"... Mrs. Clinton decided... not to acknowledge my help.": Hillary's ghostwriter

[npincus]

So, Hillary accidently omitted the name of her ghostwriter from "It takes a Village" and has the nerve to scandalize Obama for reciting bits form a political ally's speech?

The ghostwriter, Barbara Feinman Todd, says this:



...and it takes a ghostwriter



http://www.awpwriter.org/magazine/writers/btodd01.htm

So before I would ultimately hang up the sheet for good, my client list would grow to include an African princess, a congresswoman, two senators, a first lady, a Middle East peace negotiator, and an erstwhile presidential candidate. The First Lady, Hillary Clinton, is the one, predictably, people still bring up to this day. The actual writing experience of working on It Takes a Village with Mrs. Clinton was not extraordinary in any respect. Together with our editor, we produced drafts in a round-robin style. We worked well as a team and things went about as smoothly as can be expected when you're producing a high-profile book in eight months and one of you is married to the leader of the free world. The problem came when Mrs. Clinton decided, for reasons still a mystery to me, not to acknowledge my help, or that of anyone else by name. Because the White House had issued a press release early on in the process stating that I had been hired to "help prepare the manuscript," when it was finished and there was no mention of me in the acknowledgments, the anti-Clinton forces went to town. The irony was that by not acknowledging me, rather than diminishing my role, she unwittingly elevated me to a sort of literary Joan of Arc with the likes of everyone from Don Imus to Maureen Dowd to Rush Limbaugh weighing in before Thank-YouGate blew over. Pundits had a field day opining how much of the book she had actually written. The truth was much more prosaic: Like any first lady, Mrs. Clinton had an extremely hectic schedule and writing a book without assistance would have been logistically impossible. The book, despite the fact that it was at best a mediocre political tract on the virtues of governmental responsibility in the raising of children through subsidized programs like Head Start, was a bestseller and its audio version won Mrs. Clinton a Grammy.

[GarbagemanLB]

1. but, but, but...this is different!

:rofl:

[IndianaGreen]

2. The Clintons' mantra: Do as I say, not as I do!

and never, ever, admit you made a mistake!

[CoffeeCat]

11. Other Clinton mantras....

Suck the life out of everyone you can. Then kick them to the curb
when you're done using them.

Then smile and wave!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

47. patti solis doyle now understands that side of them.

[alteredstate]

17. No.... it's not different

[emilyg]

32. First response by garbageman - of course.

Get your facts straight.

[goclark]

3. Oh my ~ does HC have a memory problem?

[Bluerthanblue]

4. the tail wags in both directions

:hi:

peace~

[Rageneau]

5. There are already other links up that destroy this accusation. (And they come from the publisher)

[noiretextatique]

14. one small fact these posts ignore: feinman did not accuse clinton of plagiarism

and elsewhere in this article cited, feinman says she was a newbie ghostwriter, unfamiliar with the rules of the game. i am not a clinton supporter, but this is just silly.

[npincus]

23. nor did she use the word "stealing"

as in stealing credit for the entire work when it was a collaborative effort. If not the textbook definition of plaigerism, then the definition of stealing- calling another person's words your own and accepting rewards, acknowledgements for the work instead of sharing them with co-writers

[noiretextatique]

26. unless you have a copy of feinman's ghostwriting contract

you have no idea if clinton was obligated to give her credit at all. google ghostwriting for information about ghostwriting.

[pnwmom]

45. If Clinton violated the contract you can be sure we'd have heard about it. n/t

[thoughtcrime1984]

24. Did Deval Patrick claim Obama was stealing???

NO. Same thing, eh? Time to move on, Hil people.

[noiretextatique]

25. as i mentioned, i am not a "hil person"

and i think this juvenile "tit for tat" crap is nonsense, hence my comment.

[npincus]

29. sure, it's crap but John Kerry learned the hard way

that when crap is blown your way you have to respond immediately with a shit storm. If Hillary gets bombarded with such examples of "oversights" on her part,and the MSM picks it up, her campaign will likely cease and desist, with minimal damage to Obama.

[noiretextatique]

30. i am glad obama responded

i was referring to the "tit for tat" threads here on DU.

[truedelphi]

39. You won't get very far with the hIllbot crowd

better to spend time herding cats or directing the incoming waves at the beach

[ShortnFiery]

6. Why am I not surprised that Hillary would take all "the beef" and leave merely "the gristle"

That's NOT a good indicator of either "a leader" NOR "a team builder" ...

It's all about The Clintons Legacy and their beloved DLC ... both the Democratic Party and Nation be Damned ... it's their f**king turn ... they're entitled ... so, dammit get in line you smarmy "unwashed masses" lest we have our paid super-delegates do our "dirty" work!?! :puke: :thumbsdown:

[K Gardner]

7. Oh man.. now THIS has legs at this time, given her willingness to label OBAMA less

than forthcoming. Sheesh.

[goodgd_yall]

8. You want to revive "Thank-YouGate"?

And she wrote: "the anti-Clinton forces went to town. The irony was that by not acknowledging me, rather than diminishing my role, she unwittingly elevated me to a sort of literary Joan of Arc with the likes of everyone from Don Imus to Maureen Dowd to Rush Limbaugh weighing in before Thank-YouGate blew over."

[npincus]

12. an appropriate response to her antics, calling Obama on plaigerism

it works for me.

[mod mom]

9. Come on-it's different-she's a woman.

:sarcasm:

Really...someone from her campaign should really do a little investigating work before delivering the barbs.

[yourguide]

10. As recently as Jan 3 she took credit for writing this book

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=5024 (third paragraph from the bottom)

This was part of her speech on caucus night.

I wrote a book some years ago called "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child" and in it I have a chapter that I titled "Every Child Needs a Champion." I think that the American people need a president who is their champion and that is what I intend to be.

[IndianaGreen]

21. The problem with the Clintons is not that they lie, but the ease in which they do it

That's what former FOB David Geffen said.

[Bread and Circus]

13. now that's plagiarism by very definition. nice find.

[candice]

15. The ghostwriter was no good; book had to be rewritten; writer should not advertise this!

Editors at Simon & Schuster reacted to early chapters with dismay, and worried about the quality of Feinman’s contributions, but they kept their reactions private. Over the summer, a manuscript emerged, but neither the publisher nor Clinton’s aides—nor, especially, Hillary herself—were pleased with it. When Feinman left for vacation, Clinton, a Simon & Schuster editor, and a few key aides, working on their own time, continued on the book without her. (Feinman fulfilled the terms of her contract, and was never told by the publisher that her work was unsatisfactory.) In November, the Simon & Schuster editor spent three weeks at the White House, working intensively to expand and refine the material with the aides and with Clinton

[yourguide]

19. If they took out the ghostwriter's contributions

the ghostwriter wouldnt be complaining.

sounds a little more like circle the wagons to me.

[AZBlue]

16. More hypocrisy.

[CorpGovActivist]

18. I've ghost-written plenty of material, and this has the ring of truth to it. n/t

[THUNDER HANDS]

20. if there's any consolation in all this mess

I believe we have officially reached the bottom of the barrel now.

[grantcart]

27. no no no this barrel is bottomless - this is not an accident this

is panic setting in as their internals are showing serious problems. The closer they get to Texas the dirtier it will get.

[cottonseed]

22. Dems won 2006 because of Republican HYPOCRISY.

Hillary is running a Repub style campaign. Hence, she should expect to lose shortly.

[mathewsleep]

28. ha!

[canadian_is_cold]

31. Hahahahaha!

[TexasObserver]

33. What Hillary did IS Plagiarism. The worst kind. The kind that gets you fired and kicked out.

[jillan]

34. IF Todd wanted to be acknowledged, than she should have been a co-author NOT a ghostwriter.

A ghostwriter is never mentioned....
that's why they are called ghostwriters.

Nice try from the Obama people.

[rodeodance]

38. disgruntled employee comes to mind.

[ericgtr]

35. K&R

She's turned into a worthless hypocrite.

:kick:

[IdClaire]

36. Obama the Titan, or the Cipher?

By Matthew J. Franck – 2/12/2008 –


"Let me say that again. There appears to be not one single article, published talk, book review, or comment of any kind, anywhere in the professional legal literature, under Barack Obama's name, notwithstanding an apparent eleven-year teaching career in constitutional law at a top-flight law school."


"Now I hear from a well-placed source that Obama is remembered by his contemporaries as having written nothing at all for the HLR during his time working on its student editorial staff. That is . . . unusual."


By Matthew J. Franck – 2/12/2008 – Bench Memos on National Review Online

Over at The Corner, John Derbyshire and Andy McCarthy have mused about the constitutional views of Barack Obama, of which there seems to be scant evidence. Their remarks put me in mind of an Emily Bazelon article at Slate last week, an embarrassingly gushy, crushy piece praising Obama's acumen as a legal and constitutional thinker. Bazelon describes him as "a former constitutional law professor" (remember when they said the same about Bill Clinton?), whose "lawyer team loves their man because he goes toe to toe with them." She relates an episode that Obama's law-professor admirers told her, in which four of them—"titans, all," Bazelon calls them (Harvard's Martha Minow and Laurence Tribe, Chicago's Cass Sunstein, and Georgetown's Neal Katyal)—worked on a draft speech about "law and democracy," only to have the candidate blow them all away with a superior version off the top of his head.

All this is by way of making a case that Barack Obama is so very knowledgeable about legal and constitutional matters that he can personally take charge of judicial appointments and legal policy questions and won't have to "outsource" his thinking on such matters.

Let's not get carried away, though. According to Obama's biographical entry in Michael Barone's Almanac of American Politics, Obama had the status of "lecturer" at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election as a U.S. senator in 2004. But in 1996 he was elected to the Illinois legislature, and from all appearances on the U. of C. law school's website (which now lists Obama as a "senior lecturer" on leave), the status of "lecturer" is like an adjunct or part-time appointment. He was never, as Bazelon describes him, a "professor" of constitutional law, though con law is often said to have been the subject he taught.

And what has Obama published on constitutional law or any other legal topic? Although he was president of the Harvard Law Review as a student, in which capacity he no doubt wrote some unsigned notes, a search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time. This is yet more indication that his status as "lecturer" at Chicago was not a regular faculty appointment, since regular full-time faculty are expected to produce scholarship.

Let me say that again. There appears to be not one single article, published talk, book review, or comment of any kind, anywhere in the professional legal literature, under Barack Obama's name, notwithstanding an apparent eleven-year teaching career in constitutional law at a top-flight law school.

But he is a titan of constitutional thought—nay, a super-titan, towering over the titanic Sunsteins and Tribes of the world. We will just have to take the word of Emily Bazelon and Obama's in-house fan club for that.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

43. National Review?

While you are at it, what does World Nut Daily, NewsMax, and Faux Noise have to say against Obama? I am sure they are opinions we all can respect as well, right? :sarcasm:

National Review is only slightly more credible than Vincent Vancier, in his present incarnation as Chaim ben Potok.

[IdClaire]

49. did you even read it?

It wasn't an opinion piece. Overblown resume.

[pingzing58]

37. Yea right and the world is flat.

[Arugula Latte]

40. It's about Hillary so ... IT DOESN'T COUNT!!

:rofl:

[ShortnFiery]

41. Oh this is big! However, BO Campaign Staff is NOT smarmy enough to play this up.

If the Clintons win "dirty" they will, IN FACT, destroy OUR Democratic Party. :thumbsdown:

[Scout]

42. too many people here do not seem to know the difference between ghostwriting and plagiarism n/t

[katty]

44. many notables have ghostwriters-this practice is not unusual

plagerism is an entirely different matter.

[TexasBushwhacker]

46. Oh, for Pete's sake!

Credited or not, I would always assume that someone like HRC (or Obama for that matter) uses the services of a ghostwriter and/or editor. As for Ms. Feinman Todd (maybe her name should be Whineman), why does she think they call it GHOSTwriting? Feinman Todd says:

"So before I would ultimately hang up the sheet for good, my client list would grow to include an African princess, a congresswoman, two senators, a first lady, a Middle East peace negotiator, and an erstwhile presidential candidate."

Funny thing is, if you do a search on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, you'll find Ms. Feinman Todd credited on ONE book that she wrote with Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. So either Ms. Feinman Todd is fibbing about her ghostwriting experience, or she's singling out Clinton for not giving her credit. I think she should have taken her $120K that she got for 8 months work and STFU. It's certainly more than she ever made as a novelist!

FWIW, I don't see the big deal about Obama's speech either.

[suston96]

48. "It takes a village to raise a child" is an African proverb...did anyone acknowledge that?

Read your own quote. It was a group effort, as writing most books are.

The actual writing experience of working on It Takes a Village with Mrs. Clinton was not extraordinary in any respect. Together with our editor, we produced drafts in a round-robin style. We worked well as a team and things went about as smoothly as can be expected when you're producing a high-profile book in eight months and one of you is married to the leader of the free world.

Edited to add this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village#_note-nyt011496

Clinton has been criticized for not giving credit to a ghostwriter in connection with It Takes a Village. The majority of the book was reportedly written by ghostwriter Barbara Feinman.<8> When the book was first announced in April 1995, The New York Times reported publisher Simon & Schuster as saying "The book will actually be written by Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington. Ms. Feinman will conduct a series of interviews with Mrs. Clinton, who will help edit the resulting text."<9>

[maximusveritas]

50. Wow, this was big mistake by the Clintons n/t

[CorpGovActivist]

51. .