You may have noticed over the last month or so that various news outlets and commentators have tried to sow suspicion about Obama’s veracity in his memoir, Dreams from My Father. Even going so far as to invoke the name James Frey, the now-disgraced Oprah Book Club author who admitted that he made up key parts of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces.

I thought it might be helpful to provide a timeline for how this odd series of accusations and insinuations has rolled out.

August 8, 2004 - Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times writes what appears to be the first article suggesting that there is something wrong with the literary license Obama took with Dreams from My Father.

Sweet writes…

I was dismayed, however, at what I found when I read Dreams from My Father. Composite characters. Changed names. And reams of dialogue between Obama and other people that moves the narrative along but is an approximation'’ of the actual conversation.

Except for public figures and his family, it is impossible to know who is real and who is not.

Oooh, that sounds bad, right? Except that she immediately follows her seemingly manufactured outrage by providing the essential detail that Obama openly admits this in the book’s introduction…

Obama disclosed in his introduction that he uses these literary devices to buttress his recollections. He also kept a journal. For the sake of compression,'’ Obama writes, some of the characters that appear are composites of people I’ve known and some events appear out of precise chronology. With the exception of my family and a handful of public figures, the names of most characters have been changed for the sake of their privacy.'’

And not only that, in the following sentence, Sweet praises Obama for these decisions that strengthen the narrative…

The devices well serve to eloquently take the reader along on Obama’s quest to understand his heritage as, as he writes, the son of a black man and white woman, an African and an American.'’

So, no story here, right? But Sweet continues to try to make one. But, she fails…

I asked him about a man called Marty Kaufman in the book; he was Obama’s boss at his first job in Chicago as a community organizer at the Calumet Community Religious Conference.

Kaufman, Obama told me, is really Gerald Kellman. I tracked down Kellman and asked him about his portrayal in the book.

I think Barack was very accurate not only about myself but other people that I knew,'’ Kellman told me.

OK, is that enough? Not for Sweet, who oddly continues…

That’s reassuring, but most readers do not have the ability to call around to try to sort out the fictional characters from real people.

No Lynn, they don’t. Nor would they want to. Obama again explains why Sweet’s concerns are misplaced…

I say in the book it is my remembrances of what happened,'’ Obama told me. I don’t set it out as reportage . . . read the book for what it is worth.

"You reconstruct your memory for what happened. It is not reportage. It is not appearing in the New York Times or the Sun-Times. I say that explicitly in the book.'’

There’s really, really nothing here, but Sweet tries desperately one more time to convince the reader that there’s something fishy going on. And goes so far as to ask a journalism professor to pass judgment (my emphasis) …

I bounced my reservations about Obama’s book off of Caryl Rivers, a journalism professor at Boston University and a media critic who writes fiction, non-fiction and screenplays.

Rivers did not have a problem with changing names. Using composite characters — without telling the reader — is troublesome, she said. When you start to bring in composite characters you immediately bring up the question of what is true,'’ Rivers said.

Ya see that? Sweet tries to reinforce her odd construction by quoting Rivers talking about something "troublesome." Something "troublesome" that Obama didn’t actually do because he did tell his readers.

Oy, are we done yet? Not even close…

January 16th, 2007 - Rhonda Schwartz on ABC News’ the Blotter recycles most of Sweet’s 2004 article. Why recyle it when there’s nothing to it? Thankfully, many of the comments attached to that article wondered the same thing…

If this is a non-news story, as it appears to be, why do you feel compelled to try to make it a story? In such circumstances, it is irresponsible to cast aspersions as you have done, without any clear purpose for having done so.

Posted by: Ken Schory | Jan 16, 2007 3:42:51 PM

…

I have no idea whether I’ll support Obama or not but this type of "reporting" is why I get turned off from politics. Obama discloses the composites and name change; the reporter proved it out in one case. Move on. I believe these type of stories are planted - over and over and over again - to create doubt even when the facts don’t warrant it. Whoever believes that our media is unbiased is living in denial.

Posted by: Lynne | Jan 16, 2007 4:03:06 PM

The Blotter piece ends with a statement from the Obama campaign about the Sweet piece (my emphasis)…

When reached by ABC News today, a spokesman for Sen. Obama first tried to find out if the Chicago Sun-Times story was being "pitched" to ABC by a rival campaign, and after being told that was not the case, the spokesman declined to comment for the record. "It was a non-story then, and it’s a non-story now. Let the book speak for itself,"  he said.

January 18th, 2007 - Andrew Sullivan, linking to the ABC report from his ABC-hosted blog, inexplicably thinks he smells a rat…

Does he have a James Frey problem? I like Obama, but you’ve got to worry when a campaign dismisses something as a “non-story.” That almost always means it’s a real one.

January 19th, 2007 - During the infamous "madrassa" push on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade says (and I paraphrase) "Apparently Obama’s tried to hide the fact that he made up stories and people in his memoir. I know, I know, Fox News, what do you expect? Sorry, can’t find the transcript. But, that’s basically what he said.

February 19th, 2007 - The LA Times runs a lengthy piece that includes interviews with some who suggest that Obama bent the truth and took too much credit for some of the events discussed in Dreams from My Father. Hmm, I wonder where this idea could have started?

Fortunately, the Obama campaign, with blindingly fast speed, responds with a comprehensive point by point rebuttal of the charges.

February 20th, 2007 - Lynn Sweet reposts her original article on her blog — still trying to make the case that her clearly flawed report from two and a half years ago has some relevance.

So, is that it? Well, for today. I’m sure there are many other references to this bogus attempt at undercutting Obama’s integrity, but I can’t stomach the search just yet. Expect to hear these charges over and over again no matter how often they’re shown to be meaningless. And be prepared for a number of other attempts at slander related to content in Dreams from My Father.

Let’s restate again why this is so absurd. Dreams from My Father is a literary memoir. Barack Obama clearly states in the introduction of the book what devices he uses. He has never hidden this information from anyone.

And to further demonstrate the silliness of all this: Thirty pages at the end of Dreams from My Father are what amounts to a lyrical folk tale about the African side of Obama’s family. All told in the first person voice of his Grandmother. If that doesn’t give any reader a serious clue to the literary intent of the book, I’m not sure what could.

Or, again, as Lynn Sweet wrote in 2004, "The devices well serve to eloquently take the reader along on Obama’s quest to understand his heritage…"

[A similar version of this post can be found here.]