PrintMay 18, 2008
Authors against Obama
We hear much from Michelle Obama about how unfair life can be for her and by extension all black people. Speaking of unfairness, Robert Stacy McCain has a complaint of his own. How on earth did Barack Obama merit the kind of treatment he got from the publishing world when he was still a law student?
Writers of the world, UNITE! We are being oppressed, and it's people like Obama, his agent and his publishers who are oppressing us.
A 28-year-old law student gets written up in the newspapers, then gets a call from a literary agent? She calls him?
The agent then signs this 28-year-old nobody -- whose only credential as an author is student law journal stuff -- with Simon & Schuster. Hello? In what alternative universe does this happen?
He misses his deadline, but that's OK, because he then gets another big contract with a $40,000 advance. At this point, Obama's story is reminding me of another popular book, The Peter Principle.
But the real killer is how, having gotten a contract based on a proposal for a book about race relations, Obama pulls a bait-and-switch, and instead delivers ... a memoir.
A memoir! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?? Unless you led the league in RBIs and helped the Yankees win the Series, how the hell does a 28-year-old get away with selling a memoir to a major publisher for $40,000?
By what accomplishment does a 28-year-old law student merit readership for a memoir? What can he possibly write that anyone would want to read? Nothing.
A lot of very unusual, very lucky things seem to have just happened to Barack Obama over the years. Does somebody upstairs like him? Maybe Michelle is right that life is unfair, but then again why is she so bitter when her husband is so favored?
Hat tip: Ed Lasky, Instapundit
