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June 29, 2009
By: In Which I Discover Bill Ayers In My Head Of all the bits of lunacy unleashed by the prospect that Barack Obama might actually win the election, my personal favorite was Jack Cashill's claim that Bill Ayers had ghostwritten Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, based on such stunning evidence as this:
Guess what? Cashill is back with a new installment, which is even funnier. His first piece of evidence: Both Obama and Ayers not only quote the same line from Sandburg's Chicago, they misquote it in the same way: "Hog butcher to the world", not "Hog butcher for the world." I misremembered it as 'to the world', which just goes to show that I am, in fact, Bill Ayers. But I'm not alone: writers for the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and even, to my amazement, Reason's Nick Gillespie all turn out to be Ayers too. Who knew? But wait! There's more:
Wait: they both mentioned yellow dogs? And ducks? Well: that settles it. It also means that Bill Ayers wrote Old Yeller and Make Way For Ducklings. As a birder, I should also note that while Obama managed to put his birds of paradise in Indonesia, where Birds of Paradise are actually found, either Ayers' bird was an exotic captive or he just appropriated the name because it sounded nice. I didn't have to look up 'baleful'. Funny thing, that. Moving right along:
Twinkling eyes? That's evidence? Cashill does not think that Ayers wrote The Audacity of Hope, though. That had to have a different author. Why?
These two Obama books almost assuredly had different primary authors." It would be foolish, in the face of this evidence, to point out that Dreams is a memoir while Audacity is a campaign book about policy, and thus that one would expect both more description and more striking language in the first than in the second. Likewise, after extensive analysis, I have concluded that while I seem to myself to have written both my scholarly publications and my blog posts, I cannot have done so, since there are lots of phrases -- 'Oh Noes!' and 'Ya Think?' leap to mind, as does the word 'blog' -- that never appear in my scholarly work, but do appear in my blog posts. The explanation is obvious. As I said, since I remembered Sandburg's poem wrong, Bill Ayers apparently ghostwrites my memories. He probably writes my blog posts too. I just wish he had told me himself, rather than leading me to infer his presence in my head on the basis of all this literary "analysis." —Hilzoy 2:10 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (35)Comments
Like you, I remembered the "hog butcher" quote wrong. I will take exception, though, to the "bird of paradise" example. I didn't know until I read your post that there was an actual bird called that. I've only know it by the plants Posted by: Michael W on June 29, 2009 at 2:56 AM | PERMALINKDear Jack Cashill, may the bird of paradise fly up your nose... Posted by: sara on June 29, 2009 at 3:20 AM | PERMALINKI can assure you that most Chicagolanders think it's "Hog butcher *to* the world". Obviously Bill Ayers is ghost writing for millions. These people are best ignored. At the root of their argument is the belief that a Black man is incapable of writing a bestseller, or achieving the Presidency, on his own. Therefore, it must be the case that Barack Obama has a ghostwriter and a cabal of rich White men who have been grooming their Manchurian candidate since his birth in Kenya (or Indonesia, or whichever other foreign country must be Obama's birthplace). It's sickening stuff, but these guys are the fringiest of the fringe (even Jonah Goldberg isn't buying it), so it's advisable not to give their lunatic rants any exposure. Still, they're so mock-worthy, ignoring them is a real exercise in willpower. Posted by: buddhistMonkey on June 29, 2009 at 4:27 AM | PERMALINKMade me laugh, Hilzoy. Thanks, from the very tired end of a 16 hour day. However, I will now be forever looking over my shoulder to see if Bill Ayers is gathering information on me for his nefarious schemes. Damn! Posted by: Sister Artemis on June 29, 2009 at 5:34 AM | PERMALINKClear evidence that Michael W. is not Bill Ayres! "Birds of Paradise" are gorgeous tropical creatures whose peculiar mating dances have been featured in every nature documentary made since Marlin Perkins discovered first discovered you could use animls to sell car insurance. Obviously Michael has never watched Public Television and cannot, therefore, be a liberal of any kind. Posted by: Midland on June 29, 2009 at 7:55 AM | PERMALINKHilzoy, you're a birder, too? I thought I liked your postings just because you wrote interesting things that made sense. Now I find out that I'm prejudiced in your favor. Of course, most of my life list was actually seen by Bill Ayers instead of me. Posted by: seriously on June 29, 2009 at 8:23 AM | PERMALINKIsn't there software that's used to determine plagerism? It would certainly show if the same person wrote two different pieces. I think it operates on the basis of sentence structure and grammer, not the words used. Why doesn't this guy use that? Posted by: Jose Padilla on June 29, 2009 at 8:33 AM | PERMALINKThis explains why you prefer to blog as 'Hilzoy' and not 'Bayers,' too. Posted by: gussie on June 29, 2009 at 8:34 AM | PERMALINKMasterly misdirection, Hilzoy, but you're not fooling anyone. How long have you been ghostwriting for Ayers? Posted by: sarabeth on June 29, 2009 at 8:39 AM | PERMALINKAnd we learned to day that Bill Ayers and Barack Obama both use a lot of cliches. Posted by: rabbit on June 29, 2009 at 8:39 AM | PERMALINKRecognized statistical techniques exist for testing authorship. This has been going on for 120 years; the modern ball got rolling with Mosteller and Wallace's 1963 famous article distinguishing Madison and Hamilton as authors of the Federalist Papers, showing that Madison wrote most of them. (Among other things, the analysis depends on the distribution of words -- like "the" -- which are not likely to strike the eye of the naive.) Why don't the Ayers-ers use these methods? Posted by: hquain on June 29, 2009 at 8:43 AM | PERMALINKObviously Ayers and Obama failed to watch Schoolhouse Rock...Conjunction junction what's your function? Posted by: johnnymags on June 29, 2009 at 8:45 AM | PERMALINK"And he uses the word "baleful" to describe an "eye" in Fugitive Days. For the record, "baleful" means "threatening harm." I had to look it up." From this I deduce the fact that Jack Cashell is an illiterate. I mean, it's as if he's never read a book written before 1950. Since Obama uses the word howl, could he also be Allen Ginsberg? Posted by: Kevin the Baker on June 29, 2009 at 9:29 AM | PERMALINKCashill is, sadly, based out of Kansas City, and I apologize on behalf of the entire metro area for his pointed stupidity and penetrating douchebaggery. Posted by: Mark D on June 29, 2009 at 10:02 AM | PERMALINKOnly yesterday I received an email from my brother who, after reciting a litany of whines, added parenthetically "the woman thou provided has't taught me this". My reaction was one of involuntarily spewing coffee on my computer screen. I now see I am a sibling of none other than Adam, the 10,000 year old founder of the world's population. Damn, I am somebody! Posted by: Chopin on June 29, 2009 at 10:03 AM | PERMALINKDid Ayers also illustrate MWFD? The first charcoals of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, and the one of Officer Clancy (?) stopping traffic for the ducklings, are particularly evocative. Of socialism. Posted by: Fleas correct the era on June 29, 2009 at 10:09 AM | PERMALINKAh, well, memory FAIL. Officer Michael. Nowadays, he can't even sing. Posted by: Fleas correct the era on June 29, 2009 at 10:12 AM | PERMALINKA comparison of a translation of "Mein Kampf" with Bill Ayers' book and Obama's memoir reveals use of similar words, particularly "a" and "the" - which leads me to conclude that Hitler wrote all three. Posted by: g on June 29, 2009 at 10:12 AM | PERMALINKOther evidence; all of the letters of the alphabet appear in Obama's Book, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Bill Ayers writings. Need I say more? Posted by: marc on June 29, 2009 at 10:15 AM | PERMALINKThe question is not whether Bill Ayers is in our heads (I also remember it as "hog-butcher to...) but what is in Cashin's head--e.g. excess space in the ventricles. Cashin is a well-known paranoid. These types of "theories" of his go back years. Why doesn't he just enlist in the Birthers movement? It would save the work of finding all those specious "connections" as well as hundreds of dollars on anti-psychotic medication Posted by: A on June 29, 2009 at 10:28 AM | PERMALINKIsn't there software that's used to determine plagerism? It would certainly show if the same person wrote two different pieces. I think it operates on the basis of sentence structure and grammer, not the words used. Why doesn't this guy use that? They did try to hire the guy who developed that software, but once his preliminary analysis showed that the notion that Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father was completely idiotic, they lost interest in doing a full analysis, funnily enough. Posted by: Mnemosyne on June 29, 2009 at 11:14 AM | PERMALINKIf you're gonna quote Sandburg, I'd recommend this bit (making sure sure you get every word right): "Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans — make two people fight on the top of a stairway and scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs." Posted by: godoggo on June 29, 2009 at 11:32 AM | PERMALINK"Although there are only the briefest of literal sea experiences in Dreams, the following words appear in both Dreams and in Ayers' work: fog, mist, ships, seas, boats, oceans, calms, captains, charts, first mates, storms, streams, wind, waves, anchors, barges, horizons, ports, panoramas, moorings, tides, currents, and things howling, fluttering, knotted, ragged, tangled, and murky." Based on this list, I have determined that Ayers also wrote Hornblower and the Hostpur, by C.S. Forester. Posted by: Doc Washboard on June 29, 2009 at 11:47 AM | PERMALINKIt sounds to me like Ayers makes a good use of baleful, while Obama was getting pretty reachy with his adjectives. Howls are much more typically mournful than baleful. Growls - those can be baleful. OTOH, it explains a lot about how Obama has been acting in office. If he feels threatened by the pained howlng of the Republicans, conjuring up a baleful yellow dog in his memory, things make more sense. Now if we could just get the Dog Whisperer to head over and explain why howls aren't baleful and how to use rules, boundaries and limitations to get the howling to stop, maybe we could make some progress. Posted by: Mary on June 29, 2009 at 11:54 AM | PERMALINKThis seems to be the same phenomenon as that guy who wrote books about orgies in whisky glasses and all the subliminal nude erotic scenes hidden in print advertisements. Must be a symptom of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Posted by: Capt Kirk on June 29, 2009 at 11:59 AM | PERMALINK"Nowadays, he can't even sing" Ooh, points for a Neil Young reference. Posted by: Linkmeister on June 29, 2009 at 1:53 PM | PERMALINKHowever risible Cashill's case for Ayer's authorship of Dreams_of_My_Father may be, one should review this rare sample of Obama's writing while at Columbia before one dismisses all of Cashill's doubts: Damn, that sound's so easy if you think about it. Posted by: Money Maker on July 24, 2009 at 3:30 PM | PERMALINKHey Hilzoy, what do you have to say now, genius? How about all the rest of you on here (with the exception of "skeptical")? HA! HA! HA! download.cnet/Recover-My-File? ________________
I have the iTunes icon on my desktop. I cannot figure out how to change users so I can use my account not my boyfriends ________________ Post a comment
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