ABC Reporter's Book Review: Obama's 'Unreliable' Retelling of His Own Life Story; Network Skips
According to ABC's Jon Karl, Barack Obama's retelling of his own life in Dreams Of My Father has been exposed as "unreliable." On June 16 in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, the correspondent reviewed David Maraniss' new book, a 641 page tome that "raises questions about the carefully crafted story that Mr. Obama has told about himself." However, Karl and ABC have yet to interview or highlight Mr. Maraniss on the network.
Jack Welch, the former head of General Electric (which owned NBC), proclaimed that the revelations are so damaging, "the Romney campaign should just print this [book review] up" and use it as advertising. Welch made the declaration on Wednesday's Squawk Box on CNBC. He called the story "the most important article possible for the Romney campaign to take to the public."
In his book review, Karl explained:
"Barack Obama: The Story" is a careful, thorough account in which the author treats his subject with sympathy but not reverence. The result is an admiring portrait, to be sure, but some of the details that Mr. Maraniss discovers raise questions about the carefully crafted story that Mr. Obama has told about himself.
...
For Mr. Obama's early years, much of what the world knows up to this point comes from his "Dreams From My Father," published years before he ran for political office. Mr. Maraniss finds the book to be an unreliable guide to what actually happened in Mr. Obama's early life. The book, he says, "falls into the realm of literature and memoir, not history and autobiography." This is not a complete surprise: In the book's introduction, the author acknowledges taking liberties—changing names and chronology and compressing multiple people into single characters for the sake of narrative flow and dramatic effect.
Consider Mr. Obama's own description of his time working at Business International and those meetings with "Japanese financiers" and "German bond traders" and that reflection in the elevator mirrors of himself wearing a suit and tie. In reality, Mr. Maraniss finds out, Mr. Obama worked out of a tiny office barely large enough to fit a desk, dressed casually and didn't have meetings with financiers or bond traders. "The part about seeing his reflection in the elevator doors?" recalled one supervisor. "There were not reflections there. . . . He was not in this high, talk-to-Swiss-bankers kind of role. He was in the back rooms checking things on the phone."
The full WSJ book review can be found here.
Maraniss appeared on the June 18 Today and discussed how the President didn't dispute the debunking of certain claims:
MARANISS: Well, he's a writer himself. When I first interviewed him, he said, "David, your introduction," I let him read, "is interesting, but you called my book fiction." And I said, "No, Mr. President, I complimented it, I called it literature." There's a big difference between memoir and biography. And it wasn't that I was trying to fact check everything that he wrote in his biography, but I just wanted to get the story right. So he didn't – he didn't really fight with me about it, but it was an interesting conversation.
If ABC's own reporters are doing book reviews, shouldn't the network be covering the story?
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Comments
Tarnished
Submitted by Galvanic on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 5:34pm.
So it turns out that not only is Obama NOT the leader they hoped he'd be, he isn't even the person they thought he was. He's fabricated the tale.
But let's give this man a second term so he can somehow get it right.
Obama is a stuffed suit, filled mostly with his ego and narcissism. Beyond that -- nothing.
Actually Galv I think you are
Submitted by inquiringmind on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 6:09pm.
Actually Galv I think you are being kind in your description of Obama. I think he and the far left felt this was their chance to fundamentally change America. And not for the better.
Just hope Putin believes that we can strike without him.
Submitted by mr.cin on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 6:28pm.
Historically the heads of the USSR AKA Russia etc have not understood 10 percent of how the Western democracies actually function. They still go to shopping malls and ask how we figure out what all the prices should be. Putin, when he got some criticism for shutting down a newspaper and arresting some editors that he didn't like told Bush "We didn't say anything when YOU fired Dan Rather we didn't say anything." So.....
Please, pray that he believes that our nuclear sub commanders can still fire those 48 MIRVED nuclear ICBM's independently of the Wimp in Chief,, because if he DOESN'T then it is extremely likely that he will realize that NEVER AGAIN will he have someone in the Whitehouse who will break down crying and screaming "WHY WHY WHY won't they answer the hot line... We surrender... We Surrender" as soon as the missiles appear heading over the pole. Yes, we are led by a baby who thinks the whole world exists only to please him and we will be very fortunate if he doesn't get us all killed quickly instead of just starving us to death with his astounding knowledge of Marxist theory.
Yes yes yes - the media should be covering the story.
Submitted by Gary Hall on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 6:53pm.
Scott posed the question:
If ABC's own reporters are doing book reviews, shouldn't the network be covering the story?
Well, ABC - in fact, the entire national news media - should be covering the story, whether, or not, their staff is conducting reviews of the book.
They should all also be covering Ed Klein's book, "The Amateur," as well as the interview Klein had with Rev. Wright.
Just saying . .
(;~> gary
addendum to Gary Hall's post
Submitted by Dr. Ron on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 12:03am.
and, read the lengthy article in The Weekly Standard of 18 June this year; Volume 17, # 38: Self- Made Man: Obama's Autobiographical Fictions. It shows him to be a
Liar; an inventor of persons and events to suit his ego; a Fabulist...about himself...and the running dog/useful idiots in media evidently were too busy hyping/shielding him to even read his books and ask ANY questions.
Even now, their main concern is Anne Romney's horseback riding. The Iron Cutrain over America , aka the media, in alive and well...woe unto truth.
It's all clear to me now...
Submitted by retrocon on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 7:58pm.
Barack Hussein Obama, a.k.a. Barry Soetoro, is really a Kenyen human slave trafficker by the name of Bonface Onyango who turned states evidence while still under age.
He was given a new identify by the FBI witness protection program, whereby, any inquiry into his past takes you down a convoluted chain of misdirection, followed by a visit from two burly guys in black suits and Sigs.
It all makes sense now.
➚ I'm a historian
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 7:54pm.
Rush was having a field day with a Moraniss interview today.
Moroniss claimed he wasn't fact-checking Obama, but was rather, a historian.
I was waiting for Rush to ask "What kind of historian ISN'T a fact-checker?"
The only thing real about this Kenyan communist fraud of a POTUS
Submitted by Dave. on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 8:17pm.
...is the deliberate destruction he is very rapidly carrying out on our country.
In every other respect, he is a total fraud from head to toe.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
I read part of Obama's books
Submitted by Radical1979 on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 8:54pm.
All I really got out of it is his self involvement. It sounded like something a self absorbed high schooler would write going through all the angst of self discovery and hormones.
He was in his 30's when he "wrote" it.
I read it to Rad,
Submitted by Boudin on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 9:09pm.
By my Brothers request. I thought it rather pitiful. When I expressed to my Obama voting Brother why I took issue with it, he got very angry, making the same ridiculous argument that are made by libs hear everyday. So I made the same demand of him, to read Liberty and Tyranny. He would call me every other day to talk about what he had just read, very impressed with the simplicity of true Conservatism. For a while there, I was his hero. But now that he is all caught up, I hardly hear from em. : ]
Libs always lie to their diaries
Submitted by Calypso Jones on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 8:54pm.
Wasn't it craig Livingstone who lied to his diary? And Hillary, had total amnesia...I don't recall, um, i don't recall. And bill is averse to the legal term 'is'.
Superhero Barack Man
Submitted by Jerry Mack on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 9:47pm.
Would not be surprised that Obama claims to be both Batman and Superman in a yet to be published book.
Hey, Jerry,
Submitted by retrocon on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 9:05am.
according to Newsweek, shouldn't he also claim to be Green Lantern?
Now thats funny
Submitted by Boudin on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 9:15am.
I dont care who you are
All of the deceit
Submitted by RDH1988 on Wed, 06/20/2012 - 10:15pm.
All of the deceit demonstrated by this administration makes you wonder what on earth the mainstream media was screaming about when they said Bush lied and people died.....Obama doesn't know how NOT to lie, and doesn't seem to even care that people died....again this is factual proof that guns don't kill people...STUPID people (especially politicians) kill people!!!
A disclaimer
Submitted by CobraMan on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 1:05pm.
Dreams of my Father needs to come with a disclaimer: The events depicted in this biography are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
new definition
Submitted by rowdygirl on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 1:06pm.
They're going to need to re-define "unreliable" in Websters as another word for lying.. just like "misspoke"..
Tam