And here is another couple paragraphs from Cashill's outstanding piece:
- - -
According to a surprisingly harsh 2006 article by liberal publisher Peter
Osnos, which detailed the "ruthlessness" of Obama's literary ascent, Simon &
Schuster canceled the contract. Dystel did not give up. She solicited
Times Book, the division of Random House at which Osnos was publisher. He
met with Obama, took his word that he could finish the book, and authorized
a new advance of $40,000.
Then suddenly, somehow, the muse descended on Obama and transformed him from
a struggling, unschooled amateur, with no paper trail beyond an unremarkable
legal note and a poem about fig-stomping apes, into a literary superstar.
To be sure, it is not unusual for successful politicians to hire
ghostwriters -- John McCain gives due credit to Mark Salter for his memoir,
Faith of My Fathers -- but it is highly unusual for unknown young Chicago
lawyers to hire ghostwriters.
. . .
Obama's attention to detail is a ruse. Life never ran such an article. When
challenged, Obama claimed it was Ebony. Ebony ran no such article either.
Besides, black was beautiful in 1970.
In a similar vein, Ayers tells of hitching a ride in Missouri with "Bud,"
the driver of a "brand-new Peterbilt truck." The man proceeds to regale
Ayers with a string of dirty jokes -- at least two of them retold word for
word -- before reaching under his seat and pulling out a large pistol, his
"N****r neutralizer."
"White people can never quite remember the scope and scale of the
slavocracy," Ayers reminds the reader again and again, writing as though he
were not a member of this benighted race.
These parallels intrigue perhaps, but they prove little. To add a little
science to the analysis, I identified two similar "nature" passages in
Obama's and Ayers' respective memoirs, the first from Fugitive Days:
"I picture the street coming alive, awakening from the fury of winter,
stirred from the chilly spring night by cold glimmers of sunlight angling
through the city."
The second from Dreams:
"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."
These two sentences are alike in more than their poetic sense, their length
and their gracefully layered structure. They tabulate nearly identically on
the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), something of a standard in the field.
The "Fugitive Days" excerpt scores a 54 on reading ease and a 12th grade
reading level. The "Dreams'" excerpt scores a 54.8 on reading ease and a
12th grade reading level. Scores can range from 0 to 121, so hitting a
nearly exact score matters.
- - -
- Bob
_______________________________________________
Post Messages to: [email protected]
Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox
OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech
Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox
This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the
author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
