Maggie's Farm

Google Books does NOT list Ayers as the author of Dreams from My Father. It identifies Barack Obama as the author both on the image of the front cover of the book and in the sidepanel of the Web page. Lifson can't read? Or is this intended to be a snarky joke on the VWRC?

Well IMO apparently it isn't just Lifson who can't read. I repeat: There is nothing on Lifson's screenshot that says, "Bill Ayers is the author of this book." I looked at the screenshot Lifson provided as proof of his contention and it does not claim Ayers is the author of Dreams. That is what I wrote. According to the screenshot, Lifson simply typed the name "Bill Ayers" into the Google Books Web form. He neither searched for "Books that Bill Ayers wrote" nor does the Web form include an option to Search on Author or Search on Book Title. it simply searches on whatever phrase is entered. Lifson entered the words, Bill Ayers. Goggle therefore dutifully supplied the names of books BY Bill Ayers and those written ABOUT Bill Ayers by other people.

What the Google Books link provides is an "association" between Ayers and the book title, in this case a connection that is almost certainly driven by the many Google searches people have done on the subject of whether Obama or Ayers is the true author of Dreams. But that is NOT the same as claiming Bill Ayers is the author of Dreams. If Lifson had provided a FULL screenshot of all the listings that were returned by Google Books in response to his search, you'd see a lot of other book titles listed as well, of which Ayers was clearly NOT the author...perhaps the subject, but not the author.

Now, I think the linguistic evidence is very compelling that Ayers is the true or principal author of Dreams. The book was either ghostwritten entirely by him or at minimum a close collaboration in which he is the unnamed co-author (just as his postman now swears that Ayers was the anonymous benefactor who paid for Obama's college education). I normally like whatever Lifson writes, but in this case he has gone a "Ha Ha" joke too far.

"News you can use: How to Talk Her Into Making Love to You"

For the sake of the future of humanity, let's hope that the pair of mouthbreathers in the video remain celibate for the rest of their lives.