Did Obama write Dreams of My Father?  If he didn’t write his memoir, can we determine who did–-was it Bill Ayers—for example?

There are several persuasive and important updates to my last post (where I collected all the early articles) about the investigation by Jack Cashill into the authorship of Obama’s memoir, including:

·         Extensive analysis using “an expert system – FictionFixer—designed to track and analyze more than 250 characteristics of streams of text, in other words: books.”  This analysis offers a comprehensive report that corroborates Cashill’s research about the writing of “Dreams.”  A convincing and compelling analysis, it is an exhaustive look at the many ways this type of detective work answers the question of literary authorship.

·         A compilation described as “a summary of the evidence columnist Jack Cashill has compiled regarding the true authorship of Barack Obama”(many of his links are collected below). Part 7 of the Cashill compilation provides a link to an independent look at what Obama said about writing his book:

7. The preface

Bruce Heiden, classics professor at the Ohio State University, has done an eye-opening analysis of the introduction and preface of "Dreams from My Father" and found this writing a marvel of evasive postmodernism. The former was part of the original 1995 printing of the book, and the preface was added when it was reissued in 2004.

Heiden argues that neither document ever states that Barack Obama, the credited author of "Dreams from My Father," actually wrote the book. The preface skips straight from Obama saying he "went to work" on the book to the book's publication, while the introduction makes a vague gesture toward a writing-like event in saying that the author's interior journey "found its way onto these pages."

Heiden points out many other anomalies in the introduction and preface to "Dreams," which can be found at his weblog.

·         Excerpts from Jack Cashill’s most recent post, Science points to Ayers authorship of Obama's 'Dreams',

At the heart of my message is that Barack Obama is an impostor, the Milli Vanilli of politics , a man who has been lip-synching for the last 13 years to lyrics pre-recorded by, among others, Bill Ayers.

Exhibit A in my testimony is Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father." The evidence overwhelms the dispassionate observer that Bill Ayers served as chief book doctor on this fulsomely praised persona-builder.

Now, the science is coming in, from a variety of sources, and it confirms a hypothesis that is evident to anyone who cares to look: Obama had substantial help from Ayers.

That much said, there was a general feeling among people interested in this story that the public would need the confirmation of science, and not just from one source.

Fortunately, five different sets of researchers have taken the challenge to test the hypothesis that Ayers was heavily involved in the writing of "Dreams." And although there are admitted limits to this emerging science, the consensus among these researchers is noteworthy.

I am aware of a fifth stylometric analysis, soon to be released, this one from a British scholar of international repute, but here are some quick summaries from the first four. The authors' contact information could be made available on deep background for serious news sources.

"Using the chi-square statistic," observes one professor, "Obama's and Ayers's books were indistinguishable, while Obama's book was easily distinguishable from books by other authors."

Writes another analyst, using his own proprietary software, "There is a strong likelihood that the author of "Fugitive Days" ghost-wrote "Dreams From My Father" using recordings of dialog (either tape recorded or notes). Alternatively, another scenario could be possible: Ayers might have served as a 'book doctor.'"

One systems engineer writes, "The statistical style analysis performed by our research team suggests that the writing style of 'Dreams From My Father' is significantly more similar to the style observed in 'Fugitive Days' than to the style found in other works by Barack Obama such as 'Audacity of Hope.'"

He continues, "Even more interesting, when we extract those sections of 'Dreams From My Father' that Dr. Cashill believes to be Ayers' writing and treat this as a unique document, the style analysis software identifies a stronger correlation between this sample and Ayers' 'Fugitive Days' than we see between this same sample and the remainder of 'Dreams From My Father'! Thus we have reason to believe that 'Dreams From My Father' had at least two authors, and one author's measured style features more closely match those of Ayers than they match those of the other author(s)."

"Under the Q-value statistic," argues one university-based analyst who tested "Dreams" against Ayers' 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days," "segments of 'Dreams' consistently compared as well with 'Fugitive' segments as it did with other segments of 'Dreams' itself. In contrast, 'Dreams' compared poorly with other documents."

Writes another: "The Ayers-Obama matching shows a measurable and substantial effect. It is easily and objectively distinguishable from comparison to a third document. These results achieved through good methodology should readily stimulate scientists skilled in the particular relevant fields to construct their own tests, place objective metrics on the correlation between the Ayers-Obama documents and publish results."

He adds, and I agree, "We strongly think this bears immediate investigation by the academic community at large as the initial data presented is highly suggestive that these two documents share large portions of authorship."

Here is one of the more user-friendly of the studies in pdf format, as well as my summary of the literary detective work that has taken the project this far. Those readers who have influence the media, now is the time to use it.

Related special offers:

"The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality"

"The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values"

Previous commentaries:

"Ayers' role in Obama's 'Dreams' poised to break out"

"Barack Obama: Ayers' alter ego"

"Test shows Ayers penned Obama's 'Dreams'"

"Nautical metaphors could sink Obama"

"Obama didn't write 'Dreams from My Father'"

"Roots' fraud sets standard for Obama's"

"Obama's poems show real talent level"

"More proof Ayers ghosted Obama's 'Dreams'"

Read Cashill's three-part series on Obama's "Dreams":

Part 1, "Bill Ayers' motive for penning memoir"

Part 2, "Deconstructing the text"

Part 3, "Real author of Barack book: Why it matters"