The Road To Bali

Obama has maintained tight control over his brand and his story.  However, in this month's GQ an interesting loose end has emerged in Robert Draper's re-telling of the creation myth built around Obama's "Dreams From My Father" - did Michelle go with Barack to Bali while he wrestled with writer's block, or not? 

The story takes up after Obama has accepted an advance (based on his fifteen minutes at the Harvard Law Review):

“I just can’t get it down on paper,” he confesses to Valerie Jarrett in 1992. “I’d much rather hang out with Michelle than focus on this.” It occurs to Jarrett, seeing her talented friend struggle to come to terms with his father and his racial identity and his Larger Purpose, that this is the first time Barack Obama has ever undertaken anything that tests his limits. He seeks refuge at a friend’s place in Wisconsin, but homesickness for his soon-to-be bride soon lures him back to Chicago. Meanwhile, his editors at Poseidon are hounding him for copy. His due date is June 15, 1992. By the spring, Obama is starting to spit out the pages, but there’s no way he’s going to come close to meeting the deadline. It passes. On October 3, he marries Michelle.

Seventeen days later, Poseidon terminates his contract for failing to meet his deadline.

And suddenly Barack Obama’s story becomes a familiar one—that of the author who took a significant book advance but failed to deliver and is now thoroughly, mercilessly forgotten. (Even to this day. “I don’t recall a blessed thing,” says Elaine Pfefferblit, the Poseidon editor who acquired Obama’s book. Says the former editorial director at Poseidon, Ann Patty, who killed a book that now has more than 3 million copies in print, “Did it ever come in? Did we ever read it? I’m sure if I read and rejected it, I’d remember. I remember paying him!”) But Obama’s literary career is lifted from the shoals by the enterprising Dystel, who resells the book to Times Books for a far smaller advance—$40,000, according to his new editor, Henry Ferris—which Obama uses to fulfill his outstanding financial obligation to Poseidon.

Now he’s got to produce. But how? He floats the idea to Jarrett: He’ll go to Bali. “What do you think Michelle’s gonna say when I tell her I’ve gotta go?” he asks her nervously. What Michelle says is, Uh, didn’t we just get married? She certainly can’t come along—she’s got a job and they’re broke and just back from their honeymoon… Fine, Barack. Whatever. As the first lady now says, “He needed to go and get it done so that we could move on with our lives.”

In early 1993, Obama returns to Indonesia, the land of his childhood. And there he reenacts a common artistic ritual, albeit one that remains largely an unknown part of his biography, until now: He sequesters himself in a rental cottage on the crescent of Bali’s Sanur Beach, where for a month he is a lone figure pacing on the white sand and hammering on his laptop, as unknown as he will ever be.

The July 1995 publication of Dreams from My Father is unremarkable.

Now when I read that quickly or slowly I come away with the firm conviction that I am being told that Obama went to Bali by himself.  And Draper is in a position to know - he offers a direct quote from Michelle, he spent time with Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett last summer, and he has spoken with Barack.

That represents a bit of news, since previous reporting was that Barack and Michelle went together to Bali.  Here, for example, is the Times from May 18, 2008:

The two worked mostly by telephone and by manuscripts sent by Federal Express between New York and Chicago. Mr. Obama, an inveterate journal writer who had published poems in a college literary magazine but had never attempted a book, struggled to finish. His half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said he eventually retreated to Bali for several months with his wife, Michelle, “to find a peaceful sanctuary where there were no phones.” He showed drafts to a few close relatives including his grandmother, of whom Ms. Soetoro-Ng said, “It probably made her a little nervous, having the family written about, just because you don’t do that in Kansas.”

Is the half-sister wrong?  One can imagine the motivation to massage the truth a bit here - having the newlyweds hive off to Bali together is much more romantic than having the hubby decamp alone shortly after their wedding on Oct 3, 1992.

Now had I been paying attention I would have noticed that the Times included this Bali revelation in their own magazine profile of the Obama marriage on Oct 26, 2009 (which hit the streets after the GQ article; I blame the Yankees for distracting me):

For the moment, he was enmeshed in writing his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” He had retreated to Bali for several weeks to work on the manuscript and was still preoccupied with it after his return. “Barack was just really involved in the book. [Michelle] and I would do lots of shopping and movies,” Yvonne Davila, still a close friend, remembered.

“Barack doesn’t belong to you,” she told me she warned Michelle.

Interesting - that is surely consistent with the Draper version that Michelle didn't go.

So how long was Barack in Bali?  Draper says "several months"; Ms. Kantor says "several weeks".  I will go with the obvious answer - Obama spent forty days and forty nights wrestling with his demons before creating his work of genius.

As to why he came back from Bali in early 1993 but did not submit a manuscript until late 1994, Draper does not say.  An answer is offered by Christopher Andersen in his portrait of the Obama marriage -  Obama came back from Bali with notes and drafts but still couldn't turn the raw material into a book.  At Michelle's behest he sought help from a friend who had published some books already, and Bill Ayers helped turn the rough work into "Dreams".

That timing makes more sense than Draper's, who seems to be promoting the notion that Obama came back with a manuscript in early 1993 and sat on if for a year before submitting it.

As to the truth, gosh, we thought the Times had pinned down "the truth" about Barack and Michelle going to Bali together; now we see that they have gotten behind a newer truth.

Well.  Clearing the haze around the Obama biography will take time.  For example, Team Obama lied repeatedly about the connection between Ayers and Obama.  The Times explained the over-arching motivation more than a year ago - Obama's brand is his biography:

“Barack is worth millions now,” Mr. Osnos said. “It’s almost all based on these two books, two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one’s life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it’s a stunning fact.”

The money, the White House, the Nobel Prize, the future book deals - it is all based on the brand, so Obama needs to control the disclosure of his life story very carefully.  The actual detail about Bali is not consequential in itself, but serves as a reminder of how little we actually know about the man and how carefully his image has been crafted.

But now the story of the blissful newlyweds churning out a work of genius has been scrapped, which is tough luck for Bali Discovery Tours.  One wonders what other new truths will eventually emerge from behind the facade.  The truth about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers would be a lot more interesting - whether Ayers played a large role, a small role, or no role at all in marshalling "Dreams", it would be interesting to clear up the puzzle as to when they met. 

The current cover-up is that they first met in early 1995 at the founding of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. 

But just a reminder, this is from "Dreams" - Obama is describing his frantic efforts in the spring of 1988, prior to leaving for Harvard Law School:

"The months passed at a breathless pace, with constant reminders of all the things left undone.  We worked with a citywide coalition in support of school reform."

That coalition was coordinated by Bill Ayers, who assumed the leadership role by inexhaustibly attending every meeting.  Yet he never met Barack, the charismatic young black man about whom everyone spoke so highly.  And years later, after Ayers had sweated for a year on the creation of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge he left the selection of the chairman to others, who - coincidence! - picked Barack.  Ayers then agreed to turn his baby over to a total stranger who had no background in education reform. 

Sure.  That is a loose end that will be picked at by some big time reporters (or historians) eventually.

MORE:  Could this be a possible model for brand management?  Maybe!

Comments

[bad]

I'd choose to leave Michelle behind as well...

[clarice]

Maybe he went to Bali with his other wife, bernardine..

[bgates]

Ann Patty, who killed a book that now has more than 3 million copies in print

Unfair! The book in print concerns Obama's primary expertise: Barack Obama. The book Poseidon killed was, in a bit of bad luck, supposed to be about the one subject of which Obama is almost completely ignorant: the world outside of Barack Obama.

[Old Lurker]

Bad, please don't use the words "Michelle" and "Behind" on the same page.

[bad]

LOL Old Lurker

[anduril]

Solution: Barry hands the book project over to Ayers and heads off to Bali--alone or with la Michelle, matters not. The notion of him writing the book in a month is nonsense for anyone who has done any amount of writing. And for anyone who has listened to his extemporaneous stuttering, it's even more ludicrous.

[Jane]

OT:

Ms. Plame Wilson's 15 Minutes Nearly Up

May this mercifully be one of the final chapters with this useful idiot.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't violate the free speech rights of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson when it refused to allow her to publish details of her possible pre-2002 work for the agency.

LUN

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

bad,you can't fool me. I don't think you put those two words together by accident;>)

To avoid such mistakes in the future, please refer to FLOTUS as "the Belt".

OT, just heard on the news that Hassan the shooter will be tried for 13 counts of premeditated murder. The Government will seek the death penalty.

[bad]

Jim, I confess, what I really wanted to write was:

"I'd choose to leave Michelle's behind as well..."

But I didn't want to get THWACKED.

[matt]

Bali? the frickin computer would short in the humidity.....And the dope is good, I hear...yep, really focused.

It would seem to me that a quiet room in Chicago in the middle of winter with no distractions would be more appropriate.

[Jane]

That's where Ayers was Matt.

[clarice]

What happened to elliott? He was here a minute ago asking where to post news.

[Rob Crawford]

I preferred the "Road to Bali" with Hope, Crosby, and Lamour.

[Porchlight]

Nice post, TM. I still hold out hope that this backstory will be teased out (and maybe even confirmed!) within my lifetime.

[MayBee]

When did Obama and Jarrett become so close? I thought she hired Michelle, and Michelle introduced her to her fiance.

[bad]

Elliott is posting on the "No Blood" thread.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I just read the blood for oil thread and see that i was a day late and a dollar short with the news of the Hassan prosecution. The major addition was the info that the case will be tried as a capital case under the UCMJ as we earlier discussed. Since you can't die more than 13 times, this seems to me like the quickest way to get a conviction that will not be subject to countless appeals.

[MayBee]

Since you can't die more than 13 times

I did read somewhere that 13 was the limit.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

If it isn't, it should be, MayBee.

[MayBee]

OK, Valerie Jarrett hired Michelle Robinson in 1991. The story is that Michelle introduced her fiance to the boss so he could decide if it was a good fit for his future wifey.
So did he become best friends with his fiance's boss?
I don't know. That just seems as weird as the rest of the story.
Surely he knew Jarrett before she hired Michelle.

[DebinNC]

I believe I read that the military hadn't executed anyone since 1961. In Hasan's case, living imo is more punitive than dying.

[bad]

Ibama left The Belt early and often in their marriage. First, on the Bali trip then later as an Illinois state legislator closely followed during his time as a US senator, and finally during the campaign for the presidency.

Most of their marriage has been spent apart...

[Jane]

Most of their marriage has been spent apart...

The rest of it on Air Force One.

[Rick Ballard]

"Most of their marriage has been spent apart..."

Bad,

That's a trait he may have adopted from his putative father. He probably nixed Michelle coming along on the basis of potential excess baggage charges...

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Oh, isn't this special?

The National Education Association (NEA) website recommends Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” for nation’s teachers as a classroom aide.

[His metrocitizenship wants looking at.]

So was he in Bali with an American passport and a visa or did he use an Indonesian passport. Inquiring minds want to know.
================================

[MayBee]

Yeah, Kim. I've wondered why it had to be Bali. I suspect it's "Bali". He went to Indonesia, but we aren't meant to know why or where.

[laura]

sara,
don't see it, do you have a more specific link?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Check this at Gateway Pundit, which is where I saw it first.

Figures… NEA Website Recommends Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” As a Teaching Aid

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

My son's best friend has just been admitted to the hospital with H1N1. He is very very sick. I'm glad my son has been too busy at work to do anything but talk to him on the phone for the last 4 weeks.

[clarice]

Bali's very cheap and pleasant..

[MayBee]

It is. It is heavenly. But it is very far away, and he was a newlywed, and he didn't get his book written anyway.

[Sue]

Wasn't his mother still in Indonesia at that time?

[MayBee]

I think in and out of Indonesia at the time, but she's never mentioned as being in Bali. You notice she isn't mentioned and she surely did not help with that book (which hurt her, iirc).

[windansea]

Bali's very cheap and pleasant..

yes it is, heaven for surfers

I used to surf at Sanur Beach, very nice right break, never saw Obama.

[MayBee]

I know I'm too suspicious, but just as I think Obama knew the Ayers, I think he knew Jarrett before he went off to Harvard.
He's never said how Harvard was paid for, though he once tried to say he had "worked his way through college" only to have it come out later that he never really had had a job during college.

It's just that there are so many obvious lies and coverups, I feel sure they are lying and covering up for a reason.

[bad]

LOL Rick, but seriously, Barry did seem to find his wife to be excess baggage very soon after the wedding...

[MayBee]

Yeah, bad, and it's her boss he's whining about her to.

[Rick Ballard]

Bad,

It was a political merger, just like Bubba and RW. All four had their tickets punched at well recognized Moron Credentialing Centers in politics law and all four showed their basic ineptitude for their putative area of expertise in very short order. The ward heeler's daughter was a stepping stone - and she knows it.

[bad]

One can understand the perpetually petulant expression on The Belt's face a little better knowing all that, Maybee.

[bad]

...and Rick.

[centralcal]

MayBee: Didn't I hear, read somewhere that Valerie Jarrett's f-i-l was a pal of Marshall Davis? All of their lives were intertwined from the get go.

[bad]

Did Valerie arrange the marriage? It would explain the effort to keep Ibama from admitting when he first knew Valerie.

As a community Organizer, you'd think he would have been working to negotiate some sort of improvements in the slums with the slum landlords.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

A classic story. The birth of a front man and his consort. The Once and the Belt were groomed to play a role for the past 20 years.

Jarrett, Ayers, Dohrn, and Dailey all knew an opportunity when they saw one.

But Chance now has to make real decisions. He can run but he can't hide. And now the message begins unravelling.

One thing about us JOMers. We saw this coming a year and a half ago. And we were right.

[MayBee]

I think I read that.
It is interesting that both of Valerie Jarrett's parents are at the University of Chicago, Barack Obama's generous employer.

[MayBee]

Jarrett's mother is a renown expert in--- Education. In Chicago.

[MayBee]

Oh. Jarrett's mother graduated from University of Chicago, and taught at its Lab School. Her father is a professor emeritus there.

[MayBee]

“Barack doesn’t belong to you,” she told me she warned Michelle.

That is an incredibly goofy thing to say.

[bad]

What are the odds Bill Ayers and Bernardine were tight with Jarrett's parents, bonding over the issue of education and The Lab School?

[bad]

...and their shared ownership of Ibama...

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Don't you know he belongs not to the Belt, but to the ages, MayBee?

[MayBee]

And yes, the Erickson Institute for education that Jarrett's mother founded focuses on Social Justice.
And according to their Facebook page:

11. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan asked our founder Barbara Bowman to Washington to advise the department on early learning initiatives.

Barbara Bowman is Valerie Jarrett's mom.

[MayBee]

Ok, I see other places have reported (but I haven't seen it confirmed) that Tom Ayers was on the board of Valerie's mom's Erickson Institute.

Come on. I don't know what it means, but they are lying about how Barack met Valerie.

[Commie Blaster]

Bill Ayers has ties to at least 8 people in the White House. See who they are here: http://www.commieblaster.com/obama/index.html

[bad]

WiKipedia says Ayers was chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Erikson Institute.

LUN

[bad]

ummmm.... LUN

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I say it's incest, and I say to hell with it.

[bad]

We're not the only ones making these connections. Rep. Steve King on video.

LUN

[bad]

More Steve King on NBC.

LUN

[Sue]

What is really scary is the thought of who owns Obama? He has a lot of secrets he doesn't want us to know about, and I'm not referring to his birth certificate.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

I think the circumstantial evidence is mounting as to who some of the stockholders are, Sue.

[bad]

And do all of the people who own him know about all of the other people who own him?

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Great question, bad. I suspect the answer is a big fat no. Users like them never think those they are using are users too.

[Rick Ballard]

Jim,

I think of him as a time share rather than a corporation. Ayers/Soros are the operations managers and everyone from Indonesian passport agents to Harlem crack buyers has a claim on him. IMO - his tension level jumped substantially when Ayers "kiddingly" dropped the authorship claim. The chasm between what a President can actually do and what his commie handlers want done may be unbridgeable.

What will they do with him when they have exacted the maximum possible?

[MayBee]

You know, a few days ago I saw some Politico reporter saying "OMG! Now they are trying to make Valerie Jarrett look like a bad guy!"

I don't think Jarrett' a bad guy, necessarily.But you'd think someone in the press would be curious about this whole made-up narrative. Why?

[Sue]

MayBee,

I don't understand the medias lack of interest.

[bad]

At least the media is consistent. They've NEVER wanted to know anything about Ibama's background.

Beyond what Bill wrote in the book...

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

With Biden and Pelosi waiting in the wings, there I have trouble coming up with scenarios that would be good for the Nation if he cracks before the end of his term, RIck.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

We can hope that when they seat the new Congress, they'll decide they don't want Nancy as Speaker anymore and vote for someone else.

[sylvia]

Yes it is all so strange, I'm wondering where the connections lie. Obama was groomed from a young age it seems. So how did the commie crew come into contact with Obama?

That's why I speculated Obama was Malcolm X's offspring, because that would be one way to explain the early connection. Although I saw Obama's half brother on Larry King and saw some resemblance, so maybe I have to kill that theory.

So what else? What about Obama's grandfather or his mother? Did they have any connections to the Ayers? What about Frank Marshall? It has to be something. Also any connections with the Ayers family to Bali? Did Tom Ayers have a vacay house there?

[Rick Ballard]

Jim,

That brings Hedley Lamar handing the paddle and rubber ball on a rubber string to Gov. LePetomane to mind. I'm not hoping he cracks, I just wouldn't bet a nickel against it happening.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Who know which thread to put this, so here it is:

Palin First Look at her book?

[S]he says that most of her legal bills were generated defending what she called frivolous ethics complaints, but she reveals that about $500,000 was a bill she received to pay for the McCain campaign vetting her for the VP nod. She said when she asked the McCain campaign if it would help her financially, she was told McCain's camp would have paid all the bills if he'd won; since he lost, the vetting legal bills were her responsibility...

Crap, in addition to all the bills for the bogus ethics complaints, she gets hit with another half million from the McCain Campaign. Good grief, no wonder she had to resign and go out and make some money. They were trying to totally annihilate her.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

She must have scared a lot of people, Sara. That kind of stuff came from both sides of the aisle. The Pubs as well as the Dims went after her with a vengeance. Why so much ammunition expended on her? They tried to bust her, and she won't be busted.

[Jane]

Speaking of connections:

LUN

[Melinda Romanoff]

"Brown shirts" is a racist term, Jane.

[sylvia]

"The Pubs "

Ha. That's my word. I can see now it's slowly sweeping the nation. As did my word "skeeved", maybe also 'skeezed'.

[Tempo dulu]

Who wouldn't want to go to Bali?