The Awful Truth

by hilzoy

In my last post, I noted the disquieting fact that Nick Gillespie, the editor of Reason, misquotes Carl Sandburg in the same way as Bill Ayers. Using Jack Cashill's methodology, I have now discovered frightening new evidence that Ayers actually ghostwrites Nick Gillespie's blog posts at Reason. Specifically:

* As Jack Cashill notes, both Bill Ayers and Barack Obama refer to a "yellow dog". Nick Gillespie uses the phrase "Yellow Dog Democrat". Coincidence? I think not.

* Bill Ayers refers to "ducks". So does Gillespie.

* Like Ayers, Nick Gillespie refers to "water buffaloes".

* Like Ayers, Nick Gillespie uses the word 'baleful', which even Jack Cashill had to look up.

* Like Ayers, and unlike Cashill, Nick Gillespie knows what the term "bill of particulars" means.

* Like Ayers, Nick Gillespie writes a lot about "social control".

* Gillespie also uses the phrase "beneath the surface", a sure sign of secretly being Bill Ayers.

* Gillespie does not talk much about eyebrows, a trademark Ayers word. However, his own eyebrows are rather impressive. Ayers probably implanted them as Gillespie slept.

I could go on, but you get the point. Faced with this mass of A-level matches, there is only one possible conclusion: the editor of the best libertarian magazine I know is actually Bill Ayers. 

Comments

[chmood]

So, if she floats, she must be made of wood, and weigh the same as a duck...?

Thank you so much, hilzoy - I needed something funny right then. The clown-car analysis coming out of the so-called "right" is truly breathtaking; which is good, because it also stinks.

Such stupidity is so concentrated, it's hard to believe it's sincere. It resembles absurdist humour far too closely to convince me that these are honest-but-wrongheaded opinions arrived at in a thoughtful, informed way, by honest-but-wrongheaded people.

Ironically, this would explain the invective, the circular reasoning (so-called), the endless attacks, the compulsive conflation, the specious "arguments", the allergic reaction to the use of facts - I honestly don't know which story is the better metaphor for our so-called conservatives in this country: The Emperor's New Clothes, or the rise and fall of Robespierre and the Committee of Public safety during the Reign of Terror.

And if Jack Cashill had to look up 'baleful' - he's gonna have a field day with me...he should read a freakin' *book*.

[mds]

Dr. Gillespie does indeed have some impressive eyebrows. Which, by the way, Ayers could not have been implanted while Gillespie slept, because it's not possible for anyone (especially a leftist) to sneak up on Gillespie while he sleeps... and live.

Anyway, as an admirer of tyrants, I naturally propose a confiscatory tax on eyebrow hair, to take from those who have honestly grown mighty eyebrows for redistribution to those too lazy and shiftless to generate their own brow thatches. Why should the great libertarian thinkers be the only ones able to deliver sufficiently baleful gazes?

[Jadegold]

the editor of the best libertarian magazine I know

That's right up there with Franz Reichelt's contributions to aviation.

[efgoldman]

@ Jadegold

My daughter has suggested that the annual Darwin Awards should incorporate a special Franz Reichelt trophy for stupidity above and beyond...

I'm all for it!

[Fred]

This is good work. Cashill should be challenged this way. It's also possible Cashill is right.

Come to think of it, it isn't a crime to hire some help in writing a book, is it? And given Obama's weak skills as a writer, it's an eminently practical thing to do. If I hire a vegetarian to write my memoirs, does that make me a closet vegetarian?

No lunacy required.

Whether Cashill is right depends on the numbers and unusualness. If two authors use the word "the", it means nothing. If they both use 'wet cardboard' as a metaphor to express the 'price of beans in Thailand', it's more likely there is some sharing going on...

So Cashill should continue to rack up the A-level matches. Then opponents will use identical methods to prove that Darwin wrote the Bible, followed by Cashill improving his work, and so on. A final scientific result should be available just a few years after Obama leaves office.

By the way, Cashill's analysis works both ways; You could argue Obama wrote some of Ayers books. I actually cannot disprove this.

[Eric Martin]

Wow. Fred, really?

[Warren Terra]

Shorter Fred: it would be irresponsible not to speculate ...

[Gus]

Oh, Fred's post is spoof, c'mon.

[Hartmut]

From my own experience the use of 'the' and 'a' is far from irrelevant. I had to proofread a number of papers during my PhD years and found that a lot of people seem to be either allergic to these words or believe that their use is heavily restricted (not sure whether forbidden or just taxed).
I guess that actually both Ayers and Obama are just strawmen for the being that wrote all works of Shakespeare except Hamlet.

[Gary Farber]

"I had to proofread a number of papers during my PhD years and found that a lot of people seem to be either allergic to these words or believe that their use is heavily restricted (not sure whether forbidden or just taxed)."

A quick way to tell an amateur, or just bad, fiction writer is that they detectably think there is something wrong with repeatedly using "said."