Republicans hire Oxford don to prove Ayers is Obama's ghostwriter

[whitewomenforobama]

Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5063279.ece?print=yes&randnum=1225630963546

The Republicans have made a last-minute attempt to prevent Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House by trying to recruit an Oxford academic to “prove” that his autobiography was ghostwritten by a former terrorist...

Dr Peter Millican, a philosophy don at Hertford College, Oxford, has devised a computer software program that can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases.

He was contacted last weekend and offered $10,000 (£6,200) to assess alleged similarities between Obama’s bestseller, Dreams from My Father, and Fugitive Days, a memoir by William Ayers...

The offer to Millican to prove that Ayers wrote Obama’s book was made by Robert Fox, a California businessman and brother-in-law of Chris Cannon, a Republican congressman from Utah. He hoped to corroborate a theory advanced by Jack Cashill, an American writer.

Fox and Cannon each suggested to The Sunday Times that the other had taken the initiative.

[enki23]

1. somebody needs to hire a fucking headline ghost writer

.

[whitewomenforobama]

sorry?

what did i do?

[enki23]

15. sorry. i was (i thought) referring to the journalist. here on DU it doesn't matter much.

but that headline would be read by many people to imply that there is some reason to suspect it *might* have been ghost written by ayers.

[whitewomenforobama]

17. yeah, i get it,

i could have written a better headline.
you people are ruthless first thing in the morning. i'm going for coffee.
:hide:

[enki23]

33. eh. no offense intended. here on DU, the context is sufficient to make it ok.

if that were the title of an actual mainstream media article, however, it would have been a real issue.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. This is, essentially, pseudoscience (and RACISM of the highest order)

Hilarious and sad that somebody's going to get paid for this nonsense, but it's pseudoscience nonetheless.

By the way, this is also rank racism. One of the first figures in African American literature, Phyliss Wheatley, was consistently accused of having a ghost writer. Where she could manifestly produce strong verse, she was then accused of "merely parroting" the white people she was around: it went against the science of the time that an "ape" could speak eloquently. The same happened throughout the abolitionist movement, when every slave narrative was accused by the Slave-Holding Class and their piddling surrogates of ghost-writer status. It's the most consistent racist claim against African American writers in the history of American racism.

So these people are essentially saying: he couldn't have written that...it must have been the WHITE radical. This is just textbook racism from the antebellum period on down. There are,. literally, thousands of similar examples of this charge in the historical material.

[whitewomenforobama]

6. Yeah, this is my favorite part:

"Fox and Cannon each suggested to The Sunday Times that the other had taken the initiative."

Isn't this the same way they tried to catch the Zodiac Killer?

[grantcart]

29. if you read the article no one is getting paid

The professor did not believe that the conclusion that they wanted would be reached

Millican took a preliminary look and found the charges “very implausible”. A deal was agreed for more detailed research but when Millican said the results had to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.

Millican said: “I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positive result. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a few crude similarities and go overboard on them.” He said Fox gave him the impression that Cannon had got “cold feet about it being seen to be funded by the Republicans”.

[bronxiteforever]

3. I NEVER cease to amazed about the crap I read about the GOP sleaze.

[demokatgurrl]

4. They are truly out of their minds

with desperation and hate.

[yardwork]

5. LOL! I hope the Republicans spend a ton of money on this.

[yardwork]

7. Note that the article goes on to say that the Oxford researcher found it very implausible!

LOL! Fail.

Millican took a preliminary look and found the charges “very implausible”. A deal was agreed for more detailed research but when Millican said the results had to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.

Millican said: “I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positive result. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a few crude similarities and go overboard on them.” He said Fox gave him the impression that Cannon had got “cold feet about it being seen to be funded by the Republicans”.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Millican understands stylistics, at least

And understands people who DON'T understand stylistics.

[whitewomenforobama]

8. Does anyone else feel really sorry for Ayers?

I've been reading his blog, and he sounds like an alright guy.
http://billayers.wordpress.com/

[whitewomenforobama]

10. His September 23 blog entry is hilarious, btw

Title is "URGENT!!!" Link: http://billayers.wordpress.com/

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Bill Ayers is a great guy

Luckily, he is well established, well respected, and smart, so he can let this shit wash off his back without having his life ruined over it. He continues to help the people of Chicago, despite the scurrilo7us slanders being aimed at him by the know-nothing Elizabeth Hasselbeck's of the world, brainless phonies all.

[charlyvi]

12. He wasn't hired.

When Fox and Cannon were told that the findings would be published regardless of the result, they backed out.

[KittyWampus]

13. what a botched abortion of a HEADLINE (never mind actual story). The scholar thinks it

implausible. Insists likely negative match be made public. Refuses to be pawn of Republicans.

A more accurate headline?

Desperate Republicans Grasp At Straws By Trying To Link Obama's Writing To Ayers

or some such...

[whitewomenforobama]

16. it's 9:20 am where i am.

can't we wait until at least noon to launch petty attacks against fellow obama-supporting DU posters?
good grief.

[yardwork]

18. Why do you take that as a personal insult? The poster was talking about the headline and article.

Who is saying anything about you?

[whitewomenforobama]

21. sorry.

you're probably right. i had a bad day yesterday phonebanking, it was my first time, and woke up this morning feeling dejected and sure that the world was against me.

sorry.

[yardwork]

25. Thank you for phonebanking!

[whitewomenforobama]

31. Thanks,

I wish I could say it was a great experience, but I'm still not a bit sorry I did it, and might even do it again tomorrow.

[whitewomenforobama]

32. sorry, cryingshame,

i'm a little oversensitive today. phonebanking in texas can do that.

[patriotvoice]

14. Payment offered for proof, not payment for services rendered.

When payment is contingent upon a certain outcome, you can expect that outcome to be a certainty.

On edit:
The above is a general statement, since Millican demanded results be published and refused the offer otherwise. Note to self: read the whole damn article before commenting.

[Hansel]

19. Obama must be one great guy if this is all they can come up with

Having been an executive secretary on an inner-city board for about a decade, this just makes me see Republicans has more of the clueless jack asses I always expect them to be. Their complete utter prejudice has blinded them to the realities of philanthropic work in the inner cities.

Broadly speaking, board members join boards for one of two reasons. 1) They are truly philanthropic or 2) they need to put it on their resume in order to advance in their corporation. It sounds as though Ayers falls in philanthropic category. His focus, education and education only.

Board members, no matter what their motive, are busy people and rarely know each other well outside of their professional relationships. Those who join boards for philanthropic reasons are usually focused on what the board is trying to achieve and hope to lend their expertise to help them achieve that end. Those who join to put it on their resumes usually do the minimum to get by and don't really interact that much with the board. Their contributions are typically in terms of fund raising.

Members are selected based on an expertise that the board is lacking. Obama was a community organizer and Bill Ayers a prominent figure in education. Inner city work is not something that typically causes board members to be "best pals". Their focus is usually on the job at hand and then they go their separate ways. In other words, I doubt Obama and Ayers knew much at all about each other's personal lives. Obama says they did not have a close relationship and I believe this because it fits with what I witnessed about the dynamics of board social interactions.

As far as the church that Obama belonged to, I would guess that he joined the church because it was very active in the community. It gave him a sense of credibility as a community organizer. Having come from Harvard and having been raised in a white household he likely needed this. Obama probably had some barriers to break down in getting inner city residents to trust him because he was an outsider. I'm guessing that Obama cared more about gaining credibility than any spiritual teaching Rev. Wright had to give.

So I see this study is a compete waste of time and money. Good for them.

[whitewomenforobama]

23. exactly what i was thinking

"Obama must be one great guy if this is all they can come up with." If their last-ditch attempt was the story about Obama's dad's half-sister and her immigration status, and the worst they've had this whole time are stories about people Obama has crossed paths with, and you know they're looking as hard as they can, the man's pretty damned clean.

[dennis4868]

20. he was offered $10,000?

Palin cannot be happy about this...that money could have purchased another dress and maybe a pair of shoes...

[Shakespeare]

22. He turned DOWN the offer because they wouldn't allow him....

...to publicly release the results no matter what the outcome. In other words, they wanted to buy a pre-specified outcome that supported their bullshit theory.

Good for Millican.

[cliffordu]

24. Nice try.

Fail.

[NoPasaran]

26. An Oxford philosophy don?

Sounds like palling around with elitists to me!

[whitewomenforobama]

27. Jack Cashill, mentioned in the article

as the American writer who "advanced" the theory, elaborates on his crackpot idea here: http://www.cashill.com/intellect_fraud/yavelow.htm

His explanation for the study being canned is, "the failure of some supportive fundraisers to muster enough cash up front to liberate a study of the Ayers-Obama connection by Oxford professor, Peter Millican. The intellectual property guardians at Oxford apparently won’t take a down payment and an IOU."

Anyone want to take up a collection to "liberate" the Millican study? :tinfoilhat: :crazy:

[whitewomenforobama]

30. More on Cashill

Link: http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2007/cashill.html

Jack Cashill is his name; Clinton conspiracies are his game.

A WorldNetDaily columnist and an author (some of his books have been published by WND's book division) whose day job of sorts is, according to his personal website, being a freelance video producer and, "on a contractual basis, the Executive Editor of Ingram’s Magazine, Kansas City’s premier business magazine," Cashill has been one of the leading promoters of conspiracies that invariably have a Clinton or two at their center.

Cashill is also the author of a book on Ron Brown's death, an obsessive documentarian of TWA Flight 800 "conspiracies," and a well-known milliner specializing in tinfoil headgear.

[bluedawg12]

28. Yeah, Don the Plumber from oxford Miss? LMAO!

Desperate times call for desperate douching. :rofl: