Last week at Montclair State University, after twice claiming authorship of Barack Obama's acclaimed 1995 memoir "Dreams from My Father," Bill Ayers temporarily eased the fears of the literary left by ending his boast with a seeming joke.
"Yeah, yeah," said Ayers when asked for confirmation of his authorship, "and if you help me prove it, I'll split the royalties with you. Thank you very much."
"Bill Ayers Started a Joke, That Started the Whole Word Hyperventilating," ran an all-too-typical headline, this one in Slate. The implication, ofcourse, was that Ayers was taunting the gullible right.
A recent email exchange between a correspondent of mine and Ayers, however, suggests that Ayers may not have been joking at all.
On the morning of March 24, "Jim" emailed Ayers at his University of Illinois at Chicago address: "Jack Cashill's new book makes an overwhelming case that you wrote 'Dreams from My Father.' In addition it recounts an encounter with a blogger, Anne Leary, in October 2009 at Reagan airport where you acknowledged to her that you wrote the book."
Jim continued, "Why don't you just go public with a straightforward statement about your role?"
As it happens, this was the same day Ayers was tospeakat Montclair State. Jim was not connected to the group videotaping Ayers at Montclair and knew nothing of its strategy. His email may well have prompted Ayers' videotaped claim of authorship.
Ayers responded politely to Jim an hour later, "As you note in you letter, I did indeed acknowledge that I wrote the book to Anne at Reagan, and over and over since then. So what more do you want me to do?"...Ayers not joking about Obama book royalties
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