Showing posts with label Audacity of Hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Audacity of Hope. Show all posts

Friday, April 9, 2010

Obama's Make-Believe Life

Hat Tip Libby

by Janet Crain

Once upon a time in a land far away, the perfect candidate was created. Some say by magic or something akin. A handsome urbane, well spoken charmer who would hoodwink the American people, much to their belated regret and chagrin. Some are too proud to admit their mistake, while some are too, let us say, dense common sense challenged to realize it yet. But I beg of you read this in full. Click on the link to the rest of the article. It makes more sense than anything I have read in a long time.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.



By Alan Caruba

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

Click here for the rest of the article:

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/01/obamas-make-believe-life.html


This blog is © Janet Crain

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Who Really Authored Dreams from My Father?

Pretend for moment you are a writing teacher. One of your students routinely presents such pedestrian prose as this:

Moreover, such approaches can and have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda.

Then in an essay he suddenly presents this type of prose:

Winter came and the city turned monochrome-black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.

What would be your first reaction? Does plagarism come to mind? Teachers can spot plagarism immediately.

The first example and the beautifully written example from Dreams from My Father, were supposedly both written by Barack Obama. Dreams from My Father was the book for which he received a $40,000 advance from Times Books, thus allowing him to drop out of the daily rat race to vacation in Bali, Indonesia with Michelle for 6 months to finish writing. The book that along with The Audacity of Hope are cited as proof of his genius.

Quote:

Obama's Book-Writing Sabbatical in Bali, Indonesia

From time to time I've referred to Obama's advance for
Dreams From My Father, and stories indicating it was enough to allowed "him to set aside six months after he graduated to write."

The New York Times dug into this last month, and found a few more answers. The coverage prompted a call to him from Jane Dystel, a gravelly-voiced literary agent described by Peter Osnos, then the publisher of Times Books, as “a good journeyman with a hard edge.” The home page of her firm’s Web site currently features clients’ best sellers including “Lies at the Altar: The Truth About Great Marriages.” Ms. Dystel suggested Mr. Obama write a book proposal. Then she got him a contract with Poseidon Press, a now-defunct imprint of Simon & Schuster. When he missed his deadline, she got him another contract and a $40,000 advance from Times Books...

By the time Mr. Obama landed at Times Books, he had a partial manuscript. He required minimal editing, said Henry Ferris, his editor, who is now a vice president and executive editor at William Morrow. He simply needed guidance in paring and shaping the sections already written and keeping the rest from becoming too long. The writing, Mr. Ferris said,
“is very much his own.”

Click here:

End Quote:

But is it?

Jack Cashill makes a very good case that it is not. Here:

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77815

and here:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=86138

© Janet Crain

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