The Other McCain

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Dreams of My Ghostwriter’s Ex: Did Bill Ayers Use Dead Weather Underground Terrorist Diana Oughton as Model for Obama’s ‘Composite’ Girlfriend?

Posted on | May 5, 2012 | 88 Comments

“I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books.”
— Christopher Buckley, Oct. 10, 2008

In 2008, conservative journalist Jack Cashill presented evidence that Barack Obama’s bestselling 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father had been written with the assistance of Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical who was Obama’s neighbor in Chicago. Now, the revelation that an ex-girlfriend in Dreams was a “composite” or “compression” of several women — as President Obama reportedly told biographer David Marannis — has focused new attention on Cashill’s argument that Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter.

The so-called “New York girlfriend” in Obama’s memoir bears specific resemblance to Ayers’s ex-girlfriend Diana Oughton, one of three Weather Underground members killed in 1970 when a bomb the terrorist group was building accidentally exploded.

Like the girlfriend in Obama’s memoir, Oughton had brown hair and green eyes, and came from an affluent background. Furthermore, Oughton’s family estate in Illinois is strikingly similar to one described in a sequence in Dreams when Obama and his “New York girlfriend” visit her family. Cashill wrote in a 2010 article at The American Thinker:

One weekend, the woman invites Obama to her family’s country home, which had been her grandfather’s, and “he had inherited it from his grandfather.” The library is filled with old books and photos of the grandfather with presidents, diplomats, industrialists. “It was autumn,” Obama recalls, “beautiful, with woods all around us, and we paddled a canoe across this round, icy lake full of small gold leaves that collected along the shore.” . . .
According to a Time Magazine article written soon after her death, Oughton “brought Bill Ayers and other radicals” to the family homestead in Dwight, Illinois. . . .
The main house on the Oughton estate, a twenty-room Victorian mansion, was built by Oughton’s father’s grandfather. Formally known as the John R. Oughton House, it was placed on the national historic register in 1980. Despite forty years of encroaching development since Oughton’s death, aerial photos show the Oughton estate (103 South Street) with a small lake in the middle and a thick ring of trees around it, very much like the estate in Dreams.

In the wake of Maraniss’s report that Obama had admitted the “New York girlfriend” was “compressed” — a composite character — the similarities to Oughton previously noted by Cashill caused the Bookworm Room blog to remark: “I mean, what are the odds that you’d combine a whole lot of different women in your life, and then come up with Bill Ayers’ girlfriend?”

Cashill says that Ayers’s own 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, show him to be “obsessed with Oughton.”

Oughton’s “badly mangled” body was found in the rubble of a townhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village destroyed by a March 6, 1970, bomb blast. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Oughton had been studying for a master’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1966 when she met and fell in love with Ayers, then a leader of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Oughton followed Ayers into the radical “Weatherman” faction, which split from SDS in 1969, and was a participant in the violent “Days of Rage” protests in Chicago. The explosion that killed Oughton and fellow Weather Underground terrorists Ted Gold and Terry Robbins occurred while they were constructing a bomb they reportedly planned to plant at a NCO dance at the Fort Dix, N.J., Army base.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

SOURCES:

 


Category: Barack Obama, Books

Comments

88 Responses to “Dreams of My Ghostwriter’s Ex: Did Bill Ayers Use Dead Weather Underground Terrorist Diana Oughton as Model for Obama’s ‘Composite’ Girlfriend?”

  1. ThePaganTemple
    May 5th, 2012 @ 10:49 pm

    Man, that is so eerie and bizarre. I believe every word of it. The kicker to me was the lake by the mansion.  What kind of thing do we have sitting in the Oval Office?

  2. ThePaganTemple
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:00 pm

    I had to take some words off the title before I could post it on Twitter, Mr. Wordsmith.

  3. Narniaman
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:01 pm

    Hmm. . . .I wonder if Obama even read the books that he “wrote”. . . . .

  4. robertstacymccain
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:02 pm

    The coincidence of the lake surrounded by trees on the estate — indeed, a hell of a coincidence.

  5. Bonfire of the Idiocies
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:03 pm

    Obama’s life is a composite – of Karl  Marx, George Soros, Ayers and assorted other clods, clowns and frauds.

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:10 pm

    Hiding in plain sight.  I linked you .  Oh…let the vetting begin.  

  7. Bruce
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:10 pm

    Have a look at the ‘lake’ on googleearth, it’s more of a pond, size of 4 houses . 
    103 west south st dwight ill, are public buildings now (‘Prairie Ck Public Library’) and crowded with new houses around (? was the estate partly sold off?). But the pond’s round alright, landscaped so, and big enough for canoe rides. Kinda fits. Ayers is good at descriptive amplifying in his writing. Could well be the place. 

  8. Bruce
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:16 pm

    ”
    Adjacent to the Mansion and Carriage House is Dwight’s most prominent landmark, The Windmill, built in 1896 to supply the Oughton Estate with water.”

    You can see it next the pond.
    http://www.prairiecreeklibrary.org/  ‘history’ 

  9. robertstacymccain
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:16 pm

    Dreams of My Shortened Twitter Headline!

  10. Cincy
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:25 pm

    Hagiographer Cristopher Andersen , author of “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage” flat out says in the book that Ayers wrote the book for Obama.

    The pressitutues are doing their very best to ignore this. The right wing blogosphere needs to go all shouty on this

  11. Timothy Horrigan
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:40 pm

    Brown hair, green eyes, from a wealthy family?  It’s hard to believe that two different women could share all 3 of those characteristics.  And how many mansions have a pond on the premises?

  12. Timothy Horrigan
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:42 pm

    I might have to track down the Google map image.  It is almost impossible for me  to believe that someone would build a mansion next to a POND.   Why would anyone want to live next to a body of water?

  13. PaulLemmen
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:46 pm

     I should tell you some time about my days with SDS and WPP in Ann Arbor and Detroit, friendship with John Sinclair and Pun Plamondon …

  14. elaine
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:46 pm

     I saw a video clip of Ayers pretty much taking credit for having written Obama’s first book, after Andersen’s book was released.  So I’d say, yeah… it’s pretty clear Ayers wrote Dreams.

    Cashill said the second autobiography was written by someone else.  Obama?  Or yet another ghostwriter?

  15. Fat_Man
    May 5th, 2012 @ 11:55 pm

    There is no statute of limitation for murder. Ayers is guilty of murder in the death of Diana Oughton. He could still be tried and sent to jail.

  16. Adobe_Walls
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:02 am

    Better at it than they are.

  17. Adobe_Walls
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:06 am

    An excellent idea, should on the top ten must do immediately list for our next AG along with indicting Cair, the New Black Panthers and Holder and the top officials in DHS, DEA and ATF involved in the fast and furious scandal.

  18. Adobe_Walls
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:08 am

    I’m sure we’re all shocked to learn that there are falsehoods in something Obamsky is supposed to have written.

  19. elaine
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:09 am

     A wealthy family from Illinois, while the girlfriend was living in New York.  Not a child of a nouveau riche family in Nebraska or South Carolina, but a multi-generational dynasty in Illinois.  49 other states in the union to be from, and it’s the same state as Bill Ayers’ girlfriend…

    And who uses composite characters in an autobiography?  I can see doing it in a screenplay, because you have two hours or less to tell the story; so sometimes you have to compress events and composite characters.  But in a book, you have as many pages as you want….  You’d think it would be deemed rather important to measure an individual’s growth by seeing ALL the people he/she interacted with over the course of his/her life, especially romantic relationships.

    I hate to sound all conspiracy theory-ish, but has anyone seen the original alleged journal and letters?  Because I’d be curious to know whether they actually exist or if they’re just a “composite,” too…  Maybe this whole girlfriend “outing” is the campaign needing to discredit potentially embarrassing stories which might come out about Obama’s sexual proclivities…?

  20. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:24 am

     John Sinclair was the guy who inspired Abby Hoffman to get his head bashed by Pete Townshend at Woodstock.

  21. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:28 am

    I’m interested in the process Ayers used to construct this “composite” girlfriend of Obama’s. I imagine it started off something like this-

    “First, Barak, we remove the penises.”

  22. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:54 am

    Some of these women back in the sixties must have been just plain stupid as hell. They made such a big deal out of burning their bras and demanding their equal rights and independence from the “patriarchy”, then what do they do? They fall head over hills with the scumbag likes of Bill Ayers and Charles Manson, and we’re talking here about women and girls who were well educated, from wealthy and upper middle class families. Of course, that’s just the ones that aren’t bull dyke lesbos. Sounds to me like if anything these bitches weren’t repressed enough.  Yeah, you go girl.

  23. newrouter
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:06 am

    the sting for you fraud fans

  24. jwallin
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:07 am

    Is there ANYTHING (besides doing coke and weed) that he’s actually DONE himself?

    Has his entire life been a series of those charmed by him or his skin color giving him a “helping hand” (i.e. doing it for him)?

    I’m a misbegotten neer do well and I”VE done more things than Obama has. And NOOOOO help from the audience.

    What a waste of space. Unless you consider that skating through life having done absolutely nothing to earn his way is SORT of an accomplishment.

  25. danheskett
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:11 am

    Autobiography has a meaning.  “Dreams of My Father” is a memoir.  Close, but not the same. 

  26. Adjoran
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:53 am

    “They gave him ten for two,
    What else could the judges do?”
    ~ John Lennon

    Pete had many reactions with unruly fans over the years. A live recording on one of their box sets features some guy screaming “Play some Rock ‘n’ Roll!!” between numbers. Pete yells back at him: “Play some rock ‘n’ roll? What the hell do you think that was – Mantovani?”

  27. Adjoran
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:57 am

     Yeah, different, but not a difference in the accepted rules.  Memoirs don’t feature fake characters, either.

  28. Adjoran
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:00 am

     Harsh, but most people don’t know that “Frank” – Obama’s mentor at Columbia – was Frank Marshall Davis, a radical Marxist.  Davis was known for “mentoring” young men – good and hard.

    And why did the inner circle banish Obama’s best friend “Tony” from the White House soon after the Inauguration?

  29. Adjoran
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:02 am

    Now the true story of the “composite” girlfriend can be told.

    While Dr. Frankenayers was constructing the composite, his assistant Igor mistakenly retrieved a terrorist brain instead of a normal brain.

  30. Yehiel
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:16 am

     So he must also be part Jewish.

  31. Yehiel
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:18 am

    Julia was his girl friend. He’s Zach’s father. Child support on the way.

  32. Yehiel
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:21 am

     Obama said his father fought in WW II. He was about 5 or 6 years old. Every word out of Obama’s mouth, including AND and THE are lies. Mary McCarthy about that other Marxist Lillian Hellman.

  33. Foobert
    May 6th, 2012 @ 3:51 am

    If I had a New York girlfriend, she would be composite.

    (or composted)

  34. elaine
    May 6th, 2012 @ 8:05 am

     “A memoir is a retelling or recount of a life lived” according to yourdictionary.com

    So, all autobiographies are memoirs, but not all memoirs are autobiographies.

    Unless the whole “memoir” dodge is yet more proof he didn’t write his own story…

    And what use is a memoir — whether an autobiography or written about someone else — which is chock-full of fiction?  Doesn’t that just make it an “historical novel,” instead?

    Note: don’t try to screw with a lit major over this stuff, sparky…

  35. teapartydoc
    May 6th, 2012 @ 8:17 am

    Someone should, during an interview of The One, quote fake excerpts from one of his “autobiographies” and see if he picks up the fact that the quote is fake.  If he doesn’t, it is almost proof-positive he didn’t write them.

  36. PaulLemmen
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:11 am

    He is also the guy I helped organize “Free John Sinclair” rallies for, sold copies of “The Fifth Estate” at gatherings for and who introduced me to radicalism and socialist thought and writings. Much of my knowledge about Marxism was foundationally learned during these years, my “wasted teen years”.

  37. Fredo
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:30 am

    Ever notice  the lack of positive comments about Mitt Romney AFTER all the negativity about Obama..  
    Meanwhile on the Left, they go negative on Romney, but they at least throw in some positives about Obama after they are done trashing Romney. 
     Hardly ever a positive peep about Romney after Righties get done trashing ‘The One’. 
    Can’t win by solely trashing the other guy…

  38. Thane_Eichenauer
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:51 am

    I wonder how many fictitious elements need to arise before named author Barack Obama is identified and just one more James Frey. 

  39. Charles
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:58 am

    This is such BS, Elizabeth Warren was the composite girlfriend.

  40. Maybe It Should Be Called, “Dreams of Bill Ayers’ Father….” | Daily Pundit
    May 6th, 2012 @ 10:30 am

    […] of Bill Ayers’ Father….” Posted on May 6, 2012 7:30 am by Bill Quick Dreams of My Ghostwriter’s Ex: Did Bill Ayers Use Dead Weather Underground Terrorist Diana Oug…Putting on my writer’s hat for a second here: When a writer says “composite […]

  41. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 11:00 am

    Are you kidding?  Some of the highest priced real estate in the world lies next to streams or a body of water. 

    Or are you saying that you’ve never heard of beach front property?

    And please, don’t come back about the size of the body of water; I’ve seen multi-millionaires spend big bucks to make genuine ponds…..right next to a river. 

  42. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 11:23 am

     All that turmoil over a lousy pot bust. One or two joints, at that. Of course then that amounted to a lot more time, I guess. It was almost worth it just for Hoffman getting creamed on stage. Townshend had the right idea. Unfortunately, it wasn’t caught on film, but you can hear it on the recordings of the day. You hear Hoffman spouting, then suddenly, silence. If that kind of thing happened to those scumbags as often as I would like to see it happen, it would eventually get boring.

  43. rosalie
    May 6th, 2012 @ 11:37 am

    Sometimes these multimillion dollar homes have water going though their homes.  How about Frank Lloyd Wright’s home built over a waterfall?     

  44. Transterrestrial Musings - Dreams
    May 6th, 2012 @ 12:59 pm

    […] …of my ghost writer’s ex-girlfriend. […]

  45. Dai Alanye
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:10 pm

    Could it be possible that Tim H was indulging in irony?

  46. Dai Alanye
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:13 pm

    We all need to remember that personal memoir and autobiography are genres of fiction. In Frey’s book the fiction amounts to 98% or so, in U S Grant’s memoir it’s possibly 2%. Dreams From My Father comes much closer to Frey than Grant.

  47. Dai Alanye
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:17 pm

    Obama’s grandfather Stanley was in an airfield maintenance group attached to Patton’s army. His father was a famous drunken driver in Kenya.

    BTW, if you think “composite girlfriend” was something, check the facts on his “Wall Street job.”

  48. Dai Alanye
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:19 pm

    Why give the credit to Ayers? An anonymous Random House editor could have done the job, though faking Obama’s turgid prose must have required some talent.

  49. Obama’s Composite Girlfriend Sure is Similar to the Real Girlfriend of Bill Ayers | The Lonely Conservative
    May 6th, 2012 @ 1:29 pm

    […] an American Thinker piece in 2010, but the recent Vanity Fair piece written by David Marannis has put the book in the spotlight yet again.The so-called “New York girlfriend” in Obama’s memoir bears specific resemblance to Ayers’s […]

  50. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:09 pm

     Could be.  OTOH,  I’ve had this same conversation with other people.

    How about it, Tim?