Jack Cashill has produced another book-length conspiracy theory. Kansas City's crackpot-in-residence has concluded that Barack Obama did not write his memoirs. In fact, in Cashill's mind, the man who became president was incapable of the task.
The word "capable" actually appears on the official website for Deconstructing Obama, Cashill's latest right-wing flake-out. Cashill believes that Bill Ayers, white guy and all-purpose bogeyman, is the likeliest author of Dreams from My Father, which was published in 1995.
Cashill, a writer, producer and former talk-show host, caters to conservatives' darkest fantasies. He wrote (or co-wrote) two books about the "mysteries" surrounding plane crashes that happened while Bill Clinton was president. In each instance, the "official story" concealed the administration's true dastardliness.
With the rise of Obama, Cashill left crash investigation for the realm of forensic linguistics. Among the "evidence" Cashill has collected: Dreams and Fugitive Days, Ayers' book about his days in the Weather Underground, both rely on nautical imagery. Yes, because only sea captains speak of the horizon.
Obama is not the first president to have his authorship questioned. John F. Kennedy is widely believed to have supervised the production of Profiles in Courage, leaving the heavy lifting to speechwriter Ted Sorensen.
But Cashill believes that Obama didn't produce a book that people want to read because Obama can't produce a book that people want to read. Dreams, in his view, "was much too well written."
Sounds kinda racist, no? Editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Remnick thought so. In his 2010 biography of Obama, Remnick devotes two pages to Cashill -- "a little-known conservative writer" -- and the fraud charge. Remnick sees an "ugly pedigree" in Cashill's denial of authorship, noting that abolitionists felt the need to vouch for the authenticity of Frederick Douglass' narrative:
A century and a half later, thinking a degree of racial progress had been achieved, Barack Obama and his publisher had not thought to collect such endorsements.Cashill's "libel" (Remnick again) will appear legitimate for a night, thanks to the Kansas City Public Library. The Plaza Branch is hosting a discussion of Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President on Thursday.
We're all for diversity of opinion, of course. But Deconstructing Obama is built on the premise that the country's first African-American president lacks the capacity to write an admired autobiography. Does such a book deserve the library's stage?
R. Crosby Kemper III, the library's executive director, rejects the suggestion that Cashill's book is inherently racist. In fact, Kemper thinks it requires an "utterly amazing leap" to see bigotry in Cashill's literary detective work. "Do you believe any criticism of the President is racist?" he asks in an e-mail.
Kemper, incidentally, doesn't buy Cashill's theory that Ayers ghostwrote Dreams. (Cashill believes that speechwriter Jon Favreau is the true author of Obama's 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope.) A political conservative, Kemper says he doubts Cashill's thesis in part because Ayers hasn't written anything as good as Obama's memoir.
"Contrary to what Jack believes, Ayers is a turgid writer," Kemper says.
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David you said "Sounds kinda racist, no?"
you should have said: Sounds kinda racist? No.
dont you liberals ever tire of slandering people with the racist charge when you have nothing else to rely on in your criticism? Cashill's theory is he is incapable of the writing in the book, not its intellectual ideas. He goes to great pains to say that he believes Obama to be very intelligent. You would better served giving us some detailed basis by which you believe the analysis to be incorrect rather than the cheap racism charge which is quite obviously an diversion from your inability to refute the claims of the author..
"Sounds kinda racist, no? Editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Remnick thought so."
To make matters even worse, Cashill's official book summary quotes Remnick out of context, to make it sound like Remnick SUPPORTS Cashill. You can see it at http://deconstructingobama.com... .
MP3 podcast of Jack Cashill talking about his new book, Deconstructing Obama, at the Plaza Branch of the KCMO Public Library on Thursday evening:
http://cdn.watchdogmedia.org/k...
Introduction by Crosby Kemper III.
For the world, this is bad news. For my continued employment, this is a gift form heaven. Keep your goofy ass writing, Cashill!
So Jon Favreau wrote “The Audacity of Hope.” That explains why there were so many references to Iron Man and Swingers in it. “When I decided to run for senate, all I was thinking about, was how fuckin' money I was. I mean, I was pulling some real Jedi mind-shit.”
I was not happy to see this book discussion announced, I spotted Cashill at Garry Kasparov's lecture (mayor Funkhouser too). The library's programs are excellent but I will sit out this one.
In Jack Cashill's next book, "Secrets The World Awaits," he's going to prove the following: that FDR not only didn't have polio, but used the ruse to get the "sympathy vote" in the 1930s; that Jackie Kennedy's chic 1960s wardrobe was secretly paid for by Mattel executives (and Kennedy cronies) who copied the dresses for the Barbie line of dolls; that Bill Clinton's father was a cross-dresser who did Paul Lynde imitations; that the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has led to dramatically increased incidents of anal sex in military showers; and -- most shocking -- that John Kerry insists on wearing clean underwear.
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