“Polygraph-level scholarship may suffice for harmless speculation about the authorship of Midsummer’s Night Dream, but not for Dreams From My Father. Too much is at stake.”

(by request.)

As all actual, practicing literary critics know, few sentences in critical works scream tendentiousness louder than:

What should be transparent to any literary critic is that . . .

Literary matters are only "transparent" when they're not properly literary. If something is transparent, you don't need a literary critic to ponder the depths it doesn't have—any old idiot will suffice. And that's exactly why Jack Cashill, author of the above and an idiot of long-standing, is just the man to prove that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father. For Cashill and his mysterious contributors ("[t]he media punishment that Joe the Plumber received" requires they remain anonymous), the case against Obama is a compelling one:

What Mr. Midwest noticed recently is that both Ayers in [A Kind and Just Parent] and Obama in [Dreams From My Father] make reference to the poet Carl Sandburg. In itself, this is not a grand revelation. Let us call it a C-level match. Obama and Ayers seem to have shared the same library in any case . . . Ayers and Obama, however, go beyond citing Sandburg. Each quotes the opening line of his poem "Chicago" . . . This I would call a B-level match. What raises it up a notch to an A-level match is the fact that both misquote "Chicago," and they do so in exactly the same way.

So both Ayers and Obama misquote the opening line of Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," substituting "hog butcher to the world" for "hog butcher for the world." This mutual error would be significant (an "A-level match") if Ayers and Obama were the only two people who ever made it, but according to Google Book Search—a secret search engine to which only I have access—the same mistake has been made by Nelson Algren, Alan Lomax, Andrei Codrescu, H.L. Mencken, Paul Krugman, Perry Miller, Donald Hall, Ed McBain, Saul Bellow, S.J. Perelman, Nathanaël West, Ezra Pound, Wright Morris, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, and the 1967 Illinois Commission on Automation and Technological Progress. (To name but a few.) According to Cashill, I have now proven that Dreams From My Father was written by many a dead man of American letters, a living mystery writer, a New York Times columnist and the 1967 Illinois Commission on Automation and Technological Progress. That bears repeating:

I have an "A-level match" that proves that Obama's autobiography was written by a "study of the economic and social effects of automation and other technological changes on industry, commerce, agriculture, education, manpower, and society in Illinois" when Obama was only six years old.  If that somehow fails to convey to the dubious merits of Cashill's argument, perhaps this will:

Returning to the exotic, in his Indonesian backyard Obama discovered two "birds of paradise" running wild as well as chickens, ducks, and a "yellow dog with a baleful howl." In [Ayers'] Fugitive Days, there is even more "howling" than there is in Dreams . . . In [A Kind and Just Parent], he talks specifically about a "yellow dog." And he uses the word "baleful" to describe an "eye" in Fugitive Days. For the record, "baleful" means "threatening harm." I had to look it up.

You did read that right. Cashill did cite as "A-level" evidence the fact that Ayers and Obama used a word he didn't know, despite his being the Executive Editor of Kansas City’s premier business publication, Ingram’s Magazine; despite his having written for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Weekly Standard; despite his having authored five books of non-fiction; and despite the word "baleful" having appeared in print 342 times in the past six months alone. Granted, all those appearances were in high-minded literary publications like Newsday ("[w]ith his baleful countenance, wild hair, sonorous baritone and sage pronouncements") or leftist rags like The Washington Times ("warn them in baleful tones if they've forgotten, say, the Constitution"), so it would be unreasonable to expect Cashill to have been familiar with the word . . . or would be, were it not for the fact that it also appears 19 times in the pages of the American Thinker, the publication for which Cashill penned this tripe. (Seems he can begin his careful literary analysis of the other 848,000 potential ghost writers closer to home.)

Fortunately for Cashill, his argument is not entirely based on demonstrations of ignorance and popular misquotations (which, when you think about it, is more along the lines of literary detection than literary criticism anyway), as when he claims that Ayers and Obama are unique among memoirists in their fascination with eyes: "Ayers is fixated with faces, especially eyes [and] Obama is also fixated with faces, especially eyes." Having performed an extensive study of autobiographical writing, Cashill knows how unique this fixation with eyes is. Consider this passage from Dreams From My Father:

Peter said Peter said eyes are always and eyes are always. Peter said Peter said, eyes are always and Peter said eyes are always. Peter said eyes are always. Peter said eyes are always.

Sorry—that was Gertrude Stein. Here's the passage from Dreams From My Father:

Whenever I looked in her direction she had her eyes on me. The face she had! The eyes! She lay streched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. I asked her to look at me and after a few moments—after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. Let me in. We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! The eyes she had!

Sorry—that was Samuel Beckett. If I didn't know better, I'd be inclinced to argue that works that are overtly concerned with the act of remembering and the limitations of memory tend to obsess over the eye and its punned hononym ("I"). Actually, I do know better, so I will: be they modernist experimentations about subjectivity or humble autobiographies, works that concern themselves with the act of remembering and the limitations of memory tend to obsess over the eye and its punned homonym ("I").

Perhaps it's unfair of a professional literary critic to expect Cashill to have intimate knowledge of literary modernism. I should cut him some slack and let him perform the kind of close stylistic analysis that I teach my students. Maybe he can handle something simple, like diction:

To this point, I have just skimmed the 759 items in the bill of particulars in my case against Obama's literary genius. Not familiar with the term "bill of particulars?" Uncertain myself, I looked that one up too. It means a list of written statements made by a party to a court proceeding. Ayers and Obama each refer knowingly to a "bill of particulars." Doesn't everyone?

The answer, of course, is no.

Cashill is on to something here. The phrase "bill of particulars" is an uncommon construction, and its repeated use indicates that the speaker has a specialized vocabulary in which this construction regularly appears. According to LexisNexis, this is exactly the case: in the past six months, that exact phrase has been written 509 times and every single one of them looks like this:

United States v. Clark, NO. 05-6507, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT, 09a0422n.06;, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 12940; 2009 FED App. 0422N (6th Cir.), June 15, 2009, Filed, NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION. SIXTH CIRCUIT RULE 28(g) LIMITS CITATION TO SPECIFIC SITUATIONS. PLEASE SEE RULE 28(g) BEFORE CITING IN A PROCEEDING IN A COURT IN THE SIXTH CIRCUIT. IF CITED, A COPY MUST BE SERVED ON OTHER PARTIES AND THE COURT. THIS NOTICE IS TO BE PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED IF THIS DECISION IS REPRODUCED.

The only people who regularly use the phrase "bill of particulars," then, are lawyers, and since Bill Ayers isn't a lawyer, I think we can all agree that Cashill is right: Obama is the author of Bill Ayers' Fugitive D—wait a minute!

UPDATE.  I added links to pictures of the LexisNexis searches after a few people complained they couldn't access the results themselves.

UPDATE II.  Welcome readers of Balloon Juice, Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Making Light, and Salon.  Kick up your feet, flip through the archives, or head right to the good/best stuff.

(x-posted.)

Comments

[tomemos]

Great takedown, SEK. I'd add, about this part:

And he uses the word "baleful" to describe an "eye" in Fugitive Days.

I'd hazard a guess that "baleful" is used to describe an eye, a glance, a gaze, a glare, or some other ocular noun more than any other class of noun. By now, "baleful" practically means "Hostile, esp. of the eyes or gaze." Far from being some proof of authorship, it's actually a near-cliche.

[StevenAttewell]

Ah, now that's some good snark.

Interestingly, I'm fairly sure that baleful came from the Celtic myth of Balor, the Firbolg (giant) king, who had one giant eye that would slay anyone who it looked upon, who slew Nuada of the Silver Arm, and was in turn slain by Lugh, the son of the Sun.

Ah, I spent my childhood well.

[StevenAttewell]

That's weird. I (StevenAttewell) wrote that last line.

[Rich Puchalsky]

The baleful eye ... of Sauron! Clearly this proves that Tolkien created Obama. It's the Orcification of America!

No, I don't have anything against orcs. I'm not a racist.

[Ahistoricality]

Give Cashill credit, though: the Stein-Beckett-Obama connection is chilling, though.

[Ben Alpers]

What, no quotes from Georges Bataille? Aren't they teaching you literary types the classics anymore?

[cp]

One of Cashill's books is entitled How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture, and should probably be subtitled The Jack Cashill Story.

[Josh E.]

This must be satire.

Given Obama's age, "Mekong Delta" was not likely a part of his vocabulary, but that does not stop him from writing about "the angry young men in Soweto or Detroit or the Mekong Delta."

Anyone younger than 50 has never heard of the Mekong Delta. True Fact!

[SEK]

And he uses the word "baleful" to describe an "eye" in Fugitive Days.

tomemos, I almost snarked about Obama and Ayers having a penchant for "eyes" instead of eyes, but that seemed one step too far.

the Stein-Beckett-Obama connection is chilling

Ahem:

Being President is funny being yourself is funny as you are never yourself to yourself except as you remember yourself and then of course you do not believe yourself to be the President . . . you do not really believe yourself why should you, you know so well so very well that the President is not yourself, the President could not be yourself because you cannot remember right and if you do remember right it does not sound right and of course it does not sound right because it is not right. You are of course never the President to yourself because you are black and have a funny name.

That's weird. I (StevenAttewell) wrote that last line.

And the others one too, right Steven? I think I'm missing something (or TypePad's HTML is screwy again).

What, no quotes from Georges Bataille? Aren't they teaching you literary types the classics anymore?

Ben, normally people ask whether I named the blog after Bataille, not whether I'm familiar with him. Which I am, mind you, but us fancy folks aren't supposed to admit we've read voyeuristic novels that border on pornography (unless they're written by Joyce).

One of Cashill's books is entitled How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture, and should probably be subtitled The Jack Cashill Story.

CP for the win!

Anyone younger than 50 has never heard of the Mekong Delta. True Fact!

Well, duh. Wait, what was that? Swift boat what? Huh? Anyway, yes, Cashill for the win!

[Righteous Bubba]

Jonah's been reading.

[Righteous Bubba]

Or have you been reading Jonah? The mind buggers.

[deebs]

Nice work. However, I noticed a small factual error: Ed McBain is not a "living mystery writer." He's a dead one.

[StevenAttewell]

SEK:

Typepad did something weird, where it looked like my posts were coming out as Tomemos', but it seems to have fixed now.

[John Protevi]

Ha! Very good. Just the thing to brighten up a Monday morning. Thanks, JP

[SEK]

Or have you been reading Jonah? The mind buggers.

I think the consensus is that I read Jonah and he pretends to have never read me.

Ed McBain is not a "living mystery writer." He's a dead one.

I thought Evan Hunter died, but "Ed McBain" lived on---that seems not to be the case. I must be thinking of some other immortal pseudonym.

[Sarcastro]

I'm fairly sure that baleful came from the Celtic myth of Balor...

Probably not. Bale, in the sense baleful uses, comes from Anglo Saxon via the proto-Germanic *balwom. Cognate with Old High Germanic balo, Old Frisian balu and Old Norse bol. Most likely derived from the PIE base *bheleu- "to beat."

I do not know for sure but I'd hazard to guess that Balor, like the Norse Baldr, derives from a root word for "prince" or "lord" that also gave Old English the word baeldor. Most likely the PIE root *bhel-, "to swell (with strength or pride)".

I'd be surprised if the semitic baal had anything to do with it (baleful or balor that is), but it's not outside the realms of possibility what with Phoenician traders visiting Britain as early as 1500 BCE and Celtic raiders troubling Anatolia from the 5th century BCE onwards.

[kamper]

Minor point, perhaps, but neither Obama nor Ayers "misquote" Sanders. In both of the examples (see Cashill's original article), they reference the notion, introduced by Sanders but long since entered into the vernacular, that Chicago is hog butcher to the world. Like saying the Midwest is the breadbasket to the country or that Wasilla is the meth lab to Alaska.

[deebs]

"I thought Evan Hunter died, but "Ed McBain" lived on---that seems not to be the case. I must be thinking of some other immortal pseudonym."

Nope, I'm pretty sure nobody has as yet taken up the "Ed McBain" mantel, but even if somebody had it'd still be false or, at the very best, highly misleading to say "Ed McBain is a living mystery writer" (if I published a book under the pseudonym "Mark Twain" with the permission of his estate, would that make "Mark Twain is a living American writer" a true proposition?)
Incidently, "Evan Hunter" is also a pseudonym. His real name was Salvatore Lombino.

[SEK]

Point taken, post corrected. (Though that sentence loses some zing, damn it, but better to be accurate than stylish.)

[Tom]

Cool. I visit a link from Salon and wind up on the blog of an RLPAer!