Did Bill Ayers Write President Obama’s Book?

Like JFK, Pres. Obama owed his gravitas in part, as he entered the presidential primaries, to his reputation as a serious author. JFK received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage; Pres. Obama's books are Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

And like JFK, Pres. Obama is accused of falsifying his claim of authorship. It is not unusual for a major politician to collaborate with a "ghostwriter," but Pres. Obama claimed in a July 2008 meeting in Fairfax, Virginia, that "I actually wrote [the two books] myself." JFK was never confronted about his authorship, but his aide Ted Sorenson eventually came clean and admitted he wrote Profiles in Courage.

Sorenson admitted to the Wall Street Journal in May 2008 that he “did a first draft of most chapters” for JFK, “helped choose the words of many of its sentences” and “privately boasted or indirectly hinted that I had written much of the book.”

"In other words," writes Alexandria, Va. blogger James Joyner, "[Sorenson] wrote the book, [JFK] did some very late editing, and claimed it as his own work." Sorensen told the Journal that in 1957 — just after the book won a Pulitizer Prize — JFK “unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum” for [Sorensen’s] work on the book.

Did Bill Ayers Write Obama’s Book? Author Jack Cashill, among others, has analyzed the writing in Dreams From My Father and concluded that it was written by former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. There is other, non-literary evidence that Cashill is correct about Ayers' authorship, adduced here in an article posted on the Accuracy in Media website.