wry and intelligent POTUS.
BO was getting someone else to make up his own authobiography and sell BO his own life fraudulently.
It's all a much more despicable thing.
So no, Obot. It's not the same thing as what JFK.
At least JFK didn't bore us with hundreds of pages of an "autobiography" written by someone else.
Instead, millions of pages have been written since his death, and he turns out to have been pretty interesting.
Obama wil be too, once all the truths come out, but it wont' be for the same reasons. We'll mostly be laughing at him, for, as steve finally admitted, his career is just "hilarious."
Even in his misdeeds, Obama is no Jack Kennedy.
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