MODIFIED DREAMS FROM OBAMA'S FATHER

While ghost writing is a ubiquitous activity these days, a worthy distinction can be made between those using the trade for the normal verbal garbage of politicians, corporate executives, and recently arrested celebrities and those who use such assistance to produce material of allegedly literary merit. The evidence is mounting that Barack Obama falls into the latter and far more dubious category. Interestingly, the conventional media which feasts on tales of plagiarism has totally ignored this matter.

Worldnet Daily - Andersen, in "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of a Marriage," writes that Obama was faced with a deadline [for "Dreams From My Father"] with the Time Books division of Random House to submit his manuscript after already having canceled a contract with Simon & Schuster. Confronted with the threat of a second failure, his wife, Michelle, suggested he seek the help of "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers."

Obama had taped interviews with relatives to flesh out his family history, and those "oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers," writes Andersen.

The author quotes a neighbor in the Hyde Park area of Chicago where Obama and Ayers lived, who says of the two, "Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together."

"It was no secret. Why would it be? People liked them both," the neighbor said, according to Andersen.

Andersen also has written "marriage portraits" of George and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and John and Jackie Kennedy. Among his other books are "Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve," "Barbra: The Way She Is," "Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot" and "After Diana: William, Harry, Charles, and the Royal House of Windsor."

Andersen writes: "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's 'Dreams from My Father' would be significant - so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers's own writing."

Andersen concludes, "Thanks to help from the veteran writer Ayers, Barack would be able to submit a manuscript to his editors at Times Books."

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