Loose Cannon's parting shot
So much for leaving with dignity.Utah congressman Chris Cannon has been a lame duck since challenger Jason Chaffetz knocked him out in the Republican primary. While the world went on with the campaign, Cannon apparently has been keeping himself busy promulgating a wingnut conspiracy theory.
According to this story by the Tribune's Thomas Burr, Cannon has been trying to get proof that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's best-selling autobiography Dreams From My Father was ghost-written by (and I'm not making this up, though somebody is) William Ayers, the Chicago professor and one-time Weather Underground member.
Cannon's evidence? A theory pushed by writer Jack Cashill, who says he compared word length and frequency of words used in Obama's book and in Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days.
But the Oxford professor who created the software Cashill used to make his comparison did an examination of his own - and the professor, Peter Millican, said it was highly improbable that Ayers wrote Obama's book.
Cannon, of course, dismisses Millican's analysis, claiming the professor is "miffed" because he didn't get a negotiated $10,000 fee to run the comparison.
Millican, in a column in The Times of London on Sunday, describes receiving "an urgent call from Bob, a man close to a Republican Congressman in the American West [, who] wanted to enlist my services in an effort to prove a scandalous allegation against Barack Obama." Millican then goes on to debunk the Ayers connection, tearing apart Cashill's argument in scholarly detail on his web site.
Cannon - whose most notable accomplishment during his six terms in Congress was his constant presence on Fox News touting Bill Clinton's impeachment - swears he's not trying to smear Obama with this 11th-hour investigation.
"I'm off to the side watching this thinking, 'This is interesting,' " Cannon told Burr.
Yeah, sure. Whatever you say. You're a disinterested observer here.
Good luck in private life, Rep. Cannon. Go pursue your B.S. theories on your own dime.
Labels: Barack Obama, Chris Cannon, politics
posted by Sean P. Means @ 11:32 AM |
1 Comments:
I believe you are wrong about Cashill using Millican's software to prove his case.
Cashill and others have used different programs and analysis to make their case but Millican's program was not used except by Millican in a very limited way. Millican was not willing to do a complete investigation without his requested fee.
I find Cashill's theory compelling but judging whether or not Cashill has a case to make is above my pay grade. He does, however, have some support from professionals in the field including Bruce Heiden a professor of Greek and Latin at Ohio State. See here:
http://thepostliberal.com/2008/10/obama-in-plain-sight-intro-to-dreams.html
What I find interesting is that the main stream media is not making a fuss about the charge by The London Times and Millican that "Republicans attempted to smear Obama."
To me this is very telling. I believe the msm is fearful that calling any attention to Cashill's theory would be bad for Senator Obama regardless of whether or not the "evil" Republicans would be implicated in a smear attempt.
I think the reality is that the Obamamedia has real apprehension about the Ayers connection.
If Senator Obama is elected we haven't heard the last of this.
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