©Jack Cashill
WND.com - April 21, 2011

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s Barack Obama’s recently released tax return reveals, the president made $1,512,933 in book royalties in 2010, and that was a relatively slow year.

A children’s book that Obama produced, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters,” appears to account for $131,075 of this amount with the rest divided between his 1995 memoir "Dreams From My Father," and his 2006 policy book, "The Audacity of Hope."

As I argue in my book, “Deconstructing Obama,” Weather Underground veteran Bill Ayers had little, if anything, to do with “Audacity”—indeed, he recently dismissed it as a “political hack book”—but he had everything to do with “Dreams.”

The evidence strongly suggests that Ayers took over Obama’s unfinished, un-publishable manuscript in 1994 and turned it into what Time Magazine would call “the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”

The reader need not take my word for this. Christopher Andersen, in his 2009 book, “ Barack and Michele: Portrait of an American Marriage,” makes the same case based on interviews with Obama’s friends in Chicago, quite possibly with Ayers himself.

A celebrity biographer with impeccable mainstream credentials, Andersen argues that, at “Michelle’s urging,” a “hopelessly blocked” Obama “sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”

What attracted the Obamas were “Ayers’s proven abilities as a writer.” Noting that Obama had already taped interviews with many of his relatives, Andersen elaborates, “These oral histories, along with his partial manuscript and a trunkload of notes were given to Ayers.”  

Given that Obama had next to no name recognition at the time, it would have been normal practice for a skilled book doctor like Ayers to ask for 50 percent of the royalties.

In 1995, however, it is highly unlikely that Obama received any royalty payments beyond the reported $40,000 advance. How this was split I have no idea.

For the next nine years, “Dreams” attracted more dust than readers. In 2004, however, Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic Convention made him a superstar overnight

When the folks at Crown Publishing pulled “Dreams” from the vaults and put it back in circulation, they unknowingly set in motion a series of fabrications, beginning with the foundational myth that Obama wrote “Dreams” by himself. 

Obama encouraged this myth. "As some of you know,” he told a crowd of cheering school teachers in Virginia in July 2008, “I've written two books. I actually wrote them myself."

To acknowledge any help would have damaged the career of this presumed literary genius. To acknowledge Ayers’s help, especially in this post 9-11 environment, would have killed it.

This is a point that Donald Trump has done well to emphasize. "[Obama's] whole aura was caused by the genius of the first book," Trump told a Tea Party group in Florida last Saturday, "which was written by Bill Ayers."

Eager for a hero, Democrats bought into the myth and bought the book along with it. In 2005, “Dreams” earned Obama an estimated $1.4 million. In 2006, “Dreams” made him another $570,000.

In the fall of 2006, “Audacity” was published, and the royalties for both books made Obama rich. In 2007, combined royalties soared to $3.9 million and in 2008 $2.6 million, roughly 40 percent of that total for “Dreams.”

2009 was a great year for Obama’s book sales, netting him $3.3 million for “Dreams” alone. Based on past percentages, about $900,000 of Obama’s 2010 income would have derived from “Dreams.”

In sum, “Dreams From my Father” has earned Obama close to $9 million. Given the scrutiny of a politician’s finances, especially an ascendant one like Obama, it would have been exceedingly difficult to transfer any of this revenue to his deserving ghost.

Although Ayers lives modestly, as befits his ideology, a $4-plus million payday could buy an awful lot of school supplies for an earnest educational reformer.

A month ago, a correspondent shared with me a congenial email exchange he had with Ayers. In it, Ayers made the case that he would make on video that same evening at Montclair State University.

“Sadly, I don't have any notes,” Ayers wrote, “but you read an account that was persuasive to you, so maybe that person has notes. In any case, I repeat: if you or the person who persuaded you or Anne [Leary] or anyone can PROVE I wrote [“Dreams], I would be so grateful that I would split the royalties. Please and thank you, Bill.”

I don’t exactly have notes, but I think together Ayers and I can make the case that he deserves at least $4 million.

Who is Jack Cashill?

Webmaster's Note:  Jack Cashill's Book-TV presentation of "Deconstructing Obama" can be viewed at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/298382-1