Rumor about Obama - Ayres; Please Dispel

[yellowwood]

Last evening I was with a group of neighbors, nice people, but misguided concerning politics. A man "informed" me that Ayes ghost-wrote at least one of Obama's books. Even in the wildest rhetoric, I had never heard that story. Where did this misinformation originate? I told him that I was certain that it was wrong and that I would get back to him. I looked around the Internet and did see some message board postings, but no "source."

[jakem]

1. Thanks for playing!

:rofl:

[H2O Man]

3. The pressure is on!

[Dinger]

4. Ditto

:rofl:

[rcrush]

2. Sounds like it origionated right out of that guys ass.

Which is where most of these stories come from.

[bowens43]

5. Give it up, no one cares about Ayers. nt

[jefferson_dem]

6. Of course, it's a crazy lie. Was this group of neighbors on 'shrooms?

n/t

[jakem]

12. It has been a while, but I don't think 'shrooms cause paranoid conservatism....

:rofl:

[SoonerPride]

7. It is patently false. Obama had no ghost writers period.

McCain however has used ghost writers for his books.

Remind them Ayers was funded by Republicans who also pal around with McCain,

It is a lame smear that is so foolish you should laugh in their face.

[babylonsister]

8. Obama wrote both his books with no ghost writer; couldn't you find

that googling?

[DevonRex]

9. I read that on a PUMA site the other day. It's just bullshit. nt

[baldguy]

10. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Make them prove it. If they can't then they're liars or fools.

[unpossibles]

14. best answer yet

making someone else prove it (you cannot prove a negative anyway) may make the accidentally learn something.

[unpossibles]

11. because it's a lie

they are desperate to subvert democracy in every way they can. First they throw people off the voting rolls, then they bring up crap like ACORN (only two actual false ballots were cast in 2004 out of millions!), then they smear with racist hate tactics. It sucks that some people fall for such blatant ignorance.

[CakeGrrl]

13. Not true; put the burden of proof on the person spreading the rumor. n/t

[rucky]

15. He needs to get back to you.

If you ask him where he got that, and he starts to drop his drawers, RUN!

[Teaser]

16. Trolls just aren't trying any more.

.

[AllieB]

19. It appears that the level of creativity has decreased as the desperation increases.

I give this one a D-

[REP]

17. Wow, this CONCERNS me!!

[billyoc]

18. No.

[speedoo]

20. Why didn't you ask him for his source?

End the stupid rumor right there, because he has no legitimate source.

[Historic NY]

21. Pizza, do you smell pizza?

[islandmkl]

22. since when does ONE uninformed, bigoted, rightwing idiot saying something to...whoever...

constitute a RUMOR?

this is so lame, it's limping down the page...



and it's way too early for pizza...and i like morning-after cold pizza...

[City Lights]

23. Rather than play defense by debunking their bullshit talking points, go on

offense and demand he back up his statement with proof. Time for your neighbor to put up or shut up.

[NEDem]

24. Thank you for your concern

And enjoy your stay.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[yellowwood]

33. Not The Right Way to Treat a Fellow Democrat

I understand the temptation to accuse someone who posts such a question as a "troll." I notice that some people who post have thousands of posts. However, that's not me.
I asked a legitimate question because I really want some help on this. I object to being labeled as a phony. The person who brought this up is a professional, intelligent person, however misguided. I like to confront with documentation, not rhetoric. If anybody can provide some documentation, it would be people on this site.
Do I have to take some kind of loyalty oath or something?

[Vickers]

35. "If anybody can provide some documentation"

Did you ask THEM for some documentation?





That was rhetorical, BTW.

:rofl:

[yardwork]

47. 1. Ask them for documentation to prove their assertion. What evidence do they have?

2. Who cares? All of Bush's books were ghost-written. Did that stop your misguided neighbors from voting for him? Do you seriously think that the single most important deciding factor will be who wrote Obama's books?

He said he wrote them himself. His colleagues said he wrote them himself - they noticed him spending a lot of time writing them. He's a good writer. He was editor of the Harvard Law Review. (This is not the same as being editor of the school newspaper.) Obama was a constitutional law professor. Why would people assume that he can't even write a couple of books? He's run one hell of a campaign. Writing his books was probably a piece of cake compared to running against Hillary in the primaries.

[Me.]

53. Oh No You Don't

First of all your 'legitimate' question seems to lack that very quality. Intellectual you say? Really? Ghost wrote his book? There is more than enough info out there to dispel this tripe and yet you chose to push the thought along by posting it on a public forum.

[BridgeTheGap]

26. I heard that "Joe the Plumber" was McSame's ghost writer. Is it true? n.t

[iamahaingttta]

27. Actually, I've heard that rumor too.

I read about it right here, a couple of weeks ago, by someone else with a low post count.

[BurtWorm]

28. Why didn't you just ask him to tell you where he got this idea from?

The burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim.

[Lint Head]

29. Republicans are such racist assholes they have to make up

shit because they have nothing of substance to say.
:dem:

[karynnj]

30. Read the books - they have the same "voice"

1) The first book was written long before he entered politics. He was an unknown young man. The book is far too personal to have been ghost written. That book became a best seller. The later books were when he was already a fast track politician and they sound like they are from the same person.

2) Ayres is not not known for his writing. As a top expert on education, if he had the ability to "ghost write" one of Obama's books, he would have the ability to have written a brilliant book on education that had the ability to reach people. That didn't happen.

3) The RW is drunk on Ayres.

[scheming daemons]

31. IBTL....... do you guys even TRY anymore?

so transparent

[moriah]

52. He tried pretty hard, his account is from 2007....

Better than the people who register the same day as they post things like this.

[asdjrocky]

32. Just smile and say-

"Bless your heart." It's kind of the same thing I'm doing to you right now.

[Vickers]

34. Rumor about McCain: he has the largest collection of pre-worn panties

west of the Mississippi.

OK, I heard this at church, so I assign a certain gravitas to the claims, but still...isn't that odd for a former POW to have such a collection of *ahem* Certified Pre-Owned girl-skivvies?

:shrug:

Some say he rolls around in them before giving Cindy the old heave-ho...

:patriot:

[AlCzervik]

36. i also heard McCain has the largest collection of pre-worn panties as well.

[yourguide]

38. I heard the same thing!

[AlCzervik]

39. i also heard some things about the op's neighbors but i cannot repeat them here

some real perverts, that all i can say.

[Vickers]

45. Can you post the specifics over in Home » Discuss » General Discussion >> Panties ?

Thanks in advance.

:P

[AlCzervik]

48. you're killing me here, that's the 2nd time i've snarfed coffee through my noseholes

this morning and it's not even 6:00am for me.

[blue-kite]

54. Are you sure?

I heard they weren't panties as such... but more like non-paired socks.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. "Where did this misinformation originate? "

Somebody made it up. Ask your friend to provide the proof that Ayers ghost wrote anything.

Meanwhile, you might want to let "your friend" know that Faith of My Fathers, nominally written by McCain and ghost-written by Mark Salter was actually secretly written by Kim Sung Il, the leader of North Korea. It seems that while John was cooperating with his Vietnamese captors, the North Koreans subjected him to an advanced brain washing program and John is a North Korean Manchurian Candidate who, if he can fool enough well intentioned people to vote him into the White House, will turn the country over to the North Koreans.

[IsItJustMe]

40. Walk away. If the people that you are hanging with are that stupid, then there is not a hell of a

lot of hope there to begin with.

[Hepburn]

41. The Pizza Man is looking for you...

Enjoy your short stay...:eyes:

[LibraLiz1973]

63. Also note that the OP never posted again in this thread.. always a sign

that the Pizza guy has been knocking

[jonnyblitz]

73. WRONG. poster posted once more so far. see #33

[yardwork]

42. Write to the Obama campaign at their website - there's a button there.

You'll get a response from a person.

[rasputin1952]

43. Let me put it to you this way...

it is the responsibility of the "accuser" to produce citation, not the "defender". If they cannot produce citation or "proof", they have no case.

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. Why are you asking us? Why didn't you ask THEM?

Dumb motherfucker.

[Vickers]

46. lol!

:thumbsup:

My first true LOL of the day.

:patriot:

[yardwork]

49. Best response I've seen in a while.

[blue-kite]

50. Some other stories for you to look at... McCain's unsavory associations.

- RICHARD QUINN - White supremacist... hired by McCain, called Mandela a terrorist.
- RICK DAVIS - dodgy lobbyist, paid thief and of course mccain adviser.
- LIDDY- He's likable isn't he... convicted watergate felon-friend of mcain... proposed to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 RNC, planned a murder of unfriendly newspaper columnist, suggested Federal Agents Enforcing the Law At Waco Should Have Been Shot (and in the head, as they naturally didn't have body armor there)… also hosted a fundraiser for McCain.
- COLSON – Another Watergate thug, Colson sought to hire Teamsters to beat up anti-war demonstrators, and plotted to raid or firebomb the Brookings Institution.
- JOHN HAGEE - McCains own turbulent priest, said Katrina was punishment for homosexuals... The RC church is the 'great whore'.
- FALWELL - more turbulence, even McCain called this huge bigot 'intolerant' before realizing he might need his support... blamed 9/11 on gays, pagans and liberals, said tinky winky was a gay role model (that's really quite funny, surely a joke n'est pas?)
- JIM HENSLEY... Cindys pa, where McCain got his many houses, convicted felon and friend of many unsavory gangsters.
- PALIN - The American Anti-American, free Alaska if you please.
- JESSE HELM - suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist dupe...
- KEATING - of course... more convicted felons and McCain representing them as well.
- US COUNCIL FOR WORLD FREEDOM - McCain was adviser, it funded rebels in Nic, linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.
- DAVID IFSHIN - how did that get here, Ifshin left-wing student who denounced America on Radio Hanoi!
- ROBERT ASHER - , a Republican National Committeeman from Pennsylvania -- and a felon convicted on public-corruption charges.
- CLAYTON WILLIAMS – Oil good ole boy who raised $300K for McCain, once likened bad weather to rape: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it".
- JAMES B FOLWER – State trooper admitted he wrongfully shot dead a protester in 1960s Alabama, in 1990s when Fowler in Thailand in jail for narcotics. McCain asked state department to help him out. Reason?
- WILLIAMS TIMMONS – the man hired to lead McCain’s presidential transition team once lobbied to get access to Saddam’s oil… other lobbyists were later convicted of acting as agents to Hussein’s government. Timmon’s got off scott free, but evidence shows that he probably knew what was going on and would benefit to the tune of $45 million.
- CARL LINDNER: Hosted a $25k a plate fundraiser for McCain in June. Later discovered that while he was the CEO of Chiquita-Chiquita funnelled over $1 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (known as AUC)on the State Department's list of Foreign Terror Organizations. Chiquita admitted wrongdoing and was fined $25 million.

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

51. The worst thing about the post is your utter failure of imagination.

[bushisanidiot]

55. I heard McFart and Charles Manson were best friends in high school.

Why has the MSM not picked this up?!?!?!?!

:rofl:

[wiseoldman]

56. This is serious and getting a lot of "sheeper" push,,,

yellowwood was not "playing with us". This has been posted on KOS as well regarding an email being passed around.: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/222437/67

Snopes should take a look at this. Suggest we all go to Snopes and request they debunk this BS instead of calling someone a troll for bringing up an issue. http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/comments/webmail.asp

Thanks yellowwood - we need to know what is happening out there!

[moriah]

57. BTW: if you're going to defend "trolls", better to not....

.... look like one yourself.

Like, turn on your PMs and your profile so we can see how long you've been out there, your post count doesn't say a lot for you.

... and before you jump my case, I noticed that Yellowwood has at least had an account since 2007 and even though they have a low post-count, this is the first I can see of concern-troll-like behavior in a cursory DU username search.

Just a bit of friendly advice.

[LibraLiz1973]

64. 2 people waiting for pizza in one thread?

[Historic NY]

76. perhaps if you really investigated........

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/votedforchange.asp

[marshall]

58. That's the rumor that's being floated around

Based on nautical references in both books--pretty think evidence that could show correspondences between any two texts.

I've no doubt that Obama had some help in writing or at least editing the book--he's an extremely busy person, but I don't know why anyone thinks it would be Ayers.

[brooklynite]

59. This was being spun out of FR...

more along the lines of "Someone MUST have ghost-written Obama's book, because, as we all know, he can't string two sentences together" (really!)

[wiseoldman]

60. there was a "sheeper" effort about a week or so ago....

to build this story. I don't list sheeper links but this is the theme....

"Looking for a digital copy (PDF, any reader format) of the Ayers book "Fugitive Days". we are attempting stylometric analysis of obama memoirs. need ayers' book. have ordered copy online, but won't be delivered soon, and we must scan it all. and then proofread for OCR issues. if anyone has access to a copy that we could get immediately, or even better, if you can digitize--well, we'll work on it immediately. we've already got both of obama's books loaded, and we're working on some "control" books of similar memoirs."

[LibraLiz1973]

65. It wont be delivered soon... basically, just throw the rumor out there

and then explain why, sadly, you wont be able to substantiate the claim.
But still, MAKE THE CLAIM!


Fail.

[SIMPLYB1980]

61. ...

[LibraLiz1973]

62. I love this rumor, mostly because it is so ridiculous. It's about as absurd as me saying McCain

wasn't really tortured... Todd Palin stood in for him.


My point being that you can SAY anything... Proving it, however, is another kettle of fish.

Freepers are so pathetically dumb, it's painful.

[wiseoldman]

67. actually, your McCain rumor may be 1/2 true....

McCain Never Tortured, Prison Guard Claims

ROME - Nguyen Tien Tran, 75, revealed in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that McCain was never treated inhumanely during his captivity in Vietnam.

"We never tortured McCain," he said. "On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/261144

[kwolf68]

71. And notice

Our side, except here I guess, never once doubted McCain's claim he was tortured in Nam.

Switch sides and you bet you ass the Republican fascists would have used it and if claims of torture were true they would have just lied about it.

As far as the OP, I believe he is a troll. Asking for documentation of something that 'does not exist' is absurd.

[demokatgurrl]

66. Did you know that Obama is one of the VERY VERY FEW

politicians who ACTUALLY WROTE HIS OWN BOOKS, ALL BY HIMSELF??? Astounding, no?

Take that back to your repuke, delusional, desperate freeper neighbors.

[bullwinkle428]

68. Tell your buddies not to rely on stuff Sean Hannity pulls out of his ass

[yellowcanine]

69. Can't prove a negative - don't make promises like that. Ask him to prove his claim.

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

[Zuiderelle]

70. Who's Ayres. Or is it Ayes?

Welcome to DU I guess.

[pirate_satellite]

72. This is yet another right-wing canard

being bandied about on the internet and elsewhere, as the right flails desperately at Obama in the waning days of the campaign like a drowning man thrashing the water for a lifejacket that isn't really there.

The source of this "rumor" (it isn't really a rumor, it is a deliberately-manufactured, carefully disseminated work of propaganda) is an article at a well-known conservative web site which often produces grist for Rush Limbaugh's mill. The author of the article uses the kind of dubious writing-analysis methods that have enabled academics with a conspiratorial bent to "prove" that Shakespeare was actually Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, Christoper Marlowe, or even, Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.

Often these Shakespearean-identity theorists include as an important element in their "reasoning" the estimation that the real William Shakespeare didn't have the class or educational background necessary to produce the sort of magnificent literature attributed to him. Likewise, the author of this William-Ayers-as-ghostwriter-theory suggests that Barack Obama is unlikely to have composed his own prose because it is too-well-written in comparison with Obama's published undergraduate writings. In both cases (Shakespeare and Obama) the conspiracy theorists fail to take into consideration the possibility that a grown man with a passion for the English language could substantially improve upon his own command of that language through dedication, practice and study -- particularly through such efforts, in Shakespeare's case, conducted outside of the approved halls of power and privilege of his times. (As an example of the sort of highly suspect thought process behind this sort of analysis, our right-wing literary detective states that the Obama campaign could put such speculation to rest by releasing his LSAT scores... as if a grade on a standardized test designed to place law school applicants is some measure of memoir-writing ability).

That the conservative thinker who claims to have unearthed the "real author" of Dreams of My Father begins by comparing the prose of that book with a poem Obama wrote as an undergraduate in an almost Haiku-like style of quickly-sketched brevity is a powerful hint as to the dubious quality of inquiry at work here. Suffice to say, there have been plenty of great novelists who were shitty poets, and vice versa. He also uses word-counting, statistical analysis, and other murky methods to assert that not only does the literature of Dreams of My Father appear to be too sophisticated to have sprung from Obama's own pen, but that it also, amazingly enough, is prose mathematically similar to the published writings of Bill Ayers... of all people.

If a disinterested observer was to produce such evidence we would naturally ask him, "How many other writers did you have to analyze before you stumbled upon Bill Ayers as the match for the ghost writer of this book?", fully expecting that the answer must be in the dozens, if not hundreds. In this case, I think we can fairly guess: one. In other words, the analysis almost certainly began with the goal of drawing similarities between Obama's and Ayers' writing styles, not with finding, amongst all of Obama's lifetime acquaintances, the one whose published works were most similar to Dreams of My Father.

On the other hand, it's not impossible to imagine how conservatives might find it difficult to comprehend how Obama could write a book at, as our conspiratorial right-wing investigator concludes -- having measured the text with his finest tools -- a 12th grade level, when the current Republican President can barely converse at the level of Koko the Gorilla. It might seem improbable, if not impossible, to such an observer, thoroughly indoctrinated in the worldview of post-literate conservatism, that an elected official of any sort would be capable ascending to the dizzying heights of literacy attributed to a typical American high school senior.

As you can see, I'm just trying to be fair, and see it from all sides. I picture myself a satellite, orbiting a polyhedron, admiring the diversity of myopic observation occurring on every surface, simultaneously. (Thus, the name.)

By the way, it's not entirely impossible that a similar statistical analysis of the writing in this post would suggest that I, myself, am William Ayers. And who's to say I'm not, or, at least, a figment of his subversive imagination?

[Viking12]

74. The smear originated from as asshat RWinger named Jack Cashill that writes for WorldNutDaily

It is load a bullshit

See the article here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html

[spanone]

75. actually barack obama IS william ayers....no shit...tell your friends

nwmhtt

[WinkyDink]

77. I heard that Rush Limbaugh wrote your post.

[renie408]

78. Oh, you are probably talking about the Free Republic. You can't take anything

those knuckle draggers say seriously. Everybody knows that only idiots with an IQ lower than my German Shepherd post there. Those pathetic losers even think that if they post on progressive message boards with very thinly veiled 'concern' posts, that they can somehow sway the members against Obama. How stupid is THAT??

No, don't worry. Ayers never ghost wrote a book for Obama. See, unlike McCain who was 895th out of 899 members of his graduating Anapolis class, Obama is brilliant. He can write his own books. I am SO glad I could help dispel your fears and make you feel better.