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Jack Cashill

Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America's First Postmodern President Hardcover – Bargain Price, February 15, 2011

by Jack Cashill (Author)

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Did Obama write his own books and is the story they tell true?

“I've written two books,” Barack Obama told a crowd of teachers in July of 2008. “I actually wrote them myself.” The teachers exploded in laughter. They got the joke: lesser politicians were not bright enough to do the same. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama supporters pointed to the first of those two books, the 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, as proof of Obama’s superior intellect. Time magazine called Dreams “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.” The Obama campaign machine traded on the candidate’s literary reputation, encouraging volunteers to “get out the vote and keep talking to others about the genius of Barack Obama.”

There was just one small flaw, as writer and literary detective Jack Cashill discovered months before the November 2008 election: nothing in Obama’s history suggested he was capable of writing either Dreams or his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope. In fact, as Cashill continued his research, he came to the shocking conclusion that the real craftsman behind Dreams was terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers.

“This was a charge,” David Remnick admits in his definitive Obama biography, The Bridge, “that if ever proved true, or believed to be true among enough voters, could have been the end of the candidacy.”

Deconstructing Obama tells the story of what happens when a citizen journalist discovers a game-changing reality that the media refuse to acknowledge. Despite their rejection, Cashill expanded his research into Obama’s literary canon. As he came to see, if Dreams serves as sacred text, the poem “Pop” is the Rosetta stone, the key to deciphering Obama’s shrouded past, his fragile psyche, and his uniquely cryptic political life. In unlocking that past, Cashill discovered that the story that Obama has been telling all his life varies from the true story in ways big and small. In fact, much of Obama’s life story appears to be a wholly constructed fabrication, one that Jack Cashill “deconstructs” to show the world just who Barack Obama really is.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jack Cashill is an independent writer and producer and, on a contractual basis, the executive editor of Ingram’s Magazine, the Kansas City regional business magazine.

In addition to his work with Ingram’s, Jack has written for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, and regularly for the American Thinker and WorldNetDaily.

Within the last decade Jack has written six other books of non-fiction—First Strike, Ron’s Brown’s Body, Hoodwinked, Sucker Punch, What’s the Matter with California, and Popes and Bankers. Jack has also produced nearly a score of documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels.

Jack has a Ph.D. from Purdue University in American studies, has taught at Purdue and at Kansas City area universities, and has served as a Fulbright professor in France.

Product details

ASIN : B0055X55HK
Publisher : Threshold Editions; First Edition (February 15, 2011)
Language : English
Hardcover : 352 pages
Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
Dimensions : 1.5 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #6,084,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,964 in Authorship Reference
- #6,514 in United States Executive Government
- #8,272 in US Presidents

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77 ratings

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Lmeta

I like to write, but I'm not a writer.

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2017

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This is an important book to read for those interested in politics. Jack Cashill did his homework. There's one part in the book where a psychotherapist lends her "opinion" about a poem and Obama's relationship with Frank Davis, that was a stretch for me. But besides that the book offered a glimpse into our former president that explains some of his views of the US and our current state of affairs.

4 people found this helpful

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CDM golfer

Great Book!!

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2019

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Full of insightful information into the real Barack Obama. Second of Jack Cashill’s I have read and have to say he is a great writer.

2 people found this helpful

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William Whipple III

A sobering critique

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2011

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Cashill first read "Dreams from My Father," in June 2008. A successful writer with literary pretensions, he was impressed by the quality of the writing - but rather less so by the content. The fact that "an aspiring state senator of modest means and minimal reputation could afford such a quality professional touch-up" impressed him as "an angle worth examining."

As Cashill's review progressed, he came to believe that Barack Obama was not the primary author of "Dreams," but rather ex-terrorist William Ayers who happens to be an excellent writer. No one from the inner circle has confirmed this view, but Cashill's circumstantial evidence is varied and impressive. For example:

* Comparison of the text to known writings of William Ayers show many stylistic similarities and parallel passages, including nautical analogies that might come naturally to someone (Ayers, but not Obama) with seafaring experience. In addition to Cashill's direct inspection, various computer programs were employed that tended to corroborate his conclusions.

* Comparison of the text to other Obama writings indicate that it is far superior to his "normal" writing style, i.e., that he would not have been capable of writing a book of this literary quality. It is also unclear when Obama could have found the time to write the book given his many other activities.

OK, most political memoirs are ghost written, so what? Well, for one thing, Obama claimed to be an exception to the rule. Not only had he "written two books," he stated on the campaign trail in July 2008, but "I actually wrote them myself."

Also, "Dreams" presented an unusual life story that the Obama team was selling in the campaign. If Americans concluded that someone else had written the book, this might possibly sway their reaction to the narrative and hence the results of the election.

With the moment of decision coming up fast and Senator John McCain trailing, Cashill did everything he could think of to make his deconstructionist case - but ran out of time.

After the 2008 election, Cashill completed and extended his analysis at a more leisurely pace. Among his conclusions: (1) Obama definitely did not write "Dreams," and Ayers probably did. (2) Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," was probably written by a campaign staffer who was trying to emulate the "Dreams" style but fell well short of the mark. (3) David Axelrod arranged for the burial of Obama's academic and personal records while managing Obama's Senate race in 2004. (4) Obama's academic record at Harvard Law School may have been less stellar than is commonly assumed because admission to the Law Review was only partially merit-based by that time (it was 100% merit based during my years at HLS). (5) A plausible case can be made that Barack Obama Sr. was not Obama's real father, but agreed to lend his name as a favor to the Dunham family. However, Obama definitely was born in Hawaii. (6) Although Obama's meteoric rise was aided by various prominent people, he was not their puppet - rather, he was using them.

Previous Obama exposes have been a mixed bag in my view, but this one is thoughtful, well researched, and deserves to be taken seriously.

23 people found this helpful

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Fred Fleming

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2017

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Good read

2 people found this helpful

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Graham H. Seibert

Lying is an essential art of statecraft and every President does it

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2011

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Some of them, such as Johnson and Clinton, develop a great deal of practice lying in their private lives. I am sure that suppressing their amorous peccadilloes with a straight face prepared them for the sort of practical prevarication routinely demanded by diplomacy. However, never has there been the President before whose entire life was constructed of lies. Mary McCarthy's great quip about Lillian Hellman, that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'" would seem to apply to Obama.

The author, Jack Cashill, goes into the kind of literary deconstruction that might have thrilled my high school English teacher, looking at the dangling participles, nautical images, malapropisms and the like which tie Obama's prose to that of 60s domestic terrorist William Ayres, who Cashill claims wrote "Dreams Of My Father." By the way, he also includes a quote from Ayres actually claiming that he wrote the book.

Just as interesting, and much easier to substantiate, are the repeated, egregious anachronisms in both Dreams of My Father and Audacity of Hope. The Obama life story just simply does not fit together. If Cashill is wrong, I am sure that the blogosphere would be alive with Obama Kool-Aid partisans saying as much. When did his father come to the United States? Did he ever marry Obama's mother? When did he leave Obama's mother? When did he leave the United States? When did Obama's mother move back to Washington state? Cashill makes the point that they tried to spin together a narrative to sell a product, Obama, and they had to force fit several pieces. It did not help that the author of Dreams, while a good writer, was an ideologue with his own agenda. It also did not help that Audacity was a committee project. In the final analysis, the Cashill makes a pretty convincing case that they don't fit together, and that the truth has been so successfully obscured that it may never be known. The Birthers are playing only with the tip of the iceberg.

So what? Kennedy didn't write Profiles in Courage either. He did manage to keep that fact suppressed until after he was elected, and once elected he had enough chutzpah to carry it off. While it may be that with Obama we bought a pig in a poke, a true unknown who was very skillfully marketed, we have to ask if that matters.

One thing that comes through clearly is that Obama was a very focused man, willing to throw everybody who helped him, in turn, under the bus as he climbed to higher office. Bill Ayres himself went under that bus, and came out bitching. As did the Rev. Wright, recently, and many politicians who helped along the way. In politics you have to be a ruthless bastard to succeed. Part of Obama's success is apparently his ability to keep his dagger sheathed until the right moment for a sure stab in the back. Obama has the instincts for power. The evidence presented for his other qualifications appears almost wholly fabricated. Is there any substance behind the fabrication?

Another thing I enjoyed about the book is Cashill's account of his own difficulties overcoming the stumbling blocks thrown in his path by Obama's many protectors and supporters. It rings very true, and it makes you wonder where the vast right wing conspiracy is when it is needed. He fought a lonely battle trying to figure out what happened. The first-person aspect of the book adds greatly to its enjoyability. As of this writing, Cashill has a one-hour video recap of the book on his web site which does an excellent job of capturing the "deconstructing" part of the book, though not so much with the anachronisms.

I got into very heated debates over the Swift boaters back in 2004. I read the book, I had served in Vietnam, and in all rang true to me. There is still a large contingent who believe that the Swift boat story is an invention of the vast right wing conspiracy, and have put "Swiftboating" into the leftist vocabulary just as surely as "Borking" belongs to the right. I have a premonition that this book is going to be significant enough in the upcoming election to earn its own verb (gerund - thanks Mr. Cashill). Whether or not you want to believe it, it will probably be important to have read it. Obama will not be able to sweep it under the rug.

20 people found this helpful

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Peter Stewart

Arrived slightly damaged.

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2020

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Product arrived slightly damaged at the top of the book. See picture.

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R2S2

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2015

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Pathetic guy in my mind

3 people found this helpful

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Jeannie

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2016

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2 people found this helpful

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Paul Marks

It makes its case - it is clearly the truth.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 24, 2011

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Sadly this book will be caught in the political cross fire.

People who are opposed to Barack Obama will love the work.

And people who support Barack Obama will hate the work.

This is unfortunate - because this book (this case) deserves to be judged on its own merits.

Did Barack Obama really write "Dreams From My Father" (as he has so often said), or was the book (in part) written by William "Bill" Ayers?

An unbiased person (if only one could be found) would say that this is what is important - does Jack Cashill make his case well or not?

I say that he does - but I oppose Barack Obama, and I suspect that any supporter of Barack Obama will say "no he does not", indeed would say that (and would say that this book is no good) without even reading it.

There are three reasons for this.

Firstly Jack Cashill is a noted conservative writer - the left hated him before he had written a word about Barack Obama (and would, on principle, hate any book he wrote).

Secondly no one likes one of their heros being accused of fraud - of pretending to write a book he did not really write. For example, admirers of Jack Kennedy do not like to be reminded that he was not really the author of "Profiles in Courage" and that people lied in court to protect his reputation.

But thirdly (and most importantly - not least importantly) it is a matter of the person who Cashill claims was the true author of "Dreams From My Father" - Bill Ayers.

Most politicians use ghost writers - Barack Obama would not be out of the ordinary by doing this, nearly every politician (regardless of party) does it.

However, most politicians do not choose a life long Communist (and ex terrorist - who has never expressed remorse, and who continues to lie about his groups activites, for "The Weathermen" DID kill people indeed as recently as 1981, and hoped to kill TENS OF MILLIONS of people, if their Marxist Revolution ever actually took place) to be their ghost writer.

The admirers of Barack Obama (especially in the media and the education system) have spent years downplaying his radical associations, so they are never going to accept that on such an important project (basically his own biography) that he turned for help to Bill Ayers.

Again - I think the case that Jack Cashill makes is overwhelming, but "I would" (I freely admit I despised Barack Obama before I ever picked up this book), what would be more interesting is if a person of the left could see that this book presents a strong case - and admitted that it does.

However, I do not expect that to happen.

4 people found this helpful

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