OMG, I thought this was a joke and then read the whole article.  This guy’s tongue was not planted in his cheek at all.  I hope that, if McCain does have the balls to call Obama out on these associations, Obama points out all the conservatives/Republicans that worked on or otherwise supported the Woods Fund as well as raises McCain’s own seat on the board of the Council For World Freedom at a time their parent organization was knee deep in racist activities and Sarah Palin’s nefarious associations with AIP and her own church.  I think even the McCain campaign has the sense that to bring this to the forefront during the debate is more dangerous for them than for Obama.

How could the paper’s editor read that and not die laughing?

How could the paper’s editor read that and not die laughing?

The death rate in our nation’s editorial boards is a secret holocaust.

Well, crap. I plugged in random journal entries of mine for the last week, and exerpts from Barack’s book, and here’s what I got:

FOG score: 11.58
Flesch: 62.86
Kincaid: 9.52

Obama got:

Fog score: 11.91
Flesch: 61.84
Kincaid: 9.33

Since I am informed by conservative folks that the Flesch part of the scale goes to 121 or something like that, and we both have a ninth grade reading level requirement, it’s obvious that I have secretly been writing Obama’s books for him. Or he’s writing my journal. Which, you have to think, is awfully irresponsible of him, given that he’s supposed to be paying attention to the country in its time of crisis. There is a third possibility in that Bill Ayers writes for Obama AND me.

I would like to point out that at the time Ayers was doing his radical thing, and Barack Obama was infamously eight, I was a wee egg somewhere in my mother’s ovary. Of course, she grew up in Oakland, so make of that what you will. It was probably in the water.

I did notice after my first analysis that I had a lot more verbiage from me than from Barack, and so, I set about chopping my words off to get a similar number of words as I had gleaned from the Barack exerpts. If you trim my words down to a third of what they were, the disparity between our writings does grow. (By a whole three points on the Flesch scale, and by two grade levels.)

My new score:

Fog: 13.11
Flesch: 57.91
Kincaid: 11.05 (Amazingly I jump two grade levels. Barack stays the same.)

Of course, you could also come out of this positing that well-read, college educated people who are interested in issues might have been taught to write to a similar level or that through practise, their writings might well mirror those of other educated people. You could also posit that by trimming and experimentation, one could achieve a further away or closer grade, depending on the outcome. I, sadly, do not have Barack’s book handy to test further snippets, but this cheap-ass textual analysis isn’t evidence of anything on either side.

PS. I got the Barack exerpts from here: http://www.ontheissues.org/dreams_from_my_father.htm

This is one of the saddest, most desperate, most pathetic attempts to breathe new life into a tired narrative that has ever surfaced.

Oh look! 23 words per sentence again!

They can’t even get Donald Foster on the case?  Of course, he has that unpleasant tendency to admit that he’s wrong if he’s wrong and to discover things that the people hiring him didn’t expect, so the right wingers would never risk using him.

Pittsburgh has a paper owned by a very wealthy conservative (Mellon Scaife) who makes it adhere to conservative editorial lines. I don’t remember which newspaper that was - there were or are two newspapers in Pittsburgh.

If anything, this proves either that mainstream publishers’ editors allow the writers to produce up to 12th grade reading level for expected mid-list material, and up to 9th grade reading level for expected high selling material.

College reading level is reserved for academic presses’ output.

Pittsburgh has a paper owned by a very wealthy conservative (Mellon Scaife) who makes it adhere to conservative editorial lines. I don’t remember which newspaper that was - there were or are two newspapers in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is the Scaife-owned outlet. The Post-Gazette is the “sane” daily paper, though I have no idea how they published this tripe.

Barack Obama writes for people who are literate at a post-high-school level?! Get out the torches and pitchforks!

it’s obvious that I have secretly been writing Obama’s books for him. Or he’s writing my journal. Which, you have to think, is awfully irresponsible of him, given that he’s supposed to be paying attention to the country in its time of crisis. There is a third possibility in that Bill Ayers writes for Obama AND me.

PixelFish wins thee thread!

Silly me. I guess I am so rarefied an elitist myself that the horror of his complex prose escaped me.

There are techniques for analyzing written works to determine if Author A wrote work B, but that would entail actually finding an expert and doing some, what do you call it, thinking and reasoning before coming to a conclusion.

And what about the fact that reading level tells you nothing about the work.  It could be a grade twelve level and still be worthless tripe.  Reading tests are a waste of time.