ChatGPT Supports Obama Plagiarism Charge

AI Program Catches Him in Lie About Imagined Kenya Trip

Earlier this month I posted an article headlined, “Obama Established Identity as a Black Man by Plagiarizing a White Woman.” With an assist from my homey, LA filmmaker Joel Gilbert, we submitted this article to the artificial intelligence program, ChatGPT. Before commenting, I will share the results.

MAIN THESIS

Claim: Barack Obama plagiarized descriptive content from Kuki Gallmann’s African Nights (1994) and I Dreamed of Africa (1991) to complete his memoir Dreams from My Father (1995).

Sub-claim: Obama fabricated a 1994-95 “fact-finding trip” to Kenya, and instead did research in a library using Gallmann’s books.

OBAMA’S WRITING TIMELINE

The article outlines the evolution of Obama’s book deal:

Obama initially contracted with Poseidon Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) to write a book on race and voting rights.

He failed to deliver the manuscript, and the contract was canceled in 1993.

He then signed a new deal with Times Books (Random House) in 1993–94 and repurposed the material as a memoir, Dreams from My Father.

✅ Fact-Check: Accurate

Verified by multiple sources, including The Washington Post and David Maraniss's biography Barack Obama: The Story.

DID OBAMA TAKE A TRIP TO KENYA 1994-1995?

Cashill questions whether Obama returned to Kenya in 1994–95 as he told his editor, Henry Ferris.

He suggests Obama may have lied and used Gallmann’s writings instead.

Fact-Check: Ambiguous

Obama has confirmed in interviews (e.g. with Maraniss) that he took a second trip to Kenya for “fact-checking,” but:

No photos or public records verify the 1994 trip.

Only two documented trips to Kenya exist before his Senate election: 1988 (detailed in Dreams) and 1992 (with Michelle).

David Maraniss wrote that Obama “traveled to Kenya a second time” before submitting the final manuscript, relying on interviews with Obama and Ferris.

🟡 Conclusion: There's no public evidence confirming a 1994 Kenya trip, but also no proof that it didn’t happen. So, the article's accusation is speculative.

The photo above is from Barack Obama’s 1988 trip to Kenya. The photo below is from Obama’s 1992 trip to Kenya with fiancée Michelle, a photo that helped fuel “Big Mike” rumors.

There are no photos from Obama’s 1994 trip, no evidence whatsoever. There is proof, however, as ChatGPT confirms, that Obama told his editor Henry Ferris and his biographer David Maraniss that he had gone to Kenya in 1994 for fact-checking purposes.

ChatGPT has serious limits. The obvious one is that it is pre-programmed to mine established liberal sources like the Washington Post. Given that bias, ChatGPT’s failure to find any evidence for a 1994 Kenya trip by the world’s most celebrated man means there was no 1994 Kenya trip. Given the millions of words written about Obama, many by Obama himself, someone should have described this trip somewhere. No one has, not even Obama. Michelle has never even bitched about it.

Having described me as a “known conservative commentator and critic of Obama,” ChatGPT knows enough to resist my plagiarism charge. Here is what it concludes:

PLAGIARISM FROM KUKI GALLMAN

The article references similar imagery and word usage between Dreams from My Father and African Nights, such as:

Descriptions of flora and fauna

Cultural elements like kangas, shukas, samosas

Descriptions of local people and daily life

Shared locations like the Rift Valley and Narok

🧾 Fact-Check: Weak Evidence for Plagiarism

Many of the words (e.g., baobab, shamba, tilapia) are common terms in East African English or Swahili.

Similar imagery can result from:

Common regional experience

Influence of travel literature norms

Similar environment, not necessarily copying….Literary scholars and journalists have not endorsed this claim in mainstream academic or media circles.

“Similar imagery” can—and almost assuredly did—result from an anxious Obama reading Gallman’s book with a yellow highlighter in hand. He could not afford to blow another book contract. As to the “literary scholars and journalists,” they have not endorsed this claim because they have not reviewed it. They are afraid of what they would find.

As detailed in my earlier article, here is what ChatGPT had to ignore to come to the lame conclusion that my evidence is “weak”:

—Any number of distinctive local words and phrases show up in both books: Baobab [a tree], bhang [cannabis], boma [an enclosure], samosa [a fried snack], shamba [a farm field], liana [a vine], tilapia [a fish], kanga [a sheet of fabric], shuka [decorative sashes].

—On the fashion front, both books have young women "wrapped" in their kangas and "dressed" in "rags." The women in both books wear shukas, head shawls, head scarves, goatskins, and balance baskets on heads graced with "laughing smiles."

—On the animal front, men in both books spearfish in "ink-black" waters and hunt by torchlight. Elephants are seen "fanning" themselves, birds "trill," insects "buzz," weaver birds "nest," and monkeys "mesmerize." The books share a veritable Noah's ark of additional fauna: crickets, crocodiles, starlings, dragonflies, cattle, lions, sand crabs, vultures, hyenas, "herds of gazelle," and leopards that can hold small animals "in their jaws."

—On the flora front, the shared references are just as compelling: roadside palms, yellow grass, red bougainvillaea, pink bougainvillaea, fig trees, shady mango trees, thornbrush, banana leaves, Baobab trees, liana vines, tomatoes. The landscape, occasionally "barren," is rich in "undulating hills" whose "grazing lands" are dotted with the occasional "watering hole." The "mud and dung" houses feature "thatched roofs" "verandas," and "vegetable gardens."

—People seem to be carrying "straw mats" everywhere. The stars "glint" and people "waltz" underneath them. Eyes "glimmer" in the light of "campfires." Children sing in "high-pitched" rhythms, and girls endure "barbaric" circumcisions. Obama, like Gallmannn, travels to the Great Rift Valley and stands at its edge. Both visit the small trading town of Narok.”

ChatGPT wants “line-by-line comparisons,” but Obama never copied more than a few words at a time. His appropriation of Gallman’s verbs—Elephants "fanning,” birds that "trill," insects that "buzz," weaver birds that "nest," monkeys that "mesmerize,” stars that “glint,” people that “waltz,” eyes that “glimmer”— gives the game away.

The idea that monkeys “mesmerize” is grounds enough for indictment. Many of the words in Dreams may be “common terms in East African English,” but Gallman and Obama are likely the only two writers in Africa whose monkeys mesmerize.

This scam matters. Obama’s alleged literary talent is what impressed the liberal elite and elevated him above Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race. "I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase," said Nobel prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison of Dreams. "I was very impressed. This was not a normal political biography.''

Agreed, it was not normal. Chunks of Dreams were ghosted by terrorist Bill Ayers and other chunks were swiped from Kuki Gallman. We still know less about the real Barack Obama than we do about John Quincy Adams.

Each week, as a special bonus for paid subscribers, I will be rolling out in serial form my current book-in-progress: THE EMPIRE OF LIES: THE LEFT’S 30-YEAR WAR ON TRUTH, 1994-2024.