Thursday, May 17, 2012

Obama's Literary Agency: Obama no longer a birther, we made a boo-boo 21 years ago, which we just remembered like it was yesterday

It took only a few hours for President Obama's literary agency to disavow today's revelation of its 1991 bio of young Barack, which claimed the author had been born in Kenya.

Taegan Goddard, the laughably left-wing "reporter" and unofficial DNC spokesman, is a client of the same agency. He contacted the firm's owner, who instantly recalled the exact situation 21 years ago that resulted in this unfortunate typographic error. And I'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that President Obama remains a client.

Breitbart News reports on a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency which describes the author as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

Miriam Goderich issued the following statement to Political Wire:

"You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me -- an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

Full disclosure: I am a client of the same literary agency.

As an aside, Goddard's PoliticalWire website is included in the BadBlue.com news service solely for purposes of comic relief.

Best I can tell, PoliticalWire's mission statement is to spin bad news for Obama in the most mendacious ways imaginable. As for good news -- oh, wait. Obama's the president. We appear to be sorely lacking in good news. Unless you count the Bin Laden hit.

And capping Bin Laden required, oh, years of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), terrorist wiretaps, and rendition -- all tactics opposed by President Brave Sir Robin. Which makes Obama's attempt to claim credit for the operation roughly equivalent to President Nixon, uhm, "spiking the football" after the Apollo 11 moon landing.


Hat tip: Scott.

7 comments:

  1. Bones9:02 PM

    This is the first document about Obama's birth place that hasn't been challenged as fake. Everyone involved agrees that this has not been Photoshoped or modified.

    ReplyDelete
  2. carlito9:18 PM

    So, Dougie, are you also a Birther?

    Do you believe that Obama was actually born in Kenya and not Hawaii? And that his Hawaii birth certificate is therefore a forgery?

    If not, what is the relevance of this story?

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  3. Ah, Quarlito, as I expected, you didn't read the linked article wherein I stated my opinion on Obama's birthplace.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:19 PM

    Carlito can't read. Carlito doesn't realize that Obama was a Birther until he decided to run for president.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:42 PM

    I'm not a birther, I'm a computer programmer. That gives me knowledge of things like the fact that the PDF format is Turing complete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness)

    Because the PDF format is Turing complete, it has enabled a very rich spec that can support many forms of metadata. And inside the PDF from the WH is a bunch of metadata that can only lead to one conclusion: the document was digitally assembled.

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  6. carlito2:09 AM

    I still don't get it, Blue Boy.

    So all you are asserting is that a politician named Barack Obama lies and/or shades the truth to his perceived advantage [although I can't see much advantage in claiming to be from Kenya as opposed to Hawaii - not too many world leaders from Kenya come to mind].

    Let me know when you find any other politician who doesn't do so.

    Your reasonings for posting this story seem to be as lame as the evidence that it is based on, especially since the fact-checker/author of the pamphlet has admitted that she was the one who made the error in 1991.

    Of course, you and Surf Boy Treacher never ever ever make any mistakes, errors or false assumptions in your blogs, right?

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  7. @Quarlito - yes, we routinely misstate our country of birth, our professional background and our ancestry while hiding all of our professional transcripts.

    Ya got us there!

    ReplyDelete