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Title: Authors Against Obama
Source:
"The Other McCain" Blog
URL Source: http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/05/authors-against-obama.html
Published: May 17, 2008
Author: Robert Stacy McCain
Post Date: 2008-05-18 18:47:34 by mirage
Keywords: None
Views: 98
Comments: 2
I call for the formation of Authors Against Obama, a group of professional writers who object to crap like this: Mr. Obama’s original plan was to write a book about race relations. But, sitting down to write, he found his mind "pulled toward rockier shores." So the book became more personal — the record of an interior journey, as he put it in the introduction, "a boy's search for his father, and through that a search for a workable meaning for his life as a black American." A 28-year-old law student gets written up in the newspapers, then gets a call from a literary agent? She calls him? The agent then signs this 28-year-old nobody -- whose only credential as an author is student law journal stuff -- with Simon & Schuster. Hello? In what alternative universe does this happen? He misses his deadline, but that's OK, because he then gets another big contract with a $40,000 advance. At this point, Obama's story is reminding me of another popular book, The Peter Principle. But the real killer is how, having gotten a contract based on a proposal for a book about race relations, Obama pulls a bait-and-switch, and instead delivers ... a memoir. A memoir! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?? Unless you led the league in RBIs and helped the Yankees win the Series, how the hell does a 28-year-old get away with selling a memoir to a major publisher for $40,000? By what accomplishment does a 28-year-old law student merit readership for a memoir? What can he possibly write that anyone would want to read? Nothing. The book came out in the summer of 1995, shortly before Mr. Obama announced that he was running for the Illinois State Senate. At 57th Street Books, in Mr. Obama’s neighborhood in Chicago, a few dozen people turned out for a reading. There were respectful reviews in newspapers including The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Times Books sold 8,000 to 9,000 copies. All right, that's it. Forget about Jeremiah Wright. I don't care about Bill Ayers or Hamas or Obama's health care plans or anything else. When a 28-year-old student gets a $40,000 book contract based on a proposal to write about race relations, then instead turns in a memoir that gets favorably reviewed by The New York Times (!), he has committed an injustice against the profession of letters which no self-respecting author can endorse or condone. Authors Against Obama! Who's with me? UPDATE: I've created a Facebook group. UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers. I don't know whether the link should be interpreted as an endorsement from Professor Reynolds. Somehow, though, I don't think any major publishers were offering him big bucks for a memoir when he was a second-year law student. UPDATE III: In the comment field, Reliapundit notes his post from June 2005, recounting how Obama broke his contract with his first agent once he hit the big time, reportedly resulting in an out-of-court settlement. This only amplifies my argument that Obama has damaged longstanding traditions in the literary community. Agents usually screw over authors, rather than the other way around. UPDATE IV: Hey, buy a book, OK? David Horowitz called it "irresistible." Posted by
Poster Comment: Raises some questions...$40k advance for the memoirs of a 28-year old? Something is fishy here.
Mr. Obama’s story first surfaced publicly in February 1990, when he was elected as the first black president of The Harvard Law Review. An initial wire service report described him simply as a 28-year-old, second-year student from Hawaii who had "not ruled out a future in politics"; but in the days that followed, newspaper reporters grew interested and produced long, detailed profiles of Mr. Obama. The coverage prompted a call to him from Jane Dystel, a gravelly-voiced literary agent. . . . Ms. Dystel suggested Mr. Obama write a book proposal. Then she got him a contract with Poseidon Press, a now-defunct imprint of Simon & Schuster. When he missed his deadline, she got him another contract and a $40,000 advance from Times Books.
Writers of the world, UNITE! We are being oppressed, and it's people like Obama, his agent and his publishers who are oppressing us. Mr. Obama, an inveterate journal writer who had published poems in a college literary magazine but had never attempted a book, struggled to finish. . . .
First-time author. $40,000. Memoir. Reviewed in the New York Times.
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#1. To: mirage, FOH, FOH, JETHRO TULL (#0)
It's pretty obvious he had some things besides what the author points out: His blackness, and his weak character, both of which could be manipulated in order to groom him for the task ahead..carrying out the will of the those who groomed him. We are dealing with a power-hungry puppet, who knowingly allowed his race to be used in the manner of a cheap whore, and he is nothing more than this/.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition "Corporation: An entity created for the legal protection of its human parasites, whose sole purpose is profit and self-perpetuation." © IndieTx Very likely. Something doesn't add up here.
McCain/Obama '08 -- Because the next step is Socialism rather than Freedom.
WTF?
"There is no 'legitimate' Corporation by virtue of it's very legal definition and purpose."
-- IndieTx
#2. To: IndieTX (#1)
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