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. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:10 pm

     And, for the record, I don’t necessarily agree with the need for a body of water as a mandatory part of any landscaping.  I am merely pointing out a rather odd aspect of my professional experience.

  2. Pathfinder's wife
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:12 pm

    As a woman born after the Boomers I view much of what the “ladies” from the ’60s did as the rebellious acting out by spoiled little daddy’s girls.

    And because their fathers and mothers (thanks to the general socio-cultural climate of…progress) did not jerk a knot in their collective tails for not only acting the fool (understandable in young people) but refusing to grow up and stop with acting the fool, thanks to that, the modern age has been saddled with their sorry, entitled, ungrateful, resentful butts.  They still aren’t done creating and spreading their poison either — I’m betting they will demand to go out with a full pageant spectacle of millions more corpses…like the ancient sardars of old.  It’s only fitting for the Greatest Generation’s golden stardust kiddies.

    Of course, this also goes for the boys — they were/are just as bad.

  3. andycanuck
    May 6th, 2012 @ 2:30 pm

     Was it named Lake Bowegone?

  4. labman57
    May 6th, 2012 @ 3:15 pm

    Ah, when all else fails, rehash old previously discredited rumors regarding Ayers having ghost-written Obama’s book.

    Desperate times call for desperate measures, and with each passing day, conservatives are becoming increasingly desperate about their prospects in the November elections.

  5. elaine
    May 6th, 2012 @ 3:17 pm

     Why give the credit to Ayers?

    Because he took the credit for himself.

    http://youtu.be/OfIZDYm0a54

    Note in the clip after Ayers says “Did you know that I wrote it?” several members of the audience say, “We know that.”

    So it’s not like fellow lefties were unaware of the fact… just the rest of us.

  6. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 3:34 pm

    Some people have ponds or small lakes stocked with fish, as much as just for the looks. I would personally rather have something like that than a swimming pool.

    As far as living close to a large body of water like a large lake or river, it would depend on where it was, how close I was to it, and how flood prone it was, and more importantly whether there was a sufficient flood wall.

    There is also insurance to take into account.

  7. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 3:39 pm

     Regardless of whether or not Obama wrote his own book or Ayers wrote it for him, one important indisputable fact remains. Both Ayers and Obama share in common the fact that they are both commie faggots.

  8. Dai Alanye
    May 6th, 2012 @ 4:34 pm

    Not proof by any means. In the first place, leftists are occasionally known to lie. Furthermore, some have acquired the skill of irony.

    I’m officially agnostic on the matter. Was originally highly skeptical but have since learned that Obama has written a few other things… or had them written for him. The fact Dreams From My Father has some literary gimmicks that wouldn’t be expected of a first-time writer makes me skeptical, but those could have been supplied at Random House.

    Read Steve Sailer’s analysis in America’s Half-blood Prince before coming to a conclusion. Not saying Sailer is the last word by any means, but he’s given the matter some thought, and particularly doubts Ayers could have done it.

    Besides, Dreams is almost unreadable. Let Obama take the blame for it.

  9. Obama’s Composite Girlfriend: My Reaction » Conservative Hideout 2.0
    May 6th, 2012 @ 5:01 pm

    […] tells me that this means that Obama had no girlfriends, but that really isn’t relevant.  But, The Other McCain has more into the who’s and how’s of the thing… In 2008, conservative journalist Jack Cashill presented evidence that Barack Obama’s bestselling […]

  10. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 5:43 pm

    You’ve pretty much described my professional experience.  Except for the fish.

  11. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 5:46 pm

     Actually, this story reinforces the conclusion that Obama and Ayers are liars.  Hence, it’s not a rehash.

    And I must respectfully disagree with ThePaganTemple: Ayers and Obama are not commie faggots.  They are lying commie faggots.

  12. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:16 pm

    Calling someone a lying commie faggot is about the same as referring to the leftist mainstream media. It’s repeating yourself. Especially when you’re dealing with the likes of Obama and Ayers.

  13. Bob Belvedere
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:28 pm

    Let us not forget that Davis was a pornographer.

  14. Bob Belvedere
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:29 pm

    Right on, sister, right on.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:30 pm

    Sign of these dark times.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:32 pm

    It’s the supporters of Willard who are obligated to speak up for their man, not those of us who fought against him every step of the way.  You wanted him, you’ve got him – do your own work.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    May 6th, 2012 @ 6:35 pm

    Gentlemen: Can’t we all just get along!

    Barack Hussein Marshall-Davis is (1) a commie, (2) a liar, and (3) a pooftah.  Any combination of the three is good and accurate.

  18. JeffS
    May 6th, 2012 @ 7:03 pm

     True, TPT, true.   But it can’t said often and clearly enough, so that all might understand: 

    OBAMA AND AYERS ARE LYING COMMIE FAGGOTS.

  19. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 8:13 pm

     I’m going to have to get around to reading that Grant memoir one of these days, I hear its the best memoir ever written. With the life he led, that would have to be good.

  20. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 8:16 pm

     I fought against him every step of the way, until that way turned into his victory march, then I stopped fighting him and got myself beamed on board the old Romneylan Bird Of Prey. Stop being a hard head and get ready to be beamed aboard.

  21. PaulLemmen
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:22 pm

     Being onof the males you cite at the tag-end, I agree with you.

  22. PaulLemmen
    May 6th, 2012 @ 9:24 pm

     Irony as opposed to silvery or goldy?

  23. ThePaganTemple
    May 6th, 2012 @ 10:27 pm

     It should be no mystery to anyone as to what either Ayers or Obama is. The only mystery so far unanswered is which one will get it in the end?

  24. Dai Alanye
    May 7th, 2012 @ 1:07 am

    Why would you zinc that? Your elementary puns aren’t worth a nickel.

  25. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 7:46 am

    One of my paternal Grandmother’s nicknames for me was ‘Thickhead’ – in her vocabulary it meant stubborn.

  26. PaulLemmen
    May 7th, 2012 @ 7:53 am

     🙂

  27. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:41 am

    It’s a masterpiece, except for the last fifth, which he wrote near the end when he was on some very heavy pain meds, so it is a bit cloudy.

  28. Instapundit » Blog Archive » WHY IS BILL AYERS SPEAKING AT GREENFESTIVAL? “The green movement isn’t just a subset of the progre…
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:41 am

    […] composite of multiple aspects of the far left, you might […]

  29. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:44 am

    Who took those nude pictures of Obama’s Mother.

  30. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:45 am

    You never forget your first girlfriend who gets blown up.

  31. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:48 am

    No wonder he went Black and never came back, in regards to women.

    Of course, when it comes to men, he still has a soft [or would it be more proper to say ‘hard’?] spot for Poch-eee-stahan-ee and Indian fellows.

  32. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 8:49 am

    Why can’t be like Iran and Iraq in their war?

  33. orbicularioculi
    May 7th, 2012 @ 10:35 am

    Well, I sure hope all these bas*ards rot in hell.  Obama is indeed the “composite” human being… he now seems to be decomposing – rotting. 

    His Marxist-Socialist ideas are destroying the economic fabric of America and he just doesn’t care.

  34. David Gano Wrone
    May 7th, 2012 @ 11:56 am

    That’s right. Grant was nearly dead from throat cancer when he finished his memoirs – and died not soon after. He was desperate to finish the manuscript because he was basically broke and wished to provide for his family post-death. A most noble man, I dare say.

  35. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 7th, 2012 @ 1:12 pm

    Just another guy from the neighborhood?  Eric Holder-Barack Obama and the Justice Department giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn?  
    http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/05/barack-obama-and-eric-holder-giving.html

    And I linked you TOM.  

  36. NDanielson
    May 7th, 2012 @ 1:21 pm

     Discredited by liberals does not make it so.  Here give this a gander, and see if it has been discredited anywhere but in the twisted, small, liberal mind.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_mathematics_of_dreams_from.html?amp&amp

  37. Bob Belvedere
    May 7th, 2012 @ 1:38 pm

    Very much so.

  38. Probably Just a Coincidence : The Other McCain
    May 10th, 2012 @ 4:23 pm

    […] college transcripts, or senior thesis, and the only former girlfriend of his we know about is a composite perhaps based on a dead ex-girlfriend of his ghost writer, radical terrorist Bill Ayers. But the Washington Post can send a reporter out to do deep investigative journalism on Mitt […]