Turns out I owe Jack Cashill an apology.

Because I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the identity of the author of Dreams From My Father. Independent confirmation of Cashill's claim that William Ayers penned the President's memoir comes in the form of a book by celebrity biographer Christopher Andersen. Cashill is right to be excited—it's not every day you blunder to the plate, close your eyes, swing for the fences and have your prayers answered. That's what the arrival of corroborating evidence in Andersen's book amounts to, and no researcher who's found corroboration of the sort in independently researched materials will begrudge Cashill the tone of unreserved glee and grammatical abandon evident in his latest post:

In his new book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," Best-selling celebrity journalist, Christopher Andersen, has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so.

Who cares that book titles are traditionally underlined or italicized, capital letters belong at the beginning of sentences, or that he uses, commas, like an undergraduate when independent research has provided a factual basis for his speculative argument:

Relying on inside sources, quite possibly Michelle Obama herself, Andersen describes how Dreams came to be published—just as I had envisioned it in my articles on the authorship of Dreams. With the deadline pressing, Michelle recommended that Barack seek advice from "his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers."

Only a killjoy would complain that Michelle Obama couldn't be a source, "quite possibly" or otherwise, because Andersen wrote an unauthorized biography—which, by definition, is a biography whose subject or subjects did not participate in its composition. That those "inside sources" who knew of Michelle's purported recommendation are not named, i.e. sourced, is the sort of thing that, despite being true, only someone who hated joy would point out.

Andersen continues, "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's Dreams From My Father would be significant—so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers's own writing."

Even though Cashill jettisons the very pretense of formatting book titles here, and even though Andersen's claim is couched in a conditional clause ("would be significant") of the sort favored by authors who learned their libel law from the wrong end of many lawsuits, we should not let such quibbles diminish the importance of this independent, corroborating evidence—especially when, even though Cashill doesn't identify him in his post, these claims come from a named source:

In the end, Ayers's contribution of Barack's Dreams from My Father would be significant—so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similiarity to Ayers's own writings . . .

"There was a good deal of literary back-scratching going on in Hyde Park," said writer Jack Cashill, who noted that a mutual friend of Barack and Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, thanked Ayers for helping him with his book Resurrecting Empire. Ayers, explained Cashill, "provided an informal editing service for like-minded friends in the neighborhood."

Your eyes do not deceive you. Against odds of astronomical grandeur, Cashill's independent, corroborating evidence for his theory that William Ayers wrote the President's memoir is also named Jack Cashill. But, as Cashill—the one who first made the claim, not the independent researcher who verified it—might say, sometimes the world can be as small as the city of the Chicago.

Comments

[SEK]

Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation strikes again. Thanks for pointing that out, Dave, as it seems I bunked the word when I added the link.

[Gary Farber]

"Either that, or you are accusing Cashill of being a liar."

I'd go with accusing him of being an idiot, myself.

"...so I'll only add that Michelle Obama could have been the source the anonymous source was attributing the information to."

"Could" does a great deal of work in this sentence.

[SEK]

[I wrote this a few hours back, but it never posted for some reason.]

Now, as to Jeff's latest:

Which means you have just accused Christopher Andersen of being a plagiarist and a fabulist.

As you can see from the above, I'm accusing Andersen of being a deliberately irresponsible researcher who doesn't catalog his source, thereby making it impossible for anyone to verify his claims. This is the person you've chosen to associate yourself with, and that speaks poorly of you.

Cashill denies he was the source. I know, because I wrote him and asked directly.

If you'd read the thread you'd link to or didn't delete my attempts to rebut you on your site---which, you'll note, isn't the way it works here---you'd know that I've emailed Cashill and Andersen, but to the surprise of no one besides you, neither of them have responded. I'd be interested to know what you wrote him:

Dear Mr. Cashill,

I am currently defending your honor from rapscallions on the internet, and I need material to throw in their faces on your behalf. Pray tell, say the words I long to hear, and rest assured I will believe them no matter how self-serving or nonsensical they are.

Warmest wishes,

Jeff

Obviously, that's not a direct quotation, but it sorta kinda points to why he responded to your email and not mine.

Conditional and past imperfect are not the same thing.

Thanks! I love it when people condescend to tell me stuff I already know.

You can make an argument that what's being used here is an implied conditional, but dicentra has a different take.

To paraphrase someone or other:

Yes words are funny verbs are funny sometimes verbs say this or are helped and say that because verbs are funny time is funny verbs mark time but sometimes verbs say words the people who say them do not want or can not say.

So, absolutely, there's a chance that's not a conditional, but if it isn't that makes your case that much more suspect, because now Andersen's making sweeping conclusions based on 1) anonymous sources and 2) Cashill's "expert" literary analysis of the similarities between Ayers and Obama.

Farber already dealt with your "unauthorized" gotcha

Actually, I disagreed with him and am waiting to hear back from someone who works in the legal department of a publishing house, so despite my respect for Farber, I don't consider that matter settled yet.

[S]o I'll only add that Michelle Obama could have been the source the anonymous source was attributing the information to. Which would make her the source without making her the source, if in fact Andersen trusts the source of the source.

Translation: I think it's a sound practice to trust the source of a source if an author who has demonstrated himself to be incompetent when it comes to documenting sources trusts the second-order source.

The obvious-to-everyone-but-Jeff subtext: I'll embrace methodological sloppiness so grievous it borders on outright dishonesty so long as the resulting lie is something I desperately want to believe to be true.

[prosehack65]

Sorry, but did you forget a word?
You said an unauthorized biography is "a biography whose subject or subjects did participate in its composition."

I think you meant did NOT participate?

[SEK]

I did. It's occupational hazard with me.

[Dan Collins]

When I saw the headline, I thought, "Good for Scott." Now that I read the post, not so much.

That someone's methodology differs from what you might do, yet provides results, ought not constitute so much an opportunity to claim that there was a heuristic home run hit out of sheer luck, as to consider whether one might have missed something. Something to do with the nature of evidence, something to do with assumptions. I imagine that if Jeff hadn't made this so much about you, there might not be so much ego involved, but there it is.

This is nothing but false logic, based on the premise that Scott is more reasonable than Jack Cashill, smarter than Jack Cashill, better informed than Jack Cashill, and that therefore if Scott did not see what Jack Cashill saw, no reasonable, intelligent, intellectually honest person ought to have seen what Jack Cashill saw. This seems to me a proclivity towards pretension, and an example of sour grapes.

The worst of it, though, is the argumentum ad Harvardum in the comments.

[Slartibartfast]

I think the worst is the fist-pumping over the lack of result in an exact string search, when something a little less exact might have gotten a slightly different result.

[JeffG]

That's correct, Slart. The line that Cashill must necessarily have uttered to Andersen -- the anchor to which SEK has tied the entirety of his argument that Cashill must be lying about being Andersen's source -- is right here, in a published piece by Cashill.

So. Either Cashill, when speaking to Andersen on the down low, repeats himself in lines directly from his published work, or else Andersen read the piece and quoted it.

SEK naturally chooses the former, because it allows him to go on and on and on and on pretending he's some sort of close reader capable of sussing out right wing lies.

So many words spilled, so many accusations thrown about, so many characters called into question, so much manipulating of the rhetorical chess pieces -- all wasted, and all because he couldn't pull off a decent web search.

Makes me giggle.

[JeffG]

Oh, quick question: would basing an argument around the "fact" that Andersen and Cashill must have spoken given that a line Andersen attributes to Cashill doesn't appear on the internet -- only to find out that the line actually DOES appear on the internet -- be considered a "methodological sloppiness so grievous it borders on outright dishonesty so long as the resulting lie is something I desperately want to believe to be true"?

Incidentally, I STILL haven't taken a position on whether or not I believe Ayers to be a contributor to Dreams. This was true the last time I wrote on this subject, and it's true now.

If there's anyone who appears compulsively driven to believe something to be true, I submit it's the pedant who has staked so much of his reputation on the story being "absurd on its face" that he's now reduced to calling Cashill and Andersen liars and hacks based on nothing more revelatory than his own erroneous web search.

[JeffG]

For the record, here's the email I sent to the editor at American Thinker (who sent it on to Mr Cashill) along with his response:

At least one liberal academic has parsed Cashill's piece and concluded that, because Cashill spoke with Anderson, that Anderson's anonymous source is, in fact, Cashill -- the resultant argument being that Cashill is the source for his own revelation, ostensibly gathered through Anderson's book.

What specifically does Anderson assert in this piece that Cashill didn't first feed him in their conversation(s)?

Thanks for your attention,

Jeff Goldstein

www.proteinwisdom.com

****

Passing this along to Jack for comment.

In essence, you are accusing Jack of being dishonest when he wrote the blog item here, and stated that Andersen unintentionally reinforced Cashill’s thesis.

I think your question is better directed to Andersen.

Thomas Lifson, editor

Not quite the way you attempted to portray the exchange, is it, Scott?

[SEK]

Dan:

That someone's methodology differs from what you might do, yet provides results

And a Freudian will see penises everywhere, but that doesn't mean I have to consider their methodology sound or responsible. However, at least Freudians are systematic---if you read my earlier posts, you'll see that Cashill's unconscionably vague and doggedly impressionistic.

I imagine that if Jeff hadn't made this so much about you, there might not be so much ego involved, but there it is.

There's no ego involved on my side, Dan. I'm perfectly willing to consider other interpretations valid---so much so that in a completely unrelated conversation, I say stuff like:

I’m not saying that the only valid mode of inquiry is mine, or that everyone should do what I do---I am, however, saying, that everyone should be able to justify why they do what they do more explicitly than, say, claiming they belong to the school of art.

You don't have to do what I do to make a valid interpretation---but you do have to have a firm basis in something more solid than Cashill's ignorance. ("I don't know what these words they both use actually mean, therefore Ayers wrote them both.") Given the fact that I provided independent confirmation that I believe people who aren't me can make valid arguments, all the rest of your comment, Dan, is beside the point.

Slart:

I think the worst is the fist-pumping over the lack of result in an exact string search, when something a little less exact might have gotten a slightly different result.

So it came from that WND article. Fair enough. That said, it's a minor point, and it doesn't do anything to recuperate Andersen, because:

1. Andersen wants you to believe that Cashill told him this.

2. He doesn't cite Cashill in the relevant portion of his back matter.

So we're still left with a dishonest writer and a sloppy researcher.

Jeff:

the anchor to which SEK has tied the entirety of his argument that Cashill must be lying about being Andersen's source

I haven't tied the entirety of my original argument to a comment I made about a day later---in fact, the entirety of the argument in in that same comment isn't tied to it. Since you obviously read that comment, you know that the point of that last paragraph wasn't to say that Andersen and Cashill necessarily did anything, but that the result of Andersen's sloppy documentation creates a shit-mist that people like you can use to your advantage.

In point of fact, had Andersen been competent, I wouldn't even have had to try to figure out where the remark from Cashill came from, because it would've been included in the two pages of "[p]reviously published sources." Why isn't it, exactly? The answer's either incompetence or deception, and as I said in that comment, neither answer improves his credibility.

So many words spilled, so many accusations thrown about, so many characters called into question, so much manipulating of the rhetorical chess pieces -- all wasted, and all because he couldn't pull off a decent web search.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but . . . you do realize that the stuff at the top of the page is the post, in which the body of my argument appears, and that the item to which you're referring to is a comment on that post, and thus not a necessary part of it, don't you? Because you act as if you've landed some sort of blow, when all you've done is demonstrate why Andersen's credibility is suspect in the first place.

[W]ould basing an argument around the "fact" that Andersen and Cashill must have spoken given that a line Andersen attributes to Cashill doesn't appear on the internet---only to find out that the line actually DOES appear on the internet---be considered a "methodological sloppiness so grievous it borders on outright dishonesty so long as the resulting lie is something I desperately want to believe to be true"?

Not in the least. I've conceded the minor point, but let's see if you can concede that that's not the basis of my argument in the post or even the comment.

If there's anyone who appears compulsively driven to believe something to be true, I submit it's the pedant who has staked so much of his reputation on the story being "absurd on its face" that he's now reduced to calling Cashill and Andersen liars and hacks based on nothing more revelatory than his own erroneous web search.

You know, if you've convinced yourself that a comment I wrote today was the basis of the argument I posted yesterday, this is pointless.

Not quite the way you attempted to portray the exchange, is it, Scott?

Because my super-serious portrayal was meant to be accurate, what with the rapscallions and "pray tells"? It's not like I wrote that in code, Jeff. That said, at least the source of your confusion is now apparent:

At least one liberal academic has parsed Cashill's piece and concluded that, because Cashill spoke with Anderson, that Anderson's anonymous source is, in fact, Cashill---the resultant argument being that Cashill is the source for his own revelation, ostensibly gathered through Anderson's book.

For some reason, you think that my argument depends on Cashill having been the source for the the entirety of this quotation:

Andersen writes, "These oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers." Andersen quotes a Hyde Park neighbor, "Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together. It was no secret. Why would it be? People liked them both."

I'm not sure why you'd think that, though, since in the comment happy copied to your place, I wrote:

[T]here's a big, huge problem with this part[; n]amely, that those two statements aren't connected. That neighbor is not the person who made the first statement[.]

Not only did I not base my argument on the idea that Cashill was the source for all those quotations, I identified it as a "big, huge problem" because

[t]hose are Anderson's words, and they're based on a claim that, as his legally-vetted language demonstrates, no one wants any part of. As I noted in [this post], Anderson uses the conditional phrase "would be significant" because he can provide no solid evidence that the claim is true.

How my statement that Cashill was not the sole source became, in your mind, an assertion on my part that Cashill was the sole source is odd---that you believe my entire argument is predicated on the opposite of what I said is bewildering. My argument was that Andersen "could provide no solid evidence that the claim is true," so he turned to Cashill's "literary analysis" to give his anonymously-sourced claim some heft. That was my claim.

Sadly, you think it's been diminished because you've proven that Andersen created the impression he talked to Cashill when he hadn't and---for whatever reason, be it sloppiness or an attempt to maintain the impression that he'd talked to Cashill---he didn't cite the material from Cashill he'd quoted. Congratulations, Jeff, you've just proven that Andersen's either incompetent or incompetent with an agenda. Care to explain to me now why, in either case, we shouldn't be suspicious of his use of second-order anonymous sources?

[James T]

So, should the typography of published material be held to the same standard as a blog post, or vice versa?

[Mark]

Sorry to lower the tone of respect here, but what I can't get past is that the fundamental point at issue here is the absurd notion that Bill Ayers ghostwrote Dreams From My Father. Surely it doesn't need to be said, but this is transparently, obviously, a sad left-over of desperate late-race maneuvering by the McCain campaign and their supporters. I mean, really, that people are still harping on about this is ridiculous and rather pathetic. SEK, your friends may be right when they tell you you shouldn't be wasting your time with these people. You clearly have both deeper patience and a deeper commitment to argumentative charity than I do.