Obama's Creative License.

[HauteCoug]

Politico published an article that explains that President Obama was basically dishonest in his memoir from the 90s because his descriptions and stories about a NY girlfriend aren't entirely accurate.

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama's 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called 'New York girlfriend.' Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail.

But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.

It sparked an interesting discussion in the Papa Viking home this morning about whether such a thing is to be considered dishonest or not.

Memoir is a tricky beast to edit, because you want to and quite frankly, must be honest about your history and memories in order to appropriately synthesize and address themes, but you also don't want to offend anyone. Respecting privacy is a tough issue. So this idea that a person or an experience or a memory can be lumped with other people or experiences or memories into a composite is actually quite common. It solves the privacy issue and it also helps condense what could potentially become hundreds of pages of back story.

So here's the question - did he lie? And does that affect your opinion of him? And does it even matter? Also... should this thread be in a different sub-forum?

[RobinFinderson]

I hope this doesn't get politicized, as it almost certainly will, because I think it poses a great question, and the discussion would be better without the political baggage.

I think his choice was creative, respectful of the privacy of the women who filled the nameless 'girlfriend's' shoes, and in the spirit of truth. If specific girlfriends contributed significantly to the formative experiences described in the memoir, then I think they should be credited. But if the point of mentioning these women is simply to flesh out the nature of his social life, then I say it is fair enough. I think one should ask whether such a choice was committed in the service of style or deceit. This memoir clearly seems to be a case of style.

[HauteCoug]

I hope this doesn't get politicized, as it almost certainly will, because I think it poses a great question, and the discussion would be better without the political baggage.

I think his choice was creative, respectful of the privacy of the women who filled the nameless 'girlfriend's' shoes, and in the spirit of truth. If specific girlfriends contributed significantly to the formative experiences described in the memoir, then I think they should be credited. But if the point of mentioning these women is simply to flesh out the nature of his social life, then I say it is fair enough. I think one should ask whether such a choice was committed in the service of style or deceit. This memoir clearly seems to be a case of style.

I agree with you. Once you start discrediting something for not being "nonfiction enough" because it compartmentalizes multiple characters into one for style and length purposes, then you have to start looking into discrediting ALL nonfiction as it is nearly impossible to give absolute verification to one's memory of an event.

But you're right - it's just more nonsensical political fodder.

[DU Ute]

When you get to the chapter about my romantic escapades, feel free to throw yourself into the mix.